| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| pookie |
website traffichow do you go about getting your site noticed? |
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| resistance is fertile |
Put it in your Sig? 
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| pookie |
I have that already, was meaning out of the cosy home that is Downsizer 
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| resistance is fertile |
Sorry, bit of a cheap gag
I'm no expert, but I think you need to always find a side door into your target market. If you can approach your core buyers from an new angle you will stand out. Have you contacted, 'birthday surprise' type organisers, florists, gift shops etc with the idea of an order/token of some sort that books a delivery. Sometimes you can give another business a good idea that will help them to help you, everyone is looking for sales afterall. Could you also do a 'friends and family' deal where people pre order so that they never forget a birthday, its not like they cant give you the dates in advance. |
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| ros |
get DS-ers to copy a link to facebook etc?
will do that now if you like
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| pookie |
aww thanks guys! keep the ideas coming too please 
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| orangepippin |
I had a quick look at your site. There are basically 2 things you need to do - structure the content of the site so that search engines have something to get stuck into, and secondly, get some good inbound links from authorative sites.
On the first point, you don't have that many pages - try adding a few more. One thing you could do would be to add categories and then have a page per cake rather than listing them all one one page. On the second point, you have a link from DS, but I can't see any others. Try to get 5-10 good inbound links. If you could get a link from some other food websites, or a food magazine website that would help. It is probably the lack of links that is the biggest problem right now. |
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| vickersdc |
Quite a few people recommend the use of Google AdWords - it does have the beauty that you can set the monthly budget and the geographic locations that will receive your advert.
What is it? If you do a Google search, have you noticed the sponsored links on the right hand side of the screen? They are the ads created by AdWords. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a huge subject of its own! Google "AdWords" to find out more. |
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| Paul Sill |
The site doesn't fit on my screen correctly, its to wide and i have to scroll across to see everything. SEO is quite an art, you can spend ages trying to get it right. Sign up for a google webmaster account it will give you traffic stats and crawl stats. | ||||
| Fee |
Who's your target market?
Are you looking to increase local delivery customers more than a UK-wide market, or vice versa? Have you looked into the wedding/celebration directory websites, and possibility of getting listed on those? I've done a site for a friend doing very similar to you, Pookie, and she's had a massive increase in local custom through the website, so I can give you a few pointers there. Google Local Business is a good place to start for local searchers. |
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| pookie |
Thanks everyone. I will look at each of your suggestions, much appreciated.
I'm looking really to branch out uk wide rather than local. I am in an very rural area, with high unemployment, so posting cakes as gifts, much like you would send flowers/chocs seems the best option. thanks again,
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| Palms |
I am also reading with interest - had http://www.jacksdevon.co.uk registered for a couple of months, but can't get the darn thing indexed by google 
Will try the above, but if anyone has any more pearls of wisdom, would appreciate the help! |
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| pookie |
It looks really lovely! See, getting on here has brought some traffic!
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| colour it green |
have some key words and phrases that are exactly about your product on the front page helps with search engines
swap links with other sites time - my little website - which is just for me really, I'm not selling anything, is gradually building more and more hits as time goes on. |
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| Palms |
Thanks Pookie, done for family in my spare time, but frustrating that google not picked up yet. I've registered it on the free webmaster tools portal, submitted it for indexing & uploaded the sitemaps but had not any 'bots a'calling! CIG, We only have a link from one other website - we haven't done any reciprical links yet - so maybe that's the reason. Thanks!! |
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| colour it green |
the more your site is linked.. particularly by well used sites, the higher the google ranking (i think thats how it works)
but i think you do have to link to sites that you approve of or are relevant, or people get cynical |
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| jema |
Google does its best to discount fake links, e.g. ones not done because a link is a good thing. In fact all tricks to try and get google results are prone to being defeated by better search engine algorithms.
The best tips remain: 1) Plenty of pages of keyword rich content, including in page titles and headers. 2) Getting genuine outside links. |
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| OtleyLad |
Nice site!
I always like to see a physical address though-somehow its more re-assuring. The best boost I ever got to traffic and sales for my Vegetable Gardeners Almanac software was a (positive) write up on a related gardening forum/website. The write up was a complete page with a few pics and also a discount code (I think it was 20%). It was a really busy site and my orders literally quadrupled over night. So I would look around for a really busy site that does reviews of food/local producers and see if you can talk to them about some kind of deal (like a % discount for their visitors or even a % to them). It does need to be a busy site though - not one that just claims to be busy (there are a lot of those)! Best of luck! |
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| jocorless |
You also need keywords and description in your html page headers - whilst they aren't used as often by google as they used to be - they are still a valid SEO tool
Take a look at this site http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/ For instance I noticed that Jacks Cottage has keywords on the first page and a description but nothing on the other pages - thats a mistake because if the google bots wander past they won't know what your other pages do - At the bare minimum a description is useful Also you need to be listed in other sites - Put "self catering devon" into a search engine and you don't appear but lots of aggregate sites are listed and they can work for you - if you register with them - some obviously charge but others don't Type in "Jacks Self Catering Devon" and you do appear so Google does have you listed HTH |
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| Palms |
Thanks for this Jo. Managed to get indexed in the end, not sure what it was that did it (tried so many things!!). Will take a look at the things you suggested as I hadn't thought beyond the front page really.
I did see Jack's pop up if you search for one of the pubs listed - a cool side effect I hadn't thought of... One thing I would recommend to anyone with a website though is google analytics - I am slightly obessed with the metrics even with small amounts of traffic 
Maybe I'm just nosey! |
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| Emyr |
Posting the address to some blogs won't work because some blogging software will add the NOFOLLOW attribute to all unaproved outgoing links.
Links with blocks of relevant text above and below are more valuable. Having relevant words in the link also helps, but if you make it too long, the crawler will decide you're taking the mickey. If Google hasn't stumbled upon your site yet, consider submitting an XML Sitemap. |
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| Calli |
Add a blog!
Every time you blog ( update the content of your website to the bots ) you get revisited and it never hurts to keep all the bots up to date with your content for SEO. Relevant and authentic content is all important, along with authentic backlinks ( sorry  )Never ever buy back links - Google ain't stoopid and works non stop to eradicate the short cuts
Have you analytics on your site? That will tell you all you need to know. Your bounce rate has nothing to do with your secret trampoline ability (Although a viral you tube campaign never hurts )
Basically look at your potential customer base ( not demographics but by interests ) and go seek them out in the socalled social media.... |