# Need help with SEO



## AliDec (Sep 26, 2010)

Hi all, I have a problem with our website. I have no SEO done it (almost nothing at all, just a jew keywords on a few different pages) and obviously we cant be found by potential customers. The thing is I am not sure about this side of things and I just dont have the time now to do anything about it. I hate to think that we have spent so much money on our site already for it to just be sitting doing nothing. The few sales we have made on it have came from when we handed out flyers but we cant rely on that alone. I would appreciate if we could get some help as it is really getting us down at this stage.


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## headfirst (Jun 29, 2011)

Hire an SEO. I'm sure one of them has called you. They're everywhere. Ask for references and call the references. Ask is the SEO was successful in making the phone ring for them. Find out how long they've been working with the SEO. Would they do it again?

The ones that know what they're doing won't be cheap, but they should generate sales for you. 

Also, ask the SEO about how they go about finding the keywords you should be targeting. 90% of SEO is finding the right keywords. Make sure he knows what he's doing.

I did SEO for years before I decided I wanted to get back into print. Now I just do SEO on my own sites and a couple of old clients that still keep sending checks every month after all these years. They won't let me quit or something. 

Anyways, find someone good and local and go with them.

Good luck!


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## treefox2118 (Sep 23, 2010)

Flyers is always better.

The best SEO comes naturally from getting real links from real customers. Even Facebook links help SEO.

I don't pay anyone for my website SEO, I just continue to market to end customers and ask them to review or link to us if they're happy.

It's a competitive market, so pounding the pavement with flyers is usually a better value for your money.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using T-Shirt Forums


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## AdvancedArtist (Nov 23, 2006)

AliDec said:


> Hi all, I have a problem with our website. I have no SEO done it (almost nothing at all, just a jew keywords on a few different pages) and obviously we cant be found by potential customers. The thing is I am not sure about this side of things and I just dont have the time now to do anything about it. I hate to think that we have spent so much money on our site already for it to just be sitting doing nothing. The few sales we have made on it have came from when we handed out flyers but we cant rely on that alone. I would appreciate if we could get some help as it is really getting us down at this stage.


Would recommend making some analysis with the google key word tool. See what key words and things your market is searching for for and with in google.

https://adwords.google.com/o/Target...&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS

From their you can put together a strategy for your SEO. 

Watch this video for a better understanding.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhjOnZlEygg[/media]


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## brenden (Dec 11, 2008)

Hi AliDec,

I'm not 100% if by "keywords on a few different pages" you were referring to the <meta name="keywords" content="blah"> tag. If so I would not stress too much about this at all. The meta keyword and also description tags have not been use for ranking by search engines for many years. The simple reason behind this is people lie in their keywords. This meta tag is hidden from public view so they stuff keywords that do not relate to their site in this section hoping it will drive more traffic to their site. This was commonly used by malicious websites such as adult and gambling sites, or sites that earned a few cents per visit by advertising. Therefore, Google, for example, stopped using meta description and meta keywords in ranking in 2009.

Description is also no longer used in ranking for the similar reason as keywords. It can be used as a preview of your site in Google IF your website does not contain enough useful structured text for Google to grab automatically. But, the content is not used to rank you higher.

I wrote a blog post about this which you might find interesting: The myth of

In particular, watch this video from Google's Matt Cutts explaining why they don't use it anymore. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK7IPbnmvVU[/media]

Keywords are important in terms of general content. In other words, having real text on your page relating to the topic you want to attract people for. As a t-shirt printer you'd be talking about printing, and your products, prices, quality, etc. Google is getting very good at keyword stuffing so avoid obvious overuse of a term but do consider possible alternative uses. i.e. "t shirt" vs. "tee". You never know if someone might type "t shirt printing" vs "tee printing".

It's also not important to have your home page stuffed with lots of text. Google doesn't just look at your homepage, it will look at all your pages if it has links to it which is the most important aspect of your site - Links that is.

Make dedicated pages about your products and services. i.e. do a dedicated printing page and dedicated embroidery page if you do those services. Talk about them in detail in original content. Don't fall into the trap of copying text from another site and modifying it for yourself. Google will know its a duplicate and rank you down for it. So write original text about the content and list it have it on the page. Try to use human friendly urls like www.yoursite.com/pages/printing instead of www.yoursite.com?pageid=2927239. URL's containing the keyword help as well.

Finally back to links: You want to ensure all your pages on your site have links to them as without links Google cannot find them. There is a myth that Google can eventually find your page by itself. It wont. It will only find your page through the help of a link. The process known as crawling is when the Google bot (spider) crawls from one website link to another. When it locate a new page it has not been on before it adds that page content to its database. It then looks to see how many sites link to that page. If a lot of sites link to that page Google assumes it must be a great page, otherwise why would people link to it? Therefore, Google ranks it higher.

