Niche Site Not Ranking Well. 2 Professional SEO's Stumped. Can You Help?

[ClassicReplacements]

Hi
My name is Josh and this is the first time I’ve posted on this (or any other) SEO forum. I’ve researched different SEO forums and this seems to be the most knowledgeable one I’ve seen. Thanks for taking the time to help me out and I look forward to joining this community.

Background: We have an e-commerce website, wwwdotclassicreplacementsdotcom, which caters to a very niche market, the replacement china market. We sell hard-to-find discontinued brands and patterns of china (tableware). The industry as a whole consists basically of one big company and a few small ones such as ours.

We have been having problems in our SERP rankings for long-tail keywords, even though our site has been around for a few years and we have a PageRank of 3. We’ve hired a number of SEO companies and have done on-site and off-site SEO optimization, blogs, social media, directory submission, link building etc., but we still don’t come up for most of our keywords.

What makes this even more puzzling is that we are talking about long-tail keywords in a niche market, keywords for which we are a natural fit and should be coming up without much SEO effort. Instead we often find ourselves behind all types of irrelevant nonsense. All this leads me to believe that there is something about our site which is turning Google off but I don’t know what.

(Let me give an example. Our SERP for our general keywords such as “replacement china”, “discontinued china” is in the top ten, but the long tail keywords such as “Royal Doulton Carlyle” and “Lenox Castle Garden” we don’t come up within the top hundred, even though we’ve put a lot of work into them!)

Recently I did notice something, but I‘m not sure what it means. When I Google for “similar pages” on our site, all the pages on our site return the same results. Which is not how it should be, every page has different content and should return different “similar pages”. Does this mean that Google somehow sees us as only one page?

Any help on this is truly appreciated. My apologies if I went on a bit long, I just wanted to explain the situation as clearly as possible. We (along with two professional SEO companies) are stumped and if any of you can figure this out, hats off.

Many thanks,
Josh

[David_ Bowie]

OK, I`ll bite. Your site is considered spam by the search engines. Read below.

Title Tag Analysis

The Page Title: ? <- Click for Tips...

<title>Classic Replacements - Discontinued & Replacement China, Crystal, Flatware patterns & Collectibles Discount China Matching Service</title>

Status: Your Title is 130 characters in length and contains "too many characters" for what we consider a "search engine friendly" Web page (click the tips icon). Consider using our FREE Meta Tag Builder to help with your search engine visibilty of this Web page. The maximum number of characters we recommend for this Tag is 60. Click on the flashing tips icon above for more information.
Fact #1: If you are not on the first page of search results, over 60% of Internet users will not find you!
Meta Description Tag Analysis

The Meta Description Tag: ? <- Click for Tips...

<meta name="description" content="Buy cheap china replacements & discontinued patterns in crystal, flatware and collectibles. We are offering fine china replacement plates, dishes and other tableware for discount rates. Discount china matching service for discontinued china.">

Status: Your Meta Description is 241 characters in length and contains "too many characters" for what we consider a "search engine friendly" Web page (click the tips icon). Consider using our FREE Meta Tag Builder to help with your search engine visibilty of this Web page. The maximum number of characters we recommend for this Tag is 150. Click on the flashing tips icon above for more information.
Fact #2: All major search engines including Google, Yahoo!, Scrub The Web, Bing and others utilize Meta Tags. Don't take our word for it, visit Open Window IconGoogle™ or Open Window IconYahoo!® and see what they have to say about Title and Meta Tag optimization.

* Google says Open Window Icon"meta descriptions can improve clickthrough".

Meta Keywords Tag Analysis

The Meta Keywords Tag: ? <- Click for Tips...

