My SEO results

retired_member27 · Apr 22, 2006

First off I must point out that I know absolutely nothing about SEO.

My website "opposite.com" is always in the top 20 for google.com and in the top 10 for google.co.uk for the search term "custom software" with or without quotes. The header I use is:

<head>
<title>Opposite Software</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="opposite.com, opposite software, custom software programming, database development">
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
</head>

Right, about three months ago I thought I would tweak it a bit to increase the position, I then spent a couple of hours reading up on proper SEO techniques from various well known SEO websites. So basically I left the body exactly as it was but changed the header to the following:

<head>
<title>Opposite Software</title>
<meta name="description" content="Opposite Software is a custom software development and programming company, providing expert development of custom software applications and bespoke programming services">
<meta name="keywords" content="custom software, small business software, custom application development, custom software development, database development, database design, custom programming, outsourcing software development, outsourcing services, software development company, web application development">
<meta name="subject" content="Opposite Software is a Sydney, Australia based software development and programming company, providing expert development of custom software applications and bespoke programming services">
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
</head>

And then I waited a month before checking the new positioning. I was shocked to find that my position had dropped to well below 100 on google.com, so I immediately changed it back to the original header and within a week it had gone back up to position 15 or so.

My question is, what is wrong with the second header when it explains my website so much better than the first, and can the first header be improved in any way?

BFTUK · Apr 22, 2006

I'm no expert either but i believe that you may have used the term Custom Software in your meta tags a few too many times and google thought you were keyword spamming.

I would still add a meta description tag to your current tags, just be careful with the wording. You need to check your keyword density aswell.

Whenever i make changes to my tags i always run the page through this tool and try to get the stats as close to 100% as possible:

http://www.submitexpress.co.uk/analyzer/

Did you change any text on the rest of the page? Was it the homepage that ranks well? I'll have a look at it later and see if i can see where any improvements can be made.

BFTUK · Apr 22, 2006

Okay, i'm looking at your homepage and it seems you've already made a few changes.

I would suggest trying the following:

Title - Change to something like - Custom Software and Programming from Opposite Software

(Its good to have the keywords at the start.)

Description - Add a description but only use the keywords once.

ALT text - Can you add ALT text to your flash header? If so use 'Custom Software' if not change ALT text on first image to this.

H1. H2 Tags - I realise your using CSS but using keywords within H1, H2 tags etc could help, they would need to be structured in the page to appear within the code in order, H1 first, H2, H3 etc and of course these might not fit i with your design etc.

Page text - You only actually use the phrase Custom Software twice in the page, its possible you might be able to use this a few more times, try to get the phrase near the top of your code and near the bottom of the code. Keep an eye on keyword density though.

Also take a look at the code for your competitors, try to see what puts them above you and better it!

I also ran your site through this tool:

www.sitereportcard.com and your page scored 6.33 / 10, you really need to be looking to score around 9 / 10.

It looks like you need to tweak your code and load speed.

I hope this helps, but please remember i'm not expert! This is just information i've picked up whilst reading articles and asking questions on other forums.

I'm a member of a small but very friendly SEO forum, www.davidcastle.org/bb, you'd be most welcome to join and seek some advice.

Edwin · Apr 22, 2006

Too much repetition of the same keywords.

retired_member27 · Apr 22, 2006

Thanks formerly known as Drizzt, your advice is very much appreciated I will make some changes over the weekend and see if the results are improved, and thanks for all the links I didn't know such useful tools existed.

BFTUK · Apr 22, 2006

This is one of my favourite tools and very handy for checking your position for different phrases.

http://www.googlerankings.com/index.php

You need to have a Google API key but there's a link on the page for you to get one.

Oh and APD, any news on sorting your whois and OV tool for use on other sites? I'd love to add it to one of my sites

retired_member27 · Apr 22, 2006

BFTUK said:
any news on sorting your whois and OV tool for use on other sites? I'd love to add it to one of my sites

Loads of people have requested it but I was just too busy and then I forgot about it.

Does your server or home pc have perl installed and has it got the following modules loaded:

IO::Socket
LWP::UserAgent
HTML::TreeBuilder

If so then it will work on your machine properly. I will put a download link on my site sometime this week.