So where possible work on links to your site. Use links as part of your discount strategy. If a company wants a discount then kindly ask for a link from their site to your site. That will drive Google what is called Google Juice from their site to your site. Google will see that a site links to you so you must be alright. If they see lots Google things you must be great. The greater Google thinks you are, the higher you will rank. But, do not link back to these sites. This nulls out any Google Juice you might get. People in the late 90's and early 00's used to do what was called Link Exchange. 'You link to me and I will link to you' in a hope it will increase both ranks. Well, this is fake linking. Someone is not linking to you because they think you are great, but because you were both trying to benefit from it. So Google ignores those. Keep the links one way and make them legitimate.

So I recommend a footer on your site that contain's links to common or important pages on your website. You can see an example of our footer on our DecoNetwork.com website. We broke it up into sections to help the humans that might need it, but its main purpose is for the search engine bots to locate those links and follow them to the page.

Also, ensure you have a site map! A site map is usually a XML document that contains all your site links. i.e. demo.deconetwork.com/sitemap.xml. You can generate one using many site map generation tools. Places this sitemap.xml file into your root directory of your site as mentioned above then submit this sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools. This sitemap is basically a directory of your pages on you site and by submitting this to Google you are essentially telling Google "Here is my entire site". This can fasttrack the time for Google to index your site and get you listed quicker. It wont increase your rank as that is determined by the number of links to your site and how good your content is.

A final tip would be to submit your website to Google places (Places for Business ? Google). It is free and a quick and easy way to list your site. This is important as many people who search for services on the web also include their local town or city. i.e. "t shirt printing sydney". By using a town or city most of the time Google shows the Google Places for Business entries first, and then organic search results later.

Sorry for the content overload but hope that helps


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## strike3sports (Jun 24, 2013)

Do a link exchange with other websites. That can help a little bit and every little bit helps. Good Luck


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## codyjoe (May 6, 2013)

I only see one option here since you state that there's no time to work on the SEO yourself. That option is to hire an SEO firm. I would do a Google search for SEO firms and figure out who will be your best option. We've gone with local SEO experts before and they both have done some great work but if you're looking to start getting some major results then reach out to a successful firm and see what type of program they can put together for you.


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## brenden (Dec 11, 2008)

strike3sports said:


> Do a link exchange with other websites. That can help a little bit and every little bit helps. Good Luck


Keep in mind link exchanges doesn't help your search engine ranking. It might get you a few clicks through from the other site but it wont help your site rank higher. This is because you have linked back to them and in Google's view that nulls out the importance of the link you received.


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## matildajane (Jul 4, 2013)

Dont build spam links, make sure that backlinks must be quality.


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## ShruteeCamp (May 11, 2013)

I have the same issue on SEO... this is a nice thread


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## MarStephenson761 (Sep 19, 2011)

Hi Alina,

What's your website address? happy to take a quick look


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## AliDec (Sep 26, 2010)

MarStephenson761 said:


> Hi Alina,
> 
> What's your website address? happy to take a quick look


Home page

Thanks and let me know what you think


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

AliDec said:


> Home page
> 
> Thanks and let me know what you think


Your title of your website is Home page. That is a problem. Your title of each page should describe what is on it. Also, the taxonomy of the site will influence how the search engines catalog your site. Your Mens Fashion has a file name of corporate-t-shirts.html. They should match. 

Start by fixing your titles on each page and make sure you have a directory tree that makes sense. You can learn a lot by looking at sites you think are well laid out and using the same strategy.

Register with the search engines. It doesn't guarantee anything but will get them moving on cataloging your site. 

Start a blog, facebook page, google + and so on with links to your site. All of these things will help you out.


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## Gambit (Apr 8, 2011)

Question for Brendan .... Just read your post and wanted to thank you for the great SEO info. I had a question about links to my site to help with google ranking. I understand that it's not a good thing to have your site linked with another site and having that site link back to you. " link exchange "

My thought here is more about Facebook .... I had a idea of asking all my Facebook fans to help promote my website by posting my web address on there facebook page for there friends to see my address " kinda like a word of mouth" in exchange for that we would give them a free t-shirt... Kinda like a bribe but most people would like a free t shirt.

So my question is would this help my google ranking say if 75 face book pages posted my website link ? Just trying to see if this would have any weight on google ranking before I start doing it.


Looking forward to your input !

Thanks mark


http://getprintedshirts.com/


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## Gambit (Apr 8, 2011)

Well after searching a little I found this ... And it makes seem my great idea just might not work as well. If someone posts my web address link on there face book page but there profile isn't set to public ...well google can't see that link I guess if link building was easy we all would be on page one ... Any case great video from Matt Cutts http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=relmfu&v=UxTmZulcQZ0


http://getprintedshirts.com/


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## MarStephenson761 (Sep 19, 2011)

Okay, first of all, you're in a REALLY competitive space, so search rank is hard to come by, and there's NO WAY to list everything you can do to rank higher, but I can give you a few ideas here:

Content - There's just not enough to your site for Google to find and be excited about sharing. You've got a spot for blog posts on your site. Do a 500 word post at least once a week with a few key phrases that apply to your business - like "UK X-Rated Tees". There's a science to picking these, so you'll need to do a little homework.

