Q and A: How do I gain incoming links when I serve a small regional market?
Dear Kalena...
I've read a number of my fellow website owners problems in your newsletter with a now, seemingly, very familiar problem, namely not being ranked well in Google. I've managed my on-page optimization to the extent that I seem to rank pretty well, for most of my keyphrases in SERPs (first page first position some of them) with the likes of Yahho, MSN, ASK, Lycos and many others. But not Google (bless their socks and white coats!).
I'm not a Hub, with streams of inbound relevant links cascading into my site. I'm not an authoritive site with an equal amount of outbound links emanating out. This is what Google planned, after all, with their ranking system, if a site has all these links - ah ha this must be a popular site, we'll rank this one highly. Nice one! Then there's little old me stuck down in page 70 somewhere with relevant content but not many links. You can see this by the fact that all the the sites on the first pages on all my keyphrase queries are stuffed with directories and the like, replete with links flying everywhere.
Am I sandboxed, who knows? Is there an ageing algorithm with Google which is supposed to hold a site down for 6 to 9 months? Don't know, I've had a website for about 2 years now, in the beginning it was a CMS site then I changed my host in September last year and I was offline for about a month building my own site, but I've always kept the same domain name.
So if it's an ageing thing 9 months is up in another month - that is if something happened in September. I have some links coming in, but few in number but they are relevant. This, however, is my problem, how can I find sufficient number of relevant links? By all accounts I need 20 - 30 or more. Because of the industry I happen to be in it does not particularly lend itself to obtaining them.
So I'd appreciate you're comments. The website address if you care to look is http://www.jefffservice.co.uk. If the site appears OK to you, then I'll just have to build up some relevant links but it will take a long time, but my objection is its all a bit artificial just to conform to the rules of one search engine company who has 40% market position and can dictate the rules and we all have to follow. But I'm waffling now. Thanks for your time.
Jeff
Kalena's Answer:
Dear Jeff
I've had a look at the site and I can't see any major problems with the code. But dump that "revisit after" meta tag as it is worthless.
Google is caching your home page and has currently indexed 15 pages from your site. You've optimized your Title and META tags and your pages seem to be search friendly, so I can only guess it is the dreaded aging delay and poor link popularity that you are suffering in Google.
In terms of building up your in-bound links, consider getting your site listed in as many niche directories and regional sites as possible. A good starting point to find these sites is this post.
Good luck!
---------------------------
[If you found this post helpful, you might benefit from downloading our free Search Engine Optimization lesson]
I've read a number of my fellow website owners problems in your newsletter with a now, seemingly, very familiar problem, namely not being ranked well in Google. I've managed my on-page optimization to the extent that I seem to rank pretty well, for most of my keyphrases in SERPs (first page first position some of them) with the likes of Yahho, MSN, ASK, Lycos and many others. But not Google (bless their socks and white coats!).
I'm not a Hub, with streams of inbound relevant links cascading into my site. I'm not an authoritive site with an equal amount of outbound links emanating out. This is what Google planned, after all, with their ranking system, if a site has all these links - ah ha this must be a popular site, we'll rank this one highly. Nice one! Then there's little old me stuck down in page 70 somewhere with relevant content but not many links. You can see this by the fact that all the the sites on the first pages on all my keyphrase queries are stuffed with directories and the like, replete with links flying everywhere.
Am I sandboxed, who knows? Is there an ageing algorithm with Google which is supposed to hold a site down for 6 to 9 months? Don't know, I've had a website for about 2 years now, in the beginning it was a CMS site then I changed my host in September last year and I was offline for about a month building my own site, but I've always kept the same domain name.
So if it's an ageing thing 9 months is up in another month - that is if something happened in September. I have some links coming in, but few in number but they are relevant. This, however, is my problem, how can I find sufficient number of relevant links? By all accounts I need 20 - 30 or more. Because of the industry I happen to be in it does not particularly lend itself to obtaining them.
So I'd appreciate you're comments. The website address if you care to look is http://www.jefffservice.co.uk. If the site appears OK to you, then I'll just have to build up some relevant links but it will take a long time, but my objection is its all a bit artificial just to conform to the rules of one search engine company who has 40% market position and can dictate the rules and we all have to follow. But I'm waffling now. Thanks for your time.
Jeff
Kalena's Answer:
Dear Jeff
I've had a look at the site and I can't see any major problems with the code. But dump that "revisit after" meta tag as it is worthless.
Google is caching your home page and has currently indexed 15 pages from your site. You've optimized your Title and META tags and your pages seem to be search friendly, so I can only guess it is the dreaded aging delay and poor link popularity that you are suffering in Google.
In terms of building up your in-bound links, consider getting your site listed in as many niche directories and regional sites as possible. A good starting point to find these sites is this post.
Good luck!
---------------------------
[If you found this post helpful, you might benefit from downloading our free Search Engine Optimization lesson]
Labels: link building
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