<meta name="keywords" content="replacements, replacement china, replacement crystal, replacement flatware, replacement collectibles, discontinued, discontinued china, discontinued crystal, discontinued flatware, discontinued collectibles, discontinued tableware, discontinued tabletop, discontinued wedgwood, discontinued royal doulton, discontinued lenox, replacement, classic replacements, classic replacements inc., discount replacements, replacement wedgwood, replacement royal doulton, replacement lenox, quality replacements, sell to us, selling, purchasing, new york, new york city, replacement tableware, replacement tabletop, big savings replacements, replacements sale, replacement ltd., replacements unlimited">

Warning! We found the following keywords were repeated more than 5 times in the Meta Keywords Tag:

* The word replacement was repeated 11 times
* The word discontinued was repeated 10 times
* The word replacements was repeated 8 times

Note: Excessive keyword stuffing may cause negative rankings on some search engines.

Status: Your Meta Keywords is 689 characters in length and is "considered acceptable". Acceptable does not mean search engine optimized. Would you like to optimize your entire Website for maximum search engine visibility?

[Steve_gts]

I just had a quick look too and found that loads of pages are not cached, such as this one /china/costa-verde.html, when I looked at that page there is nothing on it, just a header and no text to speak of, so there is nothing for the SE's to index. In comparison this page /china/bernardaud.html is cached, probably because there is more on it.

You need some quality content on each of these pages, as your order/sales pages are unlikely to appear high either, as they have very little on them. You are missing a trick by not optimising the product pages, these could and should appear for your longtails.

Also the H1 tag is the same on every page "christmas sale", it would make sense to make it more relevant to each page.

As mentioned above, titles need changing in some cases, also I personally would just lose the keyword meta all together.

To be honest it doesn't really look like any pages have really been optimised for search properly.

[ClassicReplacements]

David and Steve,

Thanks so much to both of you for taking the time to reply.

To David:

I don't see a flashing icon, so I couldn't click on it. As for the title and tags these were created by an SEO guy (and we do rank well for the general keywords), but I can try to change them. They are generated using a script on the interior pages, are those okay? And yes, i am looking to optimize our website, we believe that we could and should rise to the top of SERP's in our field and would like to make it so.

To Steve:

Does not being "cached" mean that Google hasn't indexed it at all? If so, I'm not sure what we can do, these are just lists of names of brands and patterns for customers to click on to be taken to products. Would it help if I included a company history or such? It would only be about a few sentences, we're an e-commerce site, not an information site. Doesn't Google want to put his higher up, considering that customers typing in these keywords are usually looking to buy? Anyway I will start adding content to the product pages.

Any ideas about the "similar pages" issue?

As for the titles, are you referring to them being too long? As to "losing the meta" I thought Google likes the meta data, as David mentions above?

Are there any other glaring optimization issues that you can point out. Many thanks to all of you.

[Steve_gts]

Hi CP

Does not being "cached" mean that Google hasn't indexed it at all?

Yes that's it, however the page I mentioned above has since been cached, this one still hasn't though /china/christian-dior-1.html. Are they new pages? it could just be that Google is taking a while to index them, you have a sitemap, so it will discover them in time.

If so, I'm not sure what we can do, these are just lists of names of brands and patterns for customers to click on to be taken to products. Would it help if I included a company history or such?

Yes, 2-3 paragraphs of unique text would be very beneficial, try to include your keywords for the page, but don't overdo it.

It would only be about a few sentences, we're an e-commerce site, not an information site. Doesn't Google want to put his higher up, considering that customers typing in these keywords are usually looking to buy? Anyway I will start adding content to the product pages.

just a short description will probably do, but again make it unique, don't just cut and paste from elsewhere.

Any ideas about the "similar pages" issue?

Its not the pages, just the h1 tag, it's the same on all pages, you should usually make your h1 the same or similar to the titles.

As for the titles, are you referring to them being too long?

Not necessarily, some are quite short, you should always include your main keyword for the page at the start and keep it to 64 characters including spaces. I would also include a call to action on the sales pages, this may help with click throughs.

As to "losing the meta" I thought Google likes the meta data, as David mentions above?

Google ignores the meta keywords these days, so losing it was just a quick fix for having so many keyword repeats, Yahoo still does though. I personally just use it to remind myself what keywords that page is focussed on.