Links - You need to have more websites and social media spots linking back to your site. Start a Google+ page and Twitter or Instagram account and work that a little every day. Google sees these links back to your site and counts you as more interesting. 

Video - make one or two, post them on youtube with some good links in the description. Then use them in blog posts and put them on your new social media accounts. They don't have to be great, just make them 3 minutes + and interesting enough to watch. Maybe some footage of you doing t-shirts, talking about the business, etc.

Anyway, there's lots to do, but I think you should really focus on local, local, local business. So whatever you do make sure you use the name of your town, city, country, etc.


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## brenden (Dec 11, 2008)

Hi Gambit,

Sorry I missed your post the other day. Just saw it now  So here is my reply.

The short answer is no. The reason is because of a little thing call "nofollow". Facebook doesn't want their platform to be spammed with links so they have enforced all links with a "nofollow" which tells search engines to not follow and basically ignore any links on their page. Also, as the other posted suggested, most Facebook pages are not public so just wont get picked up by search engines.

However, that's not to say having your link in Facebook is bad. It's awesome! But, I would aim to get people to Like your Facebook page more than just visiting your site. The big reason is continual engagement. If the person just visits their page you don't know who they are and they may never come back. However, if they like your Facebook page then you know exactly who they are and they have then invited you to share your posts with them. Win win.

A method for this is encouraging the person to post a photo of them with a product you created for them (printed tee, etc) and post that photo on YOUR Facebook page. You can encourage them also do post a message like "Like and share this company who created this great t-shirt for me!". The reason you want them to post on YOUR facebook page is your page will get content generated by your users, and if one of their friends like the photo then they are liking something on your page. Plus, their friends will get a direct link to your page. You can offer then a promo code by private message after the photo is posted. But getting your customers to share your work on your own facebook page is a great way to encourage likes and also to show other potential customers who many happy customers you really have.

But all that said still think local. Make sure you've created a Google Places page because still the vast, vast majority of searches for products and services on the web is a local search. Again, a search including a product or service AND a location. i.e. "t shirt printing sydney". The majority of these search results are driven from Google places.

Shout if you have any more questions!

Brenden


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## codyjoe (May 6, 2013)

I agree with everyone else, hire an SEO firm to start working on your site ASAP.

Now if you want to take a cheaper approach you can put your money into Google AdWords and make sure it's focused on the correct keywords for what you're specializing in.

Alternatively, there's the free method that takes much more time and that's doing this yourself. Now I want to make this known right now, SEO isn't something that you can simply spend 40-hours one week on and call it good. It's an effort that requires attention virtually everyday. So with that said, here are the biggest tips that most SEO specialists will recommend.

1.) Make sure the title of every web-page accurately represents the keywords you want to target and also have a different title for every page on your website. Page descriptions are actually no longer ranked by Google but are a good information center for people to read as they're browsing through the Google search results.

2.) Header tags are extremely important. There are essentially small bits of code (

) that should be used on EVERY webpage and blog posting that help explain to the search engines what your page is about. Because Google no longer looks at tags on pages (people just spam tags too often now so they ignore them) they've instead turned their attention towards header tags to determine what your website is about.

3.) Alt-tags. Every time you add an image, make sure it has a title, alternative title, and description. Search engines cannot see images so they need this information to know what they're seeing.

4.) Blog posts are extremely important and you should make it a mission to post twice a week on your site using the tips above.

5.) Try and be active on social media as it can be a great way to gain traffic to your site once you gain a legitimate following. Currently Google+ seems to be the only social media site ranked in Google's search engine but that seems to be slowly changing as the plan is form them to start featuring more and more social media accounts that are linked to your website(s).

6.) Use videos, specifically YouTube. The reason is that Google often relays videos (only from YouTube) in their search results and this can be a great way to gain exposure right at the top of the list.


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## Gambit (Apr 8, 2011)

Thanks for everyone's great input my new site is done and pointed to my profile domain name. It's a joomla 2.5 CMS site featuring a sobipro data base that I linked up with bodek and Rhodes online design program. It also has some custom scripts that I had a front end developer make for me so a visitor can select a product, change the shirt color zoom in for a detail view then open that selected product in the design program. The site just went live today but it has been about a year or so developing. I'm running a joomla component call mijosef that handles most of the on page SEO like search engine friendly urls, meta tags, descriptions, title, site map and image tags. Still adding SEO info on that part. I'm going to add google analytics and webmaster tools code this week. So again it's still in the works

But I wanted to thank all of you on your SEO input I read everything I can on SEO and try to get things in the right direction.

Again thanks

Mark


http://getprintedshirts.com/


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## Tiago Ribeiro (Aug 1, 2013)

Hire an SEO executive for 3 months.

To make the site SEO friendly one. 
Even users will find it easy to search the site based on the keywords
Build up quality backlinks 
Have a active participation in SMM 
Optimize the site better


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## ronyraskhit (Jul 31, 2013)

you can hire a SEO consultant to get advice . .


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