8 replies
Hi,

I recently hired a web programmer to build me a site. They have left me with a good site however the on page SEO is shocking as bots cannot crawl the site due to the homepage not being able to let the bots read the pages as it uses images etc. I have no knowledge of php hence why i hired someone and would like to know if anyone knows what I could do to fix such problems or how much it would cost to hire someone to fix all my onpage seo problems for php. I am guessing I am going to have to create static pages using htaccess somehow for my inner links on the site?

The site is freetreasure DOTcomDOTau if anybody wants to see the problems for themselves as I can't post weblinks yet.

Please any advice would be highly appreciated as I am now completely stuck as I know I shouldn't move onto offpage SEO without getting this right first.

Thanks
#page #php #seo
  • Profile picture of the author goosefrabah
    Looking up your site, it seems that it is indeed crawled by Google and indexed. The true problem I see is when first visiting your site I had no idea what it was about. I do however love the look of the site. My suggestion is to add a nice SEO'd description on each page.

    You want to have the site useful to google and not just for the searches. Sometimes going out of your way to make them happy dilutes your users experience.

    So my thought! When adding a page have a description field where you type in what the page is offering some what like ebay but shorter. Also have a title field where it is a very nice h1 on the page. If you need any help with this please let me know I can always help as well.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5868603].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author sydants
      Thanks, I agree we have to have something about how the site works. Where do you suggest would be the best spot to put this onto the site?

      I was thinking that I could have something like "How the site works" with a 'read me' hanger above it like we have with the 'free'? Or do you think having a description on the actual page would be better?

      I know my site has been indexed by Google but if you look it has not been indexed in any of the states which means none of the products will ever be indexed because the Google bot cannot read the state's link on the homepage and just sees it as nothing.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5868924].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Eric Seiler
      Originally Posted by goosefrabah View Post

      Looking up your site, it seems that it is indeed crawled by Google and indexed. The true problem I see is when first visiting your site I had no idea what it was about. I do however love the look of the site. My suggestion is to add a nice SEO'd description on each page.

      You want to have the site useful to google and not just for the searches. Sometimes going out of your way to make them happy dilutes your users experience.

      So my thought! When adding a page have a description field where you type in what the page is offering some what like ebay but shorter. Also have a title field where it is a very nice h1 on the page. If you need any help with this please let me know I can always help as well.
      I agree with this almost entirely.

      One other thing to consider is just scrapping the front page entirely and using an unfiltered products page which has the 'coolest' stuff being offered. Most popular websites that offer a multitude of products function like this (sometimes it pays NOT to be different).

      I like the treasure map as a theme, but in terms of usability it is a concept that will confuse some people and does nothing to showcase the actual products you are offering. I'm not saying that it isn't cool, only that it functions as a barrier between what people are really looking for in your website -- free stuff.

      Just a thought. I'd hate to see you scrap the idea with getting a second or third opinion, but it is what I would do.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5868956].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author goosefrabah
        Originally Posted by Eric Seiler View Post

        I agree with this almost entirely.

        One other thing to consider is just scrapping the front page entirely and using an unfiltered products page which has the 'coolest' stuff being offered. Most popular websites that offer a multitude of products function like this (sometimes it pays NOT to be different).

        I like the treasure map as a theme, but in terms of usability it is a concept that will confuse some people and does nothing to showcase the actual products you are offering. I'm not saying that it isn't cool, only that it functions as a barrier between what people are really looking for in your website -- free stuff.

        Just a thought. I'd hate to see you scrap the idea with getting a second or third opinion, but it is what I would do.
        I totally love your idea! The best thing you can do with any site is throw the information someone is looking for right in their face. They find something great, they keep going. Putting products right there will help immensely.

        Well you want each page to be optimized for its own particular keywords. So ideally something on each page.

        For instance you go here Free side table I see it is a table but google sees hundreds of these. Add something like "free side table in hong kong" etc. The same goes for the meta titles, description, etc.

        P.S. it seems to me that it only needs some extra fields in the database to fix most of the problems. If you would like to talk more on skype I can give you some more ideas for sure.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5869022].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author sydants
    I agree that throwing the information into someones face is the best way to interest them that is why we have all the items just listed straight away instead of having to choose categories etc. As there are already sites doing this I felt the need to try make my site 'cooler' 'nicer user experience' than other sites hence why I decided to make the map as I feel that once the users click on it in the future they will know why they are there with the meta description I have added for Google which hasn't been updated (same with title to include keywords).

    As I know next to nothing for php I've had to hire someone to create the page hence why I also can't just change it especially at the start with no income yet from the site which I am sure you can appreciate.

    Every time an item is posted a new title is added with "free ______" I agree that it would be highly useful probably to include the city after it like "free _____ in Melbourne" depending on what state there looking at items in but again I would be unsure what to do to the code.

    Please appreciate that I am a complete 'noob' when it comes to php so am extremely gracious for your help.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5869126].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author sydants
    Just wondering if anyone could help me with a mod_rewrite for my site so that it fixes some of the urls? I am wondering is it possible to include the title of the page as bassicly the url?

    Thanks
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5877131].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author jassmee
    Banned
    [DELETED]
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5885182].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author miajohnson
    The simplest solution is to hire for on page optimization in PHP. They wilol take care of your problems.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6004242].message }}

Trending Topics