How do you fair in SEO?
 

Folks, I'm really underperforming in terms of search engines.

Page 7 for 'wedding video northern ireland'. Who on earth is going to go as far as page 7!

Pretty much being held back because I'm not ranked - probably as a result of not enough backlinks.

Has anyone used any methods to achieve backlinks?

Or should I just wait it out for people to talk about me and boost my online presence.

It really is an infuriating topic!

Re: How do you fair in SEO?
 

Hi Clive

I administer several websites of varying purposes. I have found recently that there seems to be a shift in the way Google is ranking pages. The release of the new Hummingbird algorithm seems to be the biggest change recently, so I am holding that responsible.

What I have found is that my Facebook and Vimeo pages which have the same name as my URL actually rank higher than my home page, by one or two. So it may be worth having a vimeo and Facebook and even a youtube account as well with the same name as your URL and see if that helps your rankings. You may even try a blog on your site as these are generally also quite Google friendly.

Google hasn't really used links for a while once the whole "link farm" thing got out several years ago. Then it was keywords till everyone overdid that. Then it was text based content, which is why blogs were good, but now it has changed again, because my blog doesn't rate.

Anyone else got some thoughts?

Re: How do you fair in SEO?
 

The typical starting point a combination of:
1)backlinks from websites (I use free listing wedding websites, mostly but an article posted that links back to you is great)
2) text content on your website. This gives the search engines lots to read and info on how to rank you. A blog is great for this. So are idea and information articles. (what to look for when hiring a videographer; how to schedule your wedding day; tips for better pictures and video, et al)
3) New content. Blog and articles also help with this.
4) social media. Facebook and Twitter and everything else acheive both backlinks and traffic. Like Tim said, have Vimeo and Facebook pages that point back to your website. Everytime you post something online, it gets posted and linked to on all your platforms. Start an instagram account where, if you see something interesting at a wedding, post it (hey, check out these amazing centerpieces!...)
5) traffic. More traffic means more credibility. I saw our stats spike the week we doubled our traffic - we directed everyone from a wedding photo booth through our website/blog to find the photo gallery.

These are all things you can manage yourself. Devote 30 minutes a week to it and you'll see large dividends after a few weeks. I use the free info on Website Review - SEO Tool | WooRank.com to get some more ideas.

RNB Wedding Video

Re: How do you fair in SEO?
 

Try simplifying the title tag on your home page, e.g. Wedding Videographer in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Re: How do you fair in SEO?
 

we found that blogs appeared in the first few places in google search if you have them active, with comments and tag them well

Re: How do you fair in SEO?
 

Can you explain how to have Vimeo pages etc. point back to your site? Where can you create links on Vimeo?

Re: How do you fair in SEO?
 

In the descriptions.

another tip: Have page names match content and title of the page. For instance, "How-to-Hire-Videographer.html"

Re: How do you fair in SEO?
 

Another tip: don't pay anybody for links, ever.

Re: How do you fair in SEO?
 

Ah. When you're talking about page titles, you're talking about on the site itself, not Vimeo right?

Re: How do you fair in SEO?
 

Correct. So your website might have pages labeled as:
index.html
wedding_film_examples.html
How_to_hire_a_videographer.html
Videographer_pricing.html
Wedding_Videographer_blog.html

You can also do something similar with Vimeo video titles: "Sally and Scott's Wedding Film Example" make's sure that a searchable term (wedding film example) appears and makes it more likely a random searcher will find it, as well as making that term appear on your webpage if you are embedding the video.

*Make sure you are signed up for Google Local. It means that when someone uses an incredibly broad search term: "wedding videos" for instance; Google shows local results first, before showing broader national/international results. Bing also has this, though I haven't done it yet.