SEO Review

[GFin]

http://www.publisherforums.com/showthread.php?t=695

Hi boron,

Would it be possible for you to take a look at www.sharkyandgeorge.com a petition site I'm running, at the moment appears at number 5 for 'sharky and george', on Google, any tips on how to improve this?

Thanks in advance,
Greg

[boron]

Ok, some cartoons, not often seen in the webmaster world.

http://www.sharkyandgeorge.com/images/sharkyandgeorge_banner1.gif (http://www.sharkyandgeorge.com)

Site Review


1. SITE LOADING TIME on T1 connection (Europe) : 3-4 sec. Not optimal.
Possible causes:
- Home page size = 217Kb, should be under 100Kb. Only images have over 120Kb. Tip: make a clear image of Sharky and George and link it to some inner page from where the video will load. Additional click will be needed probably...I must say that I like an idea of "instant video access", but it slows down your site. The image itself is blurred. Loading time report and instructions. (http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/wso.php?url=http://www.sharkyandgeorge.com/).
- HTML validation: 8 errors (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sharkyandgeorge.com%2F) , nothing big.
- Hosting server speed: slow. Check (http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/dnstime.ch?name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sharkyandgeorge.c om%2F&type=A). Consider change hosting, but ask some visitors around the world first to tell you loading time.

2. FIRST LOOK IMPRESSION: Site is nice and bright, nothing major to complain. I didn't like those brown stripes going away on each side though.

3. DESIGN: Menu titles can be stressed a little bit more, since they are between the header and adds.
Welcome text title should be stressed also.

4. NAVIGATION:
Main menu:
Rename Welcome link in "Home".
Sign petition: Warning about e-mail adress can go beside e-mail field. Move the bottom text up.
Shop: You can shorten "Visit the full shop by clicking here" to be: "Visit the full shop" Or "Go to full shop".

5. CONTENT:
You can say on the home page how many petitions are subscribed at the moment...
In Galery you can have some video clips (if not copyrighted).

6. SPELL CHECK (http://www.siteowner.com/system/socheckspelling.cfm?url=http://www.sharkyandgeorge.com/&RequestTimeout=1000) only few letters..and few "the", "an" issues.

8. PR = 2 for BOTH www. sharkyandgeorge.com and sharkyandgeorge.com

9. BACKLINKS to
- www. sharkyandgeorge.com: Google: 7 (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=link%3A+www.sharkyandgeorge.com), Yahoo:109 (http://sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sharkyandgeorge.com%2 F&bwm=i&bwmf=a&bwms=p)
- sharkyandgeorge.com: Google: 207 (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=link%3A+sharkyandgeorge.com&btnG=Search), Yahoo: 109 (http://sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sharkyandgeorge.com%2 F&bwm=i&bwmf=a&bwms=p)

10. INDEXED PAGES:
www. sharkyandgeorge.com Google: 1 (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=site%3Awww.sharkyandgeorge.com/+%22%2Bwww.sharkyandgeorge.com/%22&btnG=Search), Yahoo: 8 (http://sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&p=http://www.sharkyandgeorge.com/&bwm=p&bwmf=a&bwms=p&searchbwm=Explore+URL)
sharkyandgeorge.com Google: 20 (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=site%3Asharkyandgeorge.com%2F+%22%2Bsharkyandgeo rge.com%2F%22&btnG=Search), Yahoo: 8 (http://sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2Fsharkyandgeorge.com%2F&bwm=p&bwmf=u)

Create a site map (http://xml-SITEMAPS.com/) and submit it into a Google here (https://google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/about.html) and Yahoo here (http://SUBMIT.search.YAHOO.com/free/request).

Article in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharky_and_George).

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11. KEYWORDS:

'sharky and george'

SITE POSITION in
Google.com: #4 (http://www.google.com/search?as_q=sharky+and+george&num={10}&ie=UTF-8&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images&start=0), Yahoo: #9 (http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=sharky+and+george&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8), MSN: not among 500

Competitors in Google (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=sharky+and+george&btnG=Search):

1. www.retrojunk.com/details_tvshows/905-sharky-and-george/ PR2, 0 (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=link%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.retrojunk.com%2Fdetails _tvshows%2F905-sharky-and-george%2F+) backlinks, online since October 7th, 2003
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharky_and_George PR5, 1 (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=link%3A+en.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSharky_and_Geo rge&btnG=Search) backlink, online since Dec 15, 2005.
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yzm2irjLi0 PR1, 2 (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=link%3A+www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D6Yzm2irjLi 0) backlinks, online since: February 15th, 2005

4. www.sharkyandgeorge.com/ PR2, 7 backlinks (but 207 for sharkeyandgeorge.com), Online since:October 6th 2006.

All sites which rank higher then you are older. Besides Wikipedia's PR5 this can be the main reason why you are not the first.

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CONCLUSION:

If you want to rank higher in Google, try:

1. 301 redirect from sharkyandgeorge.com to www sharkyandgeorge.com so all backlinks will point to one domain.
2. Go to http://Backlinkwatch.com, enter your www.sharkyandgeorge.com site in and watch (can take several minutes): anchor text, PR of sites where you have backlink and # of outgoing links (many = bad) from those sites. Put 'sharky and george' in anchor text on your backlinks. You have no anchor text anywhere! :) But chose 2-3 keyphrases, DO NOT always use 'sharky and george'.
3. Build aditional pages within your site, mention 'sharky and george' on all of them and link all to home page. Use 'sharky and george' in title but again not always.. Sites with many pages tend to rank higher.

[Submerge]

Do you just want boron reviewing the SEO for your site, or can others get in on this?

[GFin]

Thats great boron, some really useful tips in there, that I will be using in the next few days :D Thanks again!

Submerge- Feel free to join in if you have any other tips/advice :)

Thanks!
Greg

[Mystic]

The header is lovely!!
# Use tags like <h1>, <h2> instead of larger font sizes.
# Submit a sitemap to https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ . There google provides the option of setting the preffered domain (with or without www.). A part from that you would get a bunch of other feedback from Google. So, I highly recomend that you do this step.
# Always use alt tags with images. ( Esp here (http://www.sharkyandgeorge.com/gallery.html) )

[jacob]

I think it looks great as well. Well laid out, good use of white space, the header is great, and the ads blend in well.

I'd look at cleaning up some of the deprecated code (font, center) your using in favor of styles (H1) as Mystic was touching on. Wrapping the heading tags around your headings will help with SEO while also cleaning the code up a bit..

[GFin]

Thanks Mystic, Thanks Jacob,
I'll try and get the code tidyed up and sort out the sitemap asap,
Thanks for your comments,
Greg

[boron]

GFin, if you'll have any kind of problems with applying above suggestions, you can freely write it here.

[GFin]

Hi boron,
No I think I will be fine with the changes suggested, just haven't had time to gey onto them yet,

Thanks,
Greg