The main things are:
Keyword at the start of the titles and add text to the pages, changing the h1 tags MAY help. The other thing worth mentioning is to use the main keyword for the page, in the navigational links to it, although at a glace it looks like you are doing that anyway.

All that being said, to strengthen the pages most, you need inbound links to the pages, using the keyword as the anchor.

[ClassicReplacements]

Hi Steve,

Yes, the dior page is new.

What would "overdoing keywords" be? Can you take a look at this page, which I've edited based on your advice and let me know your thoughts. (I hope including this link is not a problem, if it is, i'll take it out)

http://www.classicreplacements.com/c...n/carlyle.html

How's the H1 now? Also I had a few h1's (since changed) but there is a different one per page, the name of the brand or pattern.

"call to action" add to cart is not enough?

Ah, inbound links, the big bugaboo. My market is such a niche one that I find the link building to be very difficult, especially deep-link ones.

Thank again for your help, it's greatly appreciated.

(I'm still new here so I don't know yet how to use the "quote" function. Will learn with time )

[Steve_gts]

Hi CR,

Thats much better now, but. I would lose the h3 tag on the christmas sale, perhaps just have it in bold, your h1 should be first really, although I doubt it would actually make much difference.

The keywords meta tag is now how it should be.

You still have 2 h1's, "Carlyle" and "Royal Doulton Carlyle At A Glance" the second is better but should really be in a larger font, but again I doubt that really matters.

The title tag is good assuming "royal doulton carlyle" is your main keyword. You could include a call to action so it says something like "buy online at" but that's more for click through rates, just to make it clear to people that you are selling when they see your listing, not just a general info page. (BTW call to action was meant specifically to the title tag)

I would do the same type of thing with these type of pages too royal-doulton.html the text could go after the page links if you prefer.

Remember to keep all title tags different for each page.

Finally links! Absolutely essential, the on page factors make up for a small proportion of the strength of a page, but always best to get them right anyway. Not easy to come by, but will make the world of difference!

[Steve_gts]

You still have 2 h1's, "Carlyle" and "Royal Doulton Carlyle At A Glance" the second is better but should really be in a larger font, but again I doubt that really matters

When I say I doubt it matters, the font size I mean, not the fact there are 2 of them.

(for some reason I couldn't edit my last post)

[David_ Bowie]

[QUOTE=ClassicReplacements;1553411]David and Steve,

Thanks so much to both of you for taking the time to reply.

To David:

I don't see a flashing icon, so I couldn't click on it. As for the title and tags these were created by an SEO guy (and we do rank well for the general keywords), but I can try to change them. They are generated using a script on the interior pages, are those okay? And yes, i am looking to optimize our website, we believe that we could and should rise to the top of SERP's in our field and would like to make it

Sorry for the delay, been out of town. Go to http://www.scrubtheweb.com/ and get a free web check up on your site and then you will see flashing icons

[ClassicReplacements]

Steve,

What do you mean "the text could go after the page links if you prefer."?

Thanks so much for the info, am working on implemetation as we speak.

As for the links, I know how important they are, it's just very difficult to get for internal pages, not that many websites out there discussing royal doulton carlyle .

[Bob Barr]

Originally Posted by Steve_gts

(for some reason I couldn't edit my last post)

The forum software has a built-in time limit (I believe it's 30 minutes.) for editing your posts. If you've missed that limit and there's something really critical that needs to be changed, PM a moderator and ask that we make the change for you.

[Steve_gts]

Originally Posted by ClassicReplacements

What do you mean "the text could go after the page links if you prefer."?

I just mean that on your category pages you have links to all the product specific pages, you can add the text underneath, so it's not the prominent thing on the page for a visitor, but there's a bit more for the search engines to index.

