# Where should my site rank after 6 months?



## poezoe (Jul 10, 2012)

Hello,

I have had my site up and running for 6 months, I have setup my site using every known SEO advice, match my keywords, alt tag my photos, match my headings, all that stuff.

I have submitted my site to search engines and can see that they have been crawled and I change my content regularly, but I when I go to search my keywords on a search engine I give up looking after 10 or so pages since most customers don't look that far.

Any advice on why I can place in the top 2 or 3 pages? I am using both general and niche keywords on my site and don't show up for anything....


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

just remember there are over 1,000,000 hits when one does a search for custom tee shirts...that means all can't be in top 10...And very few people get up each day with the driving thought of 'gotta buy a tee' This business is not a 6 month to success enterprise.


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## GordonM (May 21, 2012)

First check that you're in Google's index:

site:www.example.com

All or nearly all of the pages of your site indexed by Google should be listed. 

(You ARE listing, but things like the title of your main page adds virtually no SEO value. The only keyword there people might use is "Irish dancers," and that has to be so generic and competitive you can't hope to get into the top-30. Other page titles have just one word, like Keychain. You have no hope of ranking for that. You're using the description field for some very competitive keywords. On Keychain -- you also have a separate page Keychains -- you're trying to rank for 'irish Dance keychains." Ain't gunna happen. Type that in and see who your main competitor is: Zazzle. If you want to rank for 'irish Dance keychains' use it as or in your page title. That'll at least give you a fighting chance, though it by no means will guarantee you'll rank in the first few pages.)

One thing to consider is that with all the alt tags etc. you may have over-optimized. Don't guess at it. If you haven't already, get a Webmaster Tools account, add your site, and see what Google says about it.

In the end, these days it does not matter as much what you say on your site, but what others say. Work on getting *quality* links to your site. These links cannot be from link farms or simple link lists. They need to be on sites that have good and similar content.

When reviewing sites to list from be conscious of the form of the link. You have a link to your site in your signature, but on this forum -- like many forums -- the link is wrapped in a JavaScript function that Google virtually ignores ("virtually" in that it gives such a link very little weight). You want to get links from quality sites where your domain is hard-coded in the HTML, and preferably with descriptive anchor text. This anchor text includes the keyword(s) you're trying to rank on.


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

Charles is right - the days of putting up a site, doing some SEO and getting in the top 10 pages is long gone. Unless you have a niche market SEO is highly overated as you can spend a small fortune and never sniff the top 100 pages. If you are not in the top 3 pages it is virtually useless.


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## poezoe (Jul 10, 2012)

Thanks guys, especially Charles, it's tough because there is so much conflicting info and its always changing. I guess I will try to go and tidy things up.

The thing with my site is that I am in a very specific niche, and I think I can break into most of the keywords if I do it right, the problem is getting it right!


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## HostMyPrint (Dec 5, 2012)

Here are you top 5 keywords on your site.
Keyword	Count Percent 
angry 5 3.18% 
shamrock 5 3.18% 
irish 5 3.18% 
home 3 1.91%
gear 3 1.91%

Your site doesn't seem to have any keyword with density over 4%.
That's a problem. Work on targeted keyword for you niche market and build up higher density for those keyword.

Hope that helps.


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## poezoe (Jul 10, 2012)

Maybe I am a bit confused, no wait I am fully confused!

So say I put keywords on my page like irish dance t-shirts, I was under the impression that it took that as a phrase "irish dance t-shirt" and not that it was 3 keywords like irish and dance and t shirt.

I was also under the impression that if I wrote the keyword phrase "irish dance t-shirt" and set up the rest of the page to match it and make it relevant, and then someone went to google and typed in "irish dance t-shirt" that it would be a 100% match, and I would rank pretty high for that phrase, am I missing something?


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## GordonM (May 21, 2012)

It's not at all true that you can't rank. You can. You just have to do it properly. Most books and articles on SEO were written before the latest Google algorithm changes, which place added emphasis on time-on-site and quality backlinks. That said, there is no rhyme or reason to your keyword effort.

You need to first redo your page titles, descriptions, and first two paragraphs of every page in a way that they work together. The page name for your Keychain(s) page is just Keychains. That doesn't do you a bit of good.

Once you have beefed up your keywords you can get some quality backlinks so that Google thinks more highly of your site. You can also add videos and other rich content to your pages to increase time-on-site. Get the Webmaster Tools and look at your bounce rate. If more than around 60% of your visitors leave in the first 30 seconds Google will pass you by. You have the benefit of a visual subject matter (dancing, not keychains), so I'd start with that. Work your product into the videos in some clever way.


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## HostMyPrint (Dec 5, 2012)

Agree with GordonM on the implementation.
I would also suggest you to start with one unique keyword like "Irish Dance T-Shirt".

Build your SEO as suggested above on one single keyword. If you are doing it right, you will see progress every week. Once you have a better understanding, you will have a good idea on how to re-engineer your site to help Google index it better.

Hope that helps.


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## poezoe (Jul 10, 2012)

I am getting there, I redid the whole site in keywords and matching content.

I was under the misunderstanding that the search keywords were most important and followed up by some of the same words dispersed throughout the title, h1 tags, content etc. 

My problem is that I thought google and yahoo looked at the site as a whole and as long as things meshed between the whole site that i could just throw keywords everywhere and they would pick them all up. I didn't realize that google treats each page individually and it all has to jive within that one page.

Thanks for the help and hopefully it will help other like me who are in the same boat!


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## selanac (Jan 8, 2007)

The other thing to include is your town names, state, region etc. in the Meta Files (head section of your website). 

