Looking for a SEO review

[billybrag]

hi my site Sharps Books has been up for a couple of weeks and im trying to get it noticed, so any comments on it are greatly appreciated

 

i am looking mainly for SEO tips, ie what to change/add

 

thanks for the help

:)

[Jack_mcs]

Here are a few things you should change:

 

The first thing you should do is arrange includes/header_tags.php so that the title for each page is displayed properly. The code for the title in HTC is

    $the_title= HEAD_TITLE_TAG_ALL . ' ' . HEAD_TITLE_TAG_DEFAULT . " " . $the_category['categories_name'] . $the_manufacturers['manufacturers_name'];

so the title of the page comes after the title of the shop. It should be the other way around

    $the_title= HEAD_TITLE_TAG_DEFAULT . ' ' . HEAD_TITLE_TAG_ALL . " " . $the_category['categories_name'] . $the_manufacturers['manufacturers_name'];

This will give a more unique name to your titles.

 

From there, the heading on your page should match the title (at least the first part of it) and that heading should be enclosed in a bold H1 tag.

 

Your main keyword appears to be bookshop. Yet, you don't have that word at all on your home page. Whatever your keyword or phase is, should be repeated as much as possible in the text.

 

HTH,

Jack

[billybrag]

thanks jack,

thats just the kind of thing i am after,

 

i will be making the changes this evening,

 

more suggestions are always welcome.

[billybrag]

i have sorted a few things now, but i am still after any importat nuggets of information?

 

cheers, like the validation question? is it worth it or not?

[Gazonice]

Hi,

 

I checked out your site and found the following:

 

When I went to create an account ? it was not secure, I was entering my personal details on an open connection. This applied to checking my account and the checkout process. When I got to the sign up success page ? priviledges is spelt wrong. There is also a spelling mistake in the welcome email (yo.. instead of you).

 

The sign up was smooth but a lot of countries to scroll through ? I deleted all the countries I wasn?t going to ship to on my cart.

 

I also noticed an order was added to my account even though I bombed out at the PayPal level.

 

I hope I don?t sound too picky but these are things that reduce my confidence when buying online.

 

Regards,

 

Garry

[billybrag]

cheers garry,

 

I also noticed an order was added to my account even though I bombed out at the PayPal level.

 

i dont know how to change this, all i have done is installed the paypal ipn contrib, do you know how to fix this?

[Gazonice]

Hi,

 

I am not using the PayPal IPN contribution ? I am using the original PayPal Cont. but I have set my PayPal account to automatically redirect back to the cart once payment has been made ? I understand the IPN mod creates the order before sending the client to PayPal.

 

I have noticed the spelling mistake in the New Account Success page on a few carts (mine included) ? this can be corrected by editing languages/english/create_account_success.php

 

Best Regards,

 

Garry

[billybrag]

thanks again garry,

 

i have changed the stuff that you have said, im just concerned about the ssl thing because my hosts wont allow me to set one up or install one, is this going to be a major problem?

 

thanks for the hel though

[Jack_mcs]

cheers garry,

 

I also noticed an order was added to my account even though I bombed out at the PayPal level.

 

i dont know how to change this, all i have done is installed the paypal ipn contrib, do you know how to fix this?

I don't know what is causing this but PayPal_IPN has a test mode that should help find what is wrong. The support for this contribution is also very good so you may want to ask on that thread if you can't figure it out.

 

Jack

[billybrag]

thanks for the reply jack,

 

more iis always welcome

[♥yesudo]

If you can set up pages giving info on the authors(bio or any other stuff you can find on the web or elsewhere) - as this will add content which search engines love and should thus help ranking e.g.:

 

[billybrag]

i did think of this, but will it contravine any copyrights etc?

[♥yesudo]

i did think of this, but will it contravine any copyrights etc?

copyrights ?

 

 

if u are getting stuff of the web - see if the author has their own site and mail em.

[billybrag]

well what i mean is, i dont really have time to go through and type each review up by hand, i thought abpout finding reviews, comments bios etc online and ctr+c, ctr+v

 

:)

[♥MYC267]

If you do not have SSL then close shop now. Having an SSL to protect your customers details is absolutely essential for any commerce site dealing with personal information.

[billybrag]

i was under the impression that the ssl stuff was only necessary for use with cc?

 

my host wont allow ssl stuff and i cant afford to switch hosts, so i am unfortunatly stuck

[Jack_mcs]

Mike - the certificate is used to protect sensitive information. Without it, the data your customer enters, like phone numbers and addresses, are at jeporady of theft. I was in the same situation as you and ran my site for about three months without a certificate. I did receive orders. Although I had many people sign up and then not place an order. Whether this was because they realized I didn't have ssl or not is not possible to say. I have had a certificate now for a few weeks and haven't seen any difference. But that is not enough time to judge.

 

Jack

[billybrag]

is there a way that i can get some kind of remote certificate? (i have just made that idea up i think), its just that my hosts wont budge about the whole affair,

 

thanks though jack for the input, i do really want an ssl cert, its just starting to become too expensive to switch hosts,

[Jack_mcs]

AFAIK, there are two kinds of certificates - a private one and a shared one. The shared one is provided by the host. You basically use theirs at no cost. If your host doesn't have this option either, then you are out of luck. Have you looked around though for other hosts? I don't know what you are paying now, but you can get a basic setup starting at around $5/month. Of course, the server may not be the fastest and the diskspace/bandwidth is limited, but you should be able to find one that offers shared-ssl and it might fit your needs. Just a thought.

 

Jack

[billybrag]

i will bear that in mind, thanks jack

 

i just wish that when i chose them that i knew what i do now!

 

damn you hindsight

[billybrag]

i will bear that in mind, thanks jack

 

i just wish that when i chose them that i knew what i do now!

 

damn you hindsight

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

just as an update i am still getting relativly low traffic to the site so any more suggestions wouldnt go a miss,

[Jack_mcs]

What is your keyword(s) for the home page? I am assuming it is bookshop since that is the first word in your meta keyword tag. The amount of searches for that word is tremendous and you are not indexed in the top 1000 for google so it is unlikely too many people are finding you. Your best bet would be to research different keywords and try optimizing your page for that.

 

Jack

[billybrag]

it was yes, however i recently decided to chane it to "second hand books"

 

do i optimise each page, and therefor product individually,

 

and the big thing i am considering is switching servers as i have discussed with you before, so that i have secure pages for personal info.

 

do you think this is a good step?

[Jack_mcs]

That phase has a lot few searches done on it but still quite a few so it may be a good choice. Yes, when you optimize your site, what you are actually doing is optimizing every page. And each page should have its own keyword(s). So if someone searches for "second hand books" they are directed to your home page. But if they are searching for "wholesale books," for example, they would be directed to your http://www.mysite.com/wholesale-books.php page.

 

The certificate is probably a good idea.

 

Jack