Starting to lose faith in SEO

Similar thing happened to me in the past. But I just keep building backlinks and SEO and my site moved back up. Sometimes Google does some dancing in the search result, don't panic as long as your traffic doesn't drop too much from Google.

Its normal to google that its updates takes too long, but never stop in doing quality link building its your only way that google recognize your site as well as your site is good and well optimized.

I think there may be several things you are doing wrong. For one, I probably wouldn't buy anything from the top Google result for 'andyj'. The web site is cluttered and looks amateur. Also, the links in your footer are spammy.

No matter how many links you buy or acquire, I doubt there are very many related sites out there selling links. Have you tried getting listed in the ODP? Do you produce articles or content worthy of natural links?

Sorry to be harsh.

Just keep building links - Check your competitors backlinks and try to get more or less the same backlinks. So if they have blog comments, get blog comments. If they have links from certain directories, get them. Otherwise I think you are very close.

Also the quality of links matter - one link from BBC talking about bouncing castles could be more powerful than 100 links from buildmyrank type websites. Consider doing guest posts for other websites related to you niche with a link or two back to your website.

Would have to know a few things first. how long ago did you start investing in backlinks?

If your present backlink portfolio is showing that time then I would suggest you STOP investing with whoever you are investing with until you know what work was done. Your present link portfolio doesn't show a lot of anchor text rich links. In fact some of your supposedly strong links I can't even find anymore. maybe thats my tool or they just aren't showing yet.

Did you get a report on these links you had built? If you did it yourself what anchor text did you use? have you checked your backlinks? I am assuming you are talking about Google.com because if i have the domain right you rank #5 in Google UK

In the Seo class I teach I would have advised you against that term for the dot com. Not that you cannot rank for it but because you would have seen faster and easier results with longer tail. You are up against a PR 6 page which by itself doesn't mean anything EXCEPT it is optimized for those words AND it is the name of the site which means it would probably be rich in that anchor text so the PR (which is a measure of the links to you) stands to be targeted for that keyword (and then the PR does matter).

Just a quick thought. Looking at your keywords in your page source, I am wondering why you are not using action terms like BUY, RENT, "TO LET" in your keywords. This search term is more dynamic and would have a better chance at getting a buyer/renter to your site.

Adding 'purchase-oriented' verbs to your keywords is always a good idea (also for anchor text as well), as this indicates the searcher is ready to take action.

Also, do you use the term "Bounce House"? That's what we call them in my section of the US.

Best of Luck.

I appreciate all the feedback.

Andem - I'm using the LiveCart system so pretty much have my hands tied with regards to the look of the website. I was thinking of having it redesigned but there are 100s of bouncy castles on the website and it would take a very long time. Also, there are only really 5 competitors. If anyone was to buy a bouncy castle, they would look at the quality of each and the price. I can't see the website making a lot of difference although I could be wrong.

Mike Anthony - Only really the past 3-4 weeks. The website was #1 for most of it's keywords for years then it dropped to #2. So I started doing this link building campaign on the website and now it's dropped again.

I've done most of the link building myself, namely on that buildmyrank and have only used 'bouncy castles' and 'bouncy castle' for the achor text. Most of the articles/blog posts are showing up on that Site Explorer. I think theres a total of 3500 links, about 400 of them has come over the last few weeks.

I'd agree with you about the domain. It probably should be more keyword rich but it hasn't been a problem before and it's not really feasible to think about changing it now. I've had that domain since 1991 I think, so almost 20 years.

What PR6 site am I up against? I'm only focusing on Google UK not .COM or in the USA. The #1 position has a PR2 with 300 backlinks on Google UK.

MichaelParsons - I've never really done any optimisation for any adjective keywords. It's always been 'bouncy castle' or 'bouncy castles'. Having a little look and I'm #1 for 'bouncy castles for sale', 'bouncy castle manufacturer' etc. I suppose I could work on buy bouncy castle or similar keywords. Rent or Lease is not really applicable, I only sell them. We don't use bounce house or jumping castle etc here in the UK, they are only known as bouncy castles.

Sorry but I didn't understand a word of that bob.

Let me make this clear. SEO is not a one time thing. You have to continue the work consistently to both achieve and sustain results. Especially if you're targeting keywords that are competitive. I learned that lesson the hard way and it cost me dearly. I did a study and found that for most niches I was doing SEO for, every 3-4 months at least 30-40% of the sites in the top 10 were gone. The ones that stayed were essentially working their butt off to stay there. Everyone wants to be in the top 10. Sometimes, its thousands of site owners all fighting for the only 10 spots that matter.

Don't lose faith because the truth of the matter is that a lot of people do give up. If you're consistent and stay the course, I believe you'll see good results when others fail and quit.

-> Don't Use any software for SEO
-> Don't build 1000s of links every week.
(15 Good Quality Backlinks / day is ok)
-> Ping & RSS submission of your built links.
-> Add contents regularly.
-> Dont stop working on your sites after a month or 2 month, go continuously. It takes time to get good rankings, but DON'T STOP.

Don't back link to your main domain with the same anchor text in large amounts all of a sudden. Google recognizes this as unatural and penalizes you for it real quick.

Think about it. A site has been up for years. Probably had very slow natural backlink growth.

Then all of a sudden it is getting a hundred or more links a week for several weeks. All with the same anchor text.

Trust SEO. The Sticky Thread about SEO FAQ tells a lot about this - SEO is something long-term. I often tell my clients to expect results or significant changes in rankings within 6 to 12 weeks, even if I have portfolio of helping websites climb SERPs in less amount of time.

Well, maybe it's just Google strutting Tango again. And why pay if you can do it on your own?

anyone who does not follow a good seo strategy is bound to see these results.Sometimes it happens to witness these changes because of the ever changing Google algorithm.

I'm assuming its the .co.uk site?

If so:

get a new name that a visitor can associate with and that Google can spot as an obvious topical site, something like "bestbuybouncycastles.co.uk".

Look at keyterms that HUMAN would search for. If you wanted to buyone, would you just enter "bouncy Castles" into google? Nope, because anyone with a brain knows that will include sites that hire them, wholesale, a blogpost about a great party someone had etc.

"buy a bouncy castle"
"buy a bouncy castle uk"

etc.

Then build links using those realistic keyterms, to all the pages of your site and alter the one page titles and text to reflect those keyterm variations.


Also look at the terms your competitors are ranking well for, look at their backlinks, get the same ones where possible.

Also, find terms your competitors are NOT ranking for and go for them. Find your own place in the market and build the strength of your site through time, content and links.

If you want some personalised help, PM me for details.

There are two types of SEO techniques:

Onpage SEO and Offpage SEO.

Onsite SEO means that you interlink your webpages to each other. Make sure you do this first. whatever keyword you need to rank for interlink them within your website.

As you have mentioned that you have done external linking (backlinking) which is fine. Make sure keywords are being linked as an anchor text on these external sites.

i.e. if you want to rank for say: "SEO techniques", make sure you include this in your content and add as an anchor text and same process must be followed by your external websites also.

Hope this helps!!!