Also, just like you did here including your website in the Profile, you should do on several Irish forums. Also, place a couple ads on Craigslist, ebay classifieds, etc. Do that every week. 

Do all the social media sites. 

Post on other forums. Maybe once a day keep in touch, post post post. 

There's hundreds and possibly thousands of Irish shops. Get a list and ask to have your t-shirts sold there. I know of a few consignment Irish shops in my neck of the woods.


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## poezoe (Jul 10, 2012)

My niche is irish dancing, its very competitive dancing for mostly under 18 crowd, and it has nothing to do with bars and drinking (unfortunately)

I am online only, there is a huge market across the world, but most places locally don't have enough support to try and work into that. (There are some dancers that drive 60 to 90 minutes just to go to practice!)


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## selanac (Jan 8, 2007)

poezoe said:


> (There are some dancers that drive 60 to 90 minutes just to go to practice!)


That's why you need to put it in as many areas as possible. Including Irish shops around the country.


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## poezoe (Jul 10, 2012)

Just as an update, I did most of the things you guys has mentioned last week and I just checked and I am first page on google for irish dance shirts and irish dance tshirts

great advice!! still have lots to do but I do truly appreciate the help!


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## HostMyPrint (Dec 5, 2012)

Fantastic, I see it, nice work!
Just couple more notes, make sure you don't fill your site with thousands of other keywords beyond your niche market, otherwise you will lose ranking on your most important keywords.
Also make sure you install some type of analytics software on your site. Better data will make better judgement.

Hope that helps.


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## hinytiny (Dec 19, 2012)

it depends on the way with the SERP page number


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## johnbol1 (Aug 19, 2010)

poezoe said:


> Just as an update, I did most of the things you guys has mentioned last week and I just checked and I am first page on google for irish dance shirts and irish dance tshirts
> 
> great advice!! still have lots to do but I do truly appreciate the help!


Glad its going well but also to mention, if you have visited the site before and google knows this by either your signed in or your browser cache, it is more likely to show you that page in its results as it thinks it is more relevant to you. To get a truer indication, clear the browser cache before you search for the page and make sure your not signed in to google account.

John


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## rosieswift (Dec 25, 2012)

analyze your website and found you have done good job doing onpage seo but _still your website need lot of work and here are some tips to get better ranking and users.

first you have to change the design of your website with showing some of your products as right now its looks like one page site.

Second things is PR and your website have PR 0 try to increase it but getting links from high PR/_quality websites 

Try to promote your website using google adword for keyword's which bring you nice visitors


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

Here are some thoughts:

For the landing page:
Add more information in the title bar. 
Add more information on main page. Use as many of the words that people would search for there like a story. irishdancediva dot com came up first in my search. Look at that site and see what is different about yours. 

Specifically:
Title: Irish Dance Wear | Irish Dance Shorts, Irish Wigs, Irish Dancing Bags, Irish Jewellery, Costumes and Clothing from Irish Dance Diva | Melbourne Australia
"description" content="Irish Dance Diva - buy your Irish dance clothing, accessories,jewellery and costumes. Fantastic range of clothing, Dance Irish Shorts, Socks, Bags, gifts, and all things Irish. "
"keywords" content="Irish, dancewear, Celtic Creations, Emerald Keys , Melanie Murphy, irishdancing shoes, jazz shoes,ballet pomps, tap shoes, leotards, sneakers, wigs, tiaras, hairbands, jewellery, earrings, jig shoes, glitter jazz, shoes, cardigans, outfits, dance, costumes, irish dance,childrens,adults,socks, Ballet socks,
shorts, skirts, sock glue,body glue, dimante socks, buckles"

Don't do adwords, you will get slaughtered. there were 4 big names in paid advertising at the top of the search. 

Add a blog and put it on the side or bottom of you main page. You will get ads in there competing with you but you can make money off of clickthroughs as well. 

Finally, If there are any associations or publications that are in your market then advertise with them. 

Irish dance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

I assume you are in the USA so join North American Irish Dance Federation, LLC (NAIDF)

Here is your travel schedule for 2013 to promote your site:

Feb 16, 2013 George Washington Birthday Feis Hammonton, NJ Mist of Ireland 
Mar 2, 2013 Jig by the James Feis Richmond, VA Heart of Ireland 
Apr 5–7, 2013 WIDA World Championships Düsseldorf, Germany (WIDA) 
Apr 13, 2013 Connemara Spring Fling Feis Lake Harmony, PASR Connemara 
Apr 27, 2013 Emerald Isle Academy Feis Middletown, DE Emerald Isle Academy 
May 4, 2013 Detroit FeisDetroit, MIAchill Academy
May 18, 2013 Pride of Erin Feis Philadelphia, PA Pride of Erin
May 25, 2013 Land of Lincoln Feis Springfield, IL Achill Academy
May 25, 2013 Kelly School Feis Providence, RI Kelly
Jun 15, 2013 Celtic Flame Feis Philadelphia, PA Celtic Flame 
Jun 23, 2013 Flying Irish Feis Fitchburg, MA Flying Irish 
Jun 28–Jul 1, 2013 CRDM All-Ireland Championships Killarney, Ireland (CRDM)
Jul 20 & 21, 2013 NAIDF National Championships Galloway, New Jersey NAIDF 
Oct 5, 2013 Connemara Harvest Feis Lake Harmony, PASR Connemara 
Nov 2, 2013 Houston Open Feis & Championships Houston, TX Tew Academy 
Dec 7, 2013 Mid-Atlantic Championships Ridgewood, NJ Ridgewood Irish Dance

Good luck and remember, if you really want it you need to do more than just throw up a website. Anything worth doing is worth the work.


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