Can't Rank Well for "Pet Urns" ... Help!

[cinhol]

Hi Everyone -

I am at the end of my rope on trying to figure out how to get one of my clients websites to rank well for the search term "pet urns"

The site is an on-line store for pet urns and does pretty well when people already kind of know what they want, for example search term "garden pet memorials" or "pet cremains pendant", but for one of the highest search terms in the industry "pet urns", the site does horribly.

The URL is www.entrustedpet.com. Would any of you be willing to give me some tips on what I might try to change on the home page to help boost its listing?

Thanks so much for the help!

Cindy

[Deb]

The number one google ranked site when I searched on the term Pet Urns revealed this when I viewed source...

<meta name="keywords" content="Pet urns, cremation urns, figurine urns, pet memorials, pet urn, urn, pet cemetery, ...

The site in question here revealed:

<meta name="keywords" content="loss of a pet, Entrusted Pet Memorial Products, pet urns, pet memorials, jewelry, vases, wooden bowls, bronze statues, garden stone, dog, cat, small animal, keepsake, ...

I am NOT a search engine expert by any means... but there does seem to be a clue or two by comparing the sites that sit where you want to be sitting :)

Deb
- Debbie, DeeDee, Deborah, Debra, Debby, Debi, Debbi,

[cinhol]

Hi Deb -

I suppose you have a point.

I was thinking that content in the page held a little more weight that the keywords....which it may, but I just looked at the home page for the site you pointed out and it has the word "Urns" all over it.

My clients are very compasionate in their efforts and do not wish to be salesmen like....it looks like there are a few word changes I can make to the home page and still be compasionate.

Thanks for your help!

Cindy

[Deb]

My clients are very compasionate in their efforts and do not wish to be salesmen like.... A struggle I am FAR TOO FAMILIAR WITH!!! We battle that on the FutureQuest front every day in many areas due to our personal feelings and ethics getting in the way of any competitive nature we may need to keep a step ahead in this industry where marketing is concerned.

it looks like there are a few word changes I can make to the home page and still be compasionate. Always be on the look out for those. Also explain to the client to do the same. Finding the happy medium may not get number 1 but it makes placing 3rd and 4th all that much sweeter :)

Deb
- The bottom line of business is caring... it may not pay the bills but at least you can sleep at night

[Wassercrats]

Do something about the alt text for the images. The alt text for images/HomeBackground2m.jpg should be the heading text, which contains the important keywords "pet" and "cremation." Currently, the alt text is "Pendant Jewelry."

[Jarrod]

If you accept that anybody who is giving something away for free on the net is also trying to sell you something then take a look at http://seoelite.com/. I've recently signed up for the free one week newsletter, and have achieved some very good results, with just some minor tweaks to the content of specific pages.

I didn't do everything suggested, and nor do I know whether everything that is suggested is the best thing to do, but it has brought in some results.

Jarrod

[georgeek]

Just a few quick points.

Because it is so easy to spam the the keyword meta it is completely ignored by all the major search engines for ranking purposes. This has been the case for several years and good professional SEOs either omit it altogether or use it merely as a comment to remind them what keyword/keyphrase the page has been optimized for.

Alt text for images is also completely ignored by the search engines for the same reasons unless the image is a link.

Even the very best of software that appears to automate the SEO process is very bad when compared to a human who has taken a little time to learn the basics and when compared to a good professional SEO they are absolutely useless. Good professional SEOs secretly love this kind of software and the millions of pages that have been (so called) optimized with them. This is because for competitive keywords it ensures that these millions of pages will never be in a position to compete with theirs!

Cindy you say "...how to get one of my clients websites to rank well for the search term "pet urns"...". The first thing to do is to start thinking in terms of 'pages' rather than 'website'. This is simply because search engines rank pages and not websites.

You ask for some tips, here are a couple. Firstly choose only one or two different keywords/keyphrases for each page of your site and optimize each page for those (Remember search engines rank pages not websites).

Secondly for the page that you have chosen to optimize for the keyphrase "pet urns" obtain as many backlinks as possible ensuring that "pet urns" is in the anchor text.

- George

[Wassercrats]

Alt text for images is also completely ignored by the search engines for the same reasons unless the image is a link.If that's true, I'd look into using z-index in my CSS to write the heading in plain text and then cover it with the image using the position property.

[cinhol]

WOW Everybody...THANKS SO Much!!! For some reason I wasn’t being notified of replies until this last one by Wassercrats, so I apologies for the delayed thank you.

I so much appreciate all the input....I will use it!!! Thank you for taking the time!

Cindy

[georgeek]

I'd look into using z-index in my CSS to write the heading in plain text and then cover it with the image using the position property.It's an old trick and Google has no problem recognizing z-index hiding.

- George

[Wassercrats]

It's an old trick and Google has no problem recognizing z-index hiding.I heard that someone tested whether search engines index title tags. I think there should be a study for z-index hiding and non-link alt tags too. I'd definitely use the alt tags just in case. You should use proper alt tags anyway.

[Wassercrats]

Alt text for images is also completely ignored by the search engines for the same reasons unless the image is a link.Another opinion from http://www.accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=2623 (in the first reply)Although SEs do index alt texts, they allegedly don't assign as much significance to them as 'proper' H1 text.

[georgeek]

Another opinion from http://www.accessifyforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=2623 (in the first reply)That is correct. Alt text in unlinked images is indexed but completely ignored for ranking purposes.

- George

[Wassercrats]

If you can find the alt text with a search engine, it has to appear in some order within the results. What are you saying? That it appears at the end?

[georgeek]

If you can find the alt text with a search engine, it has to appear in some order within the results. What are you saying? That it appears at the end? No. I am saying that of the 100+ factors that a search engine will use to rank pages alt text in non-linked images isn't one of them.

- George

[Wassercrats]

Then the guy who said "Although SEs do index alt texts, they allegedly don't assign as much significance to them as 'proper' H1 text." was misleading because he makes it sound like some significance is given to alt text, as opposed to "Alt text for images is also completely ignored by the search engines for the same reasons unless the image is a link," which is misleading because it sounds like you can't find alt text with a search engine.

I don't think you're right though. Does the following look like a good test?

http://www.polisource.com/diamond-line.html
http://www.polisource.com/Diamond-line.html

[georgeek]

Does the following look like a good test? No but it might tell you something about duplicate content filters.

- George

[Wassercrats]

If google only indexes one or neither of those pages, I'll eliminate the explanatory text so the different alt text would be all that's left. Since Yahoo has more indexed pages than Google now, maybe these tests should be done with Yahoo.

However you determined that non-link alt text has no affect on rank would be good to publish for people who want to see for themselves.