SEO Software

[charlotte49er]

I need to promote my website. Are there any SEO software that doesn't cost an arm & a leg. (Or free!)

[Jbro]

SEO software does not work and has not in the past few years. All of it will only hurt your rankings and most the time Google will see it as such a negative that your site will never recover and never get ranked because you used it.

Email me a list of keywords you are trying to rank and a link to your 3 biggest competitors and I will let you know how realistic it is to get them ranked with little to no investment and let you know the best approach to take. [email protected].

[Niner National]

Like Jbro said, software to improve rankings no longer works. Software that spams the web with links used to improve your positioning but the Google algorithm update in May of last year fuged people who used this method hard.

The only type of software worth using is software that tracks errors, links, and content for your website. It will help you identify structural problems and other useful things to make sure your site is in great shape.

My company has developed some pretty awesome SEO tracking software, but right now it is still in testing phase and we may opt to only use it internally anyway. SEOMoz is probably the most common one on the market. HubSpot is pretty popular too. I don't care much for either personally, but a lot of people like them.

If you are trying to rank nationally for keywords you are likely in for an uphill climb. Ranking well locally is easier (although still hard for some very competitive industries), but ranking nationally is very difficult for brand new websites.

What is your website? Happy to offer lend my expertise.

[charlotte49er]

Here's a list of my keywords:

gold, gold supplies, metal detectors, falcon, gold cube, mining, prospecting, buckabilly, roaring camp mining, mining supplies, gold pan, paydirt, gold paydirt, sluice, sluices, miners moss, v matting, falcon, north carolina, charlotte, charlotte north Carolina, gold prospecting, , u s prospectors, prospector, pro pan, g 1 highbanker, s 1 concentrator, clean up sluice, stream sluice, river sluice, gold sluice, sluice box, gold rush, gold rush guys, gold rush supplies, gold detectors, finging gold, searching for gold, gold smelting, smelting, north caroling gold, gold in north carolina, unf, uwharrie national forest, uwharrie, reed gold mine, gold mine, loud gold mine, thermal city gold mine, cotton patch gold mine, cotton patch, minelab, whites, bounty hunter, fisher, metal detector, miners moss, vortex matting, vortex mat, gold hog mat, gold hog, vein mountain gold mine, vein mountain, garrett, tesoro, falcon, md20, md 20, gold rush guys, gold prospecting supplies, gold prospector supplies, prospector supplies, placer mining, hard rock mining, rock hammers, gold pans, gold panning, le trap sluice, le trap pan, turbo pan, gold panning, xp deus, wireless, detector pro, teknetics

Top 3 competitors:

http://www.easternusprospectingsupplies.com

http://www.carolinaprospectors.net

http://www.kellycodetectors.com

My website:

http://www.goldrushguys.com

goldrushguys.com

The Carolinas resource for Gold Prospecting supplies & Metal Detectors. Call 704-390-6081. We have Gold Cube, Turbopan, DetectorPro, XP Deus

Thanks, guys. Brian

[Delhommey]

There is no "SEO in a box" solution that will magically get you top rankings, no matter the price tag. You're either going to have to figure out how to do it yourself, or pay someone to do it for you. Regardless of what you choose, you need to figure out some things before you start.

You definitely need to get a better idea of who your client is and what they are searching for. Looking at your list of keywords, it doesn't appear you've really whittled them down at all. If you're selling or renting gold prospectin equipment, keywords like "gold", "mining", and "Charlotte, NC" are a wastes of your time. They'd require a ton of time, effort, and resources to get any type of good placement while providing you with limited value: the chances that someone Googling "gold" is looking for your product are pretty slim.

Another thing is judging where your audience is. You can get a successful local campaign up and running in 60-120 days depending on the size of the metro whereas a national campaign will require shovelsful of cash up front and probably a year (at least) to see meaningful results. Yeah it'd be great to show up for the US, but is that something that has to happen? Is the time and money spent worth it to you? (these answers may be yes).

SEO is a hard, tough slog and if done right can be very lucrative. Just like with anything, it pays for you to have a little bit of education and to be wary of anyone selling you something that's too good to be true. It also isn't a bad idea to look into something like SEM (Ad Words), but there you can get find yourself burning through thousands of dollars in a NY minute if you don't know what you're doing.

[Zod]

SEO success =

1. Informative original content rich in key words. Consider writing a blog and articles.

2. Like minded websites linking to you, making you important.

3. keywords in URL and mets tags

Conquer those three and you will do well.

[Delhommey]

Yes but how do I do that without doing any work?

[Sapper]

I read that last meta tag as telekinesis at first glance lol.

[Niner National]

The best thing you can do for SEO is to create awesome, unique, and informative content rich in keywords. Research your keywords carefully. Figure out what exactly people are searching for. An easy way to do this is go to google and start typing in some questions you think people looking for gold prospecting information might be asking. Google's suggested searches will try to complete your query for you. Anything Google suggests are things that people commonly search for.

Here are some examples:

Most of these would make excellent blog posts. Blog posts should be informative while also trying to push people to purchase your product/service.

SEO is really all about content and using desired keywords in title tags, heading tags, and in the body. The more pages you have, the more likely you are to get traffic to your site. Adding a blog and blogging regularly is the easiest way to do this. More pages = more ranking opportunities. You really want to try to have each page on your site targeted 1-3 keywords. Any more than that and you're not doing yourself any favors. Rankings are based on relevancy to a search query, so a page dedicated entirely to metal detectors is going to be found a lot more relevant than a page that discusses metal detectors, gold pans, sluices, etc.

If you are not a good writer or simply do not want to write regularly, check out elance.com, fiverr.com, or zerys.com to contract the work out. Some people are willing to write for fairly cheap.

You will also want to blog offsite to get links back to your site. DO NOT sign up for any link buying "deals" you see out there these days because if you do, you might as well trash the site, buy a new domain, and start over. Google doesn't play around with that any more. They will catch you and they will de-index you. If a deal sounds too good to be true (10,000 links for $9.95 for example) then it is. A good way to get better links is to write blog posts and seed them on sites like squidoo.com hubpages.com, ezine.com, and similar sites. These are free and easy to use. Also be sure to have yourself listed on local directories like Yelp, Google Places, and similar. These will act as citations that you do indeed operate where your website says you do. If you are simply using a home address, you might not want to do this though.

SEO isn't hard. It just requires a lot of time, effort, and patience. Good luck and send me a PM if you ever have any questions.

[natty]

Good stuff from the posters above. The only thing I would say is to not think of it as SEO. I think that term's essentially irrelevant nowadays(although I know the it's going to stay around). Think of it as internet marketing since what you really want goes well beyond having your site show up in google. You want more sales, not more web hits.

Truly organic links are the best thing you can have. Go to popular prospecting forums and work your site into threads in a natural way. Don't just post 'hey look at my site, I have good prices'. Participate in discussions and be a helpful member of that community, then plug your site when it makes sense. If there's a discussion about metal detectors, link to the particular one you use from your site and talk about the pros and cons. Blog about new products you add to your site, put detailed reviews, get others to blog about products on your site, etc. Simply put, increase your 'web presence', give a good customer experience, don't screw up your site with stuff like 'seo software' and google will take care of the rest.

[Donald LaFell]

I was an intern at an SEO firm last summer. Everybody is saying the right things. It's a long term investment. I think your best bet is to start a blog about your business.

Also if you're a mom and pop operation on-site SEO can sometimes be overlooked.