SEO criticism

unnameduser

Hi,

I would like some SEO and website advice from the knowledgeable. My IT skills are limited when it comes to Web Design and SEO. I have a site called www.nenaghpc.com We are based in the counties of Tipperary and Limerick but we also serve the counties of Clare and Offaly and surrounding areas. When the company expanded to Limerick, we decided to register www.limerickpc.com as a domain name and place it as a domain alias to www.nenaghpc.com (so that both website names forward the same pages). I figured that if someone searched for "computer repair" in limerick they would have a better chance of hitting limerickpc.com rather than if I just had nenaghpc.com. Is this a fair assumption or am I mistaken?

Also, could you have a glance at the code of the site. When it comes to H(x) headers what do you suggest? In other words, what steps should I take to optimise SEO for my site? Given the market at the moment, and the fact that we identify that there is a serious need for IT assistance, advice and training for the general public, I would consider spending some €€€ on a decent SEO team if I was convinced that it would deliver a proportionate level of work for us. On the otherhand, a site like boards has always been a place to read on the best of trade secrets. Any help or advice is appreciated.

Thanking you in advance.

forbairt

one bit of advice ...

Do you have any links to you site ?

A quick search and I couldn't find any ... you can optimize your site to your hearts content but if you've no inbound links you're screwed.

forbairt

few comments on your site ....

You're not exactly identifable ... The logo / title / banner looks dated ...

You're using a table based design ... this is a no no for the most part

I would have your phone number top right .. easily accessible all the time from every page. .... people are on your pc training page ... and they see the number there and think . ah what the hell I'll give them a buzz...

The two email addresses ... both being dave ... seems a bit weird to me

If someone is coming to your site ... and they hit the front page .. I'd hit them with 3 big button style images to the most common problems. ...
Spyware / Infection ...

excuse my bluntness but WTF is a google advert doing on your business website ? If you're that desperate for the 20 cents that it brings in every few days ... then that doesn't inspire confidence ...

Think you asked about h tags ...
I was looking quickly and I don't see any ? or am I mistaken ?

Just my few thoughts on your site ...
James

zAbbo

You can't effectively retrofit SEO (I hate the context that SEO can somehow be tapped on).

There are many issues with the site, and If I get time later I might be able to post up some of the major ones.

Duplicate content for a start...

Rollo Tamasi

What is Duplicated Content?
You not only have duplicated content across two of your sites but blurbs of your content are also featured on another site. Are you the original content owner or are you the content duplicator? Either way you need to sort out this issue or else your site will be living in the sandbox for the foreseeable future.

Once the duplicated content issues are resolved you should do the following in the order listed:

• determine which site would generate more leads
• create two unique homepages in relation to content
• robot.txt block all the content from outside of the homepage of the least performing site (robotstxt.org)
• submit the performing site to google webmaster sitemaps (google.com/webmasters)
• write some helpful guides to looking after your computer and submit them to directories (ezine / isnare)
• get your website ranking for 'PC Repair and Training in Limerick/Nenagh"
• develop some backlinks
• if needs be, change the design from tables to css
• look into what information you are displaying on your homepage and try to optimise your homepage for conversions

unnameduser

Thanks for the advice guys. Will get working on it.

Moonstar

I thought this thread was going to be about criticising the SEO industry.. oh well!

Sully

Dont forget your alt tags, and make sure your website validates.

Everything else has been covered already, James and Rollo Tamasi have really hit the nail on the head.

unnameduser

Sully wrote: »

Dont forget your alt tags, and make sure your website validates.

Everything else has been covered already, James and Rollo Tamasi have really hit the nail on the head.

Yes I had intended on getting round to the alt tags.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that to make sure the site validates??

Thanks

Moonstar

http://validator.w3.org/

unnameduser

Ok, I have made the following changes to my site.

I have removed the domain name alias "limerickpc.com" - It may take a few hrs.
I have changed the layout of the website to css rather than tabled, removed any duplicate content, added alt tags to images, add unique page titles, descriptions and keywords, submitted a sitemap to google, improved the code (using the validator, more to do).

I want also to concentrate and getting some articles onto other sites to promote the site and have to also concentrate on getting backlinks.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks for the help.

mattallennet

Hello... found this forum through a google search.

I'm the owner of www.poorlypcs.com and I was quite interested to see the similarities between my site and another.

I can confirm that I am the original owner of all the text on my site.... completely written myself with hours of hard work and tweaking. The text was written late 2005 / early 2006 and revised since. Some of it was in fact inspired from my earlier sites (1998 onwards! - since removed)

I don't know whether I should be annoyed or flattered to see my work on other people's sites although it does raise an interesting point about my possible google rankings based on other peoples actions.

Having just visited the 'other' site I can *still* see that some inspiration has been taken from my site