Regarding links, have a look at this thread, you may pick up some ideas here:
http://www.v7n.com/forums/seo-forum/...ding-tips.html or try a service like this one http://www.v7n.com/forums/services/2...ank-sites.html I'm just trying it out myself so can't comment on it yet though, but if your keywords are quite niche and not too competitive it COULD make quite a difference for very little money.

Originally Posted by Bob Barr

The forum software has a built-in time limit (I believe it's 30 minutes.) for editing your posts. If you've missed that limit and there's something really critical that needs to be changed, PM a moderator and ask that we make the change for you.

Thanks Bob, if it's just adding something, I may as well add another post, saves you guys messing around amending my posts.

[ClassicReplacements]

Steve,

Working on content, have decided to do a page of content every day.

What I can't get for the life of me is that most of my competitors don't have much content nor do they have great backlinks and they still rank higher than me!?

Also Steve,

I can't get rid of the h1 "carlyle", is it better to have jst that one or to have the other one as well "royal doulton carlyle at a glance"

[Steve_gts]

let me know a couple of your competitor sites and I'll have a quick look, it could be that just a couple of strong links is pushing them up above you.

If it were me I would change the "Carlyle" one, it looks better on the page anyway as it's a bigger font and lose the other one. Possibly change it to "Carlyle by Royal Doulton" or Buy Royal Doulton Carlyle China" it would also look quite good on the page as it would sit as a better header on the page.

[ClassicReplacements]

Steve,

Can't adjust the "carlyle" one. That's why I want to know if I should add the other one or just leave one.

2 sites that rank in the top for the keyword royal doulton carlyle are chinalanedotcom and hillhousearesdotcom

[ClassicReplacements]

Another question I have here. You (and others) have mentioned the lack of content on my product pages. But each page contains links to further pages which have my main keyword in them. Shouldn't that tell Google what the page is about?

For example, the royal doulton carlyle page above has the keyword "royal doulton carlyle" in every link on the page. Shouldn't that suffice as content?

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Web content is the textual, visual or aural content that is encountered as part of the user experience on websites. It may include, among other things: text, images, sounds, videos and animations.

...

"Content is King" is a current meme when organizing or building a website[3] (although Andrew Odlyzko in "Content is Not King" argues otherwise). Text content is particularly important for search engine placement. Without original text content, most search engines will be unable to match search terms to the content of a site.[

Web content

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Your background coding is not optimized for the search engines. Eg. Not using proper heading structure.

Heading hierarchy works the same way on the web as it does in print. Web users are generally in a hurry so they look for headings to see if they want to stop and take the time to read the whole web page. Web users also skim in search of what they specifically are looking for. Having a heading hierarchy will help them find what it is they are looking for.

...

Using the proper heading heirarchy on your web pages adds to the legibility of the web page, improves your search engine optimization and adds to the accessibility of the page.

Heading Hierarchy

Heading Structure
1.Heading Tags Used for Headings Only
◦Check that heading tags have only been used for headings and not as a way to format other content.
◦If you did, remove the headings tags from areas that are not actual headings and use classes to format these areas.

2.Check the structure of your headings.
◦First heading of the page is heading 1
◦Subsequent headings are in decending order
◦Sub-subsequent headings are in decending order

Heading Structure – Heading Tag

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land must have been following this conversation (or has ESP).

He wrote an article about Titles today: Writing HTML Title Tags For Humans, Google & Bing

[jholmes151]

ClassicReplacements, have you ever read any books about SEO? There's a very thorough book called "The SEO Bible" (rent from a library or purchase for reference) which will definitely open your eyes about SEO. Furthermore, while this might've been mentioned or hinted at already, try to add more product description content. For example, I'm currently at "Christian Dior Gaudron Gold Water Glass" page and all it says is "This is part of the Gaudron pattern by Christian Dior." Describe the product more. Search Twitter and find product reviews. What makes it special? Why should a person buy it? What other keywords are being used to search for this product? What is a Gaudron pattern, etc? This might help you out a lot. Google craves content! And so do people. You've got the bones, just add some meat to it (lol).