Site review - recently changed to wordpress

texanman

Since changing to a wordpress site, my SERP has dropped. I was no 2 for "wedding Video" and No 1 for "wedding video cork". Any advice on my SEO would be appreciated.

My site is http://www.ashmoreproductions.com

AMPSound

I would have to see your old one to see any major changes.

Have you redirected everything from the old pages to the new pages?
eg /aboutus.html -> /about-us/

And have you made sure to fill up your META tags on all the pages? Even copy them from the old site if the content is the same.

I am very interested in how this plays out for you, as I have just done the exact same thing with my site!

And if its any consolation..... the new site looks awesome! Wouldnt even know it was Wordpress.

blue4ever

your changed you site structure and titles - there is bound to be a bit of settling in here. Your page titles have changed - especially the home page one .

Make sure that you have some redirects for the 'old site'

I'd be inclined to make more of your page titles - some are very repetitive (bar changing on/two words.**

** you can get some decent plugins for wordpress to help you like 'All in One SEO' etc - get one for can links, and for building a sitemap for yourself.

pfurey101

If you are not redirecting all your old pages to your new site, at least add a "check out our new site" link to each page pointing towards your new home page. All the old pages will be sitting in the s/e databases and will continue to find traffic - even 2 or 3 years later!

Cheers

pfurey101

Add ALT txt to your images and links

Embolden your keywords (once) in the paragraph on your home page

Add a sitemap.xml file

Drop the word And from your page titles, waste of a word.

Maybe optimise one page (any page) for each of your target counties Cork, Kerry, Waterford, Limerick, Laois, Offaly, Kildare, Carlow, Kilkenny - with a focus on Cork.

There is more, but you loose nothing by covering most of the things that the Search Engines look for.

Your links look great! You have made good use of the h1 tag on your home page.

AMPSound

pfurey101 wrote: »

If you are not redirecting all your old pages to your new site, at least add a "check out our new site" link to each page pointing towards your new home page.

Yeah that may work, but we all know that web surfers are lazy and get bored easily! If the information is not on the first page, they really dont tend to look any further. If you are going to put in the effort of adding a "Check out our new site" link, you might as well add a 301 redirect.

Just my €0.02

texanman

First thanks to all for their replies.

AMPSound wrote: »

I would have to see your old one to see any major changes.

Have you redirected everything from the old pages to the new pages?
eg /aboutus.html -> /about-us/

And have you made sure to fill up your META tags on all the pages? Even copy them from the old site if the content is the same.

I took down my old site and replaced it with a new one. Didn’t do any redirects.
I have to get a SEO pack for my site as I can’t change the description for each page yet.

blue4ever wrote: »

your changed you site structure and titles - there is bound to be a bit of settling in here. Your page titles have changed - especially the home page one .

Make sure that you have some redirects for the 'old site'

I'd be inclined to make more of your page titles - some are very repetitive (bar changing on/two words.**

** you can get some decent plugins for wordpress to help you like 'All in One SEO' etc - get one for can links, and for building a sitemap for yourself.

I recon there is a bit of settling in time. I’m looking into what you said about the page titles What SEO pack do you recommend??

pfurey101 wrote: »

Add ALT txt to your images and links

Embolden your keywords (once) in the paragraph on your home page

Add a sitemap.xml file

Drop the word And from your page titles, waste of a word.

Maybe optimise one page (any page) for each of your target countiesCork, Kerry, Waterford, Limerick, Laois, Offaly, Kildare, Carlow, Kilkenny - with a focus on Cork.

There is more, but you loose nothing by covering most of the things that the Search Engines look for.

Your links look great! You have made good use of the h1 tag on your home page.

Is there and issue with sitemaps using wordpress? I have alt text on the images ,I just check them all again. I am going to create a page for Cork, Kerry ect. That’s a great idea.


Thanks again to all who looked at the site.

blue4ever

I have used this in the past - and it's does the trick. It allows you to use standard info and also change the titles /desc on each post page - well worth downloading.

blue4ever

"I am going to create a page for Cork, Kerry ect"

Just make sure that you dont simply duplicate content on those pages - try and have something relevant and unique on each page (list the venues you've worked in in each conuty maybe - something that is actually useful for the punters)

Vurnon San Benito

All In One Seo Pack is a serious piece of equipment, make sure you use it with the WordPress 'blog.

And I can say that switching to WordPress will one of the best decisions you make in choosing a platform for the site

pfurey101

Doocey wrote: »

All In One Seo Pack is a serious piece of equipment, make sure you use it with the WordPress 'blog.

And I can say that switching to WordPress will one of the best decisions you make in choosing a platform for the site

I started with Joomla and I suppose Ill stay with it. Switching to SEF URLs was always the pits but i started my latest one with these switched on and it rocks.

Always tempted with Wordpress tho!

Shaneod21

Use the all in one seo plugin as suggested above.

Not too sure why you asked this - Is there and issue with sitemaps using wordpress?

But make sure you install google xml sitemap http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/. Then also login to google webmaster and add in your sitemap.xml.

texanman

I installed the "all in one sep pack". Great package. Also created a page just for Cork.

http://www.ashmoreproductions.com/wedding-video-cork/

Will do the same for limerick ect.



Also just created a sitemap. Just had to set permission for the sitemap.xml file.
Will the plugin update this file?


Thanks for all the help so far.