Why can't I rank first?

Age and page rank are my guesses. Is the top one older?

I'm not really sure that there is really any way to answer why your site isn't #1. You could spend months posting and reading around this forum and listening to the resident SEO experts, and you would learn a lot, but you would never get a precise answer to this question. I think it would be best to recognize that you are doing something right to get #2 + #3 in the first place, and put your head down and get to work. Keep doing what you are doing and maybe try some new strategies for ranking.

For the conversion rate, when i checked out your site there wasn't really anything that made me want to click on the link to the sales page. I would suggest adding another post introducing some new colors/graphics and an attention grabbing header to get people to click through.

First sight on this, it could be the page rank, domain age, and incoming links.

It has a higher page rank than yours, older domain age, and much more incoming links?


Aiden

In order to get #1 ranking on google you need excessive natural backlinks, a site with high PR and posting on forums, commenting on blogs, social media and etc. When I say "natural backlinks building" I mean building backlinks relevant to your site without buying 1000's of backlinks something like "1000 backlinks for $9.99USD". Buying backlinks can cause your site to be penalized by google or even blacklisted?

Not sure about ranking, but I can tell you why you're not converting: The site is a mess. I would get rid of the blog style format and make a static page, then CLEARLY present the info you are trying to communicate. No one wants to wade through a bunch of random posts that don't tell them anything of value or present the information in an appealing way.

If your site doesn't give someone something compelling/interesting to read within 3 seconds, they will probably click away. Also, most tech savvy people recognize adsense and are unlikely to click on anything in those ads. I would recommend selling a product to go along with your book reviews.

I changed that so I have the keywords all page names. I actually discovered that optiom a week ago.

A little update on this one:

Scroogle now ranks me first but Google says I am second. I am convinced this is a good sign.

Adsense CTR is a lot better. When I excluded traffic from a campaign I ran I can see that the organic traffic has a CTR of 2-4% which is great IMO.

Sales are not skyrocketing even though half the traffic hits a review-page. But I will do some writing that hopefully will fix that.

Best Regards

All 3. Ranking is complex. Just keep going.

You dont have too many high quality back links...This is key if you are looking to rank not only with your main keywords but other ones as well...by the way your page rank is greyed out but your site is cached (nov 25) which is good....Try to build some high page rank in the beginning but they have to be quality sites and contextual in format...I also noticed that your site has lots of adsense..nothing wrong with that but Google is not so much in favor of all adsense websites...However this is not a super biggie but maybe something to consider...I would also work on your site structure more....For example your top nav bar is all google adsense...So a total overhaul of your onsite along with intelligent link building and you will get there for sure...I have done it for 12 years now so I know that works for my clients..

To keep your rankings up, you will need to regularly update your site with new content as the addition of new content will keep the search engine spiders regularly coming back to your site to index your content. For this reason, it is a good exercise to plan out your site in advance so that you know what articles you will be adding and where they will go all in advance.

How long until your site will get to page one? That can be in as little as a day or two if the search term is not too competitive. What often happens is that your site will come rapidly up the search engine results and then fall back as the real value of the site is determined by the Google bots. From there on in you need to add more content and external links to keep it rising in the results.

ryanjm is on the money, read his post again about why you are not converting

you need to make it look less "bloggy" (a technical term )

strip out the adsense to focus instead on the ebook sales

all to make your site look more "authoritative" (another one of those technical terms )

thus,
this will improve your conversion rate

however, remember you are selling to highly technically literate people compared to the average joe out there

you can't thus go around with a shoddy looking site which a large segment of your market could do better in their sleep!

also don't have too high expectations... as this market niche would have a mountain of highly quality books at their fingertips for "free" from BT etc

I personally would've picked a different niche, unless PHP is a your passion big time! Hence you're half doing this for the love of it AND you also really know your stuff hardcore

[which to be honest I kinda STRONGLY doubt, become come on... you're using a CMS *written in* PHP and you're site looks that blah!! and yes, I do kinda fall inside your market as a PHP programmer]

Oh, and I've been reading through your blog posts...

Noticed a theme, you need to do less of this:

1) making excuses
2) being defeatist
3) whining

Who wants to read that?

Drop all of that NOW!

Be upbeat and positive in future updates

[oh, and last comment: only two colours you are using. Even worse, blue on blue as your colours for your site?? Seriously! A bit bland don't you think? ]

heh, I lied! As I just had to come back with another suggestion to help you out... as you really have sooo much wrong with your site it is hard to resist. :rolleyes:

Now, how about you look at this blog entry:

Best PHP Book: Another day… | Best PHP Book

Tell me, what is the point of it? What is its PURPOSE?

If it doesn't have one it is diluting the power of your site.

In my mind there is no doubt you should not have posted that in your circumstances.

Most of your links are just pointing to your home page. to make it look natural you have to build links for other pages of your site as well.

The thing you have to focus on is to widen your horizon and then scout for relevant links for the consumption of your website. It is just that you have to be smart enough in knowing whom to trust on this. The industry that you are moving in is full or cunning individuals. Only choose the reputable and powerful links bearing the page ranks of six or seven.