Rankings unchanged

[ayetti]

I have been working away on my site for almost a month now, following all the advice I have gotten here and things seem to be going great.  I have built a pretty large 400+ number of backlinks from blog posts, press releases, forum posts etc.  Everything is very nice and white hat, really almost nothing spammy at all, maybe a couple of blog comments that I shouldn't have made but nothing in the big scheme of things.  The problem is that my position in SERP has not changed at all.  Its strange my on page SEO got me to the first page of all my keywords but from there I have not moved a bit.

I am local service site and I am still waiting for my pin from google places (third try) and I know that will have a huge effect on my main city. I also have landing pages in 3 other small local cities though and those haven't budged a bit either.

I just wanted to see what people here had to say, possibly I am just not patient enough? it has been probably 1.5 weeks since my links really started to index and show up in webmaster tools.

[mad2k]

Could you please provide an url... will take a look

[ayetti]

I'm sorry I should have put that in there http://winecountrycarpet.com/

[MRCSearch]

For your primary target I've got you lagging behind Yelp x 2, Yahoo Local, and a semi-heavy with a Places page. All in all not bad for a month's work!

Checking on some of your secondaries, you look like you're again fighting directories and Deep-Steam. They appear to have the local advantage, but once you get your Places page and some more citations coming in, I think you'll start to bump up.

Since it appears you're targeting locally, I suggest taking a spin over to getlisted.org, and make sure you're listed in the places they indicate. Give David Mihm's local ranking factors a good read, and put that to use as well.

All in all, you're making it happen, just keep trucking along!

[ayetti]

Really appreciate the vote of confidence. I guess it is just a matter of time. Not having the google places is killing me. I have been trying to get the pin for 2 months, somehow it doesn't make it.

[Syed1]

Give it at least another month imo.

2 other suggestions: There is nothing wrong with quality blog comments and you can continue with it as long as yoru nofollow:dofollow ratio is reasonable.  Also, it is only good when your name doesn't become all keywordy.

Another thing ~ don't overdo the Press Release especially if you are not a high authority site. Once a month is more than enough.

[mad2k]

Agree with Nicholas, you should build local position.

But position is nat a key to success - it is a halve way to business success

In my opinion you also should work on in site SEO, clean a little bit in the homepage (from marketing and usability point of view), decide what is your main keyword you want to fight - one for page and employ it in every element of a page (title, description, alt's, in-page text etc...). Below few notices I found.

Your server IP (173.247.244.100 biz100.inmotionhosting.com - SANTA MONICA) is listed in SORBS-SPAM - http://www.sorbs.net/ - but I think it is not a big deal.

• in your logo you have slogan but it is an image not text! with alt="insert_logo"

• shorter title, good meta description - longer than you have- 140 - 150 characters, for homepage

• in image alt's you use descriptions with lots of keywords e.g. "alt="lady laying on a carpet cleaning Atascadero, carpet cleaner Atascadero, carpet cleaning 93422, carpet cleaner 93422" it can be perceive as spam

and alt="Carpet Cleaning", next href="Tile_and_Grout.html" alt="Tile_and_Grout" - with underscore

- Avoid Keyword Stuffing in DocumentEasy fix Occurrences of Keyword22  ... .Recommendation Remove instances of the targeted keyword(s) from the document text of this page to bring it below 15 - **this is a text from SEOMOZ On-Page report - **

• Clean in the homepage - a lot of content but feel like repeated several times the same communicate:

Offfering the Very Best Carpet Cleaning...

The Most thorough carpet cleanig...  etc... less keywords, more helpful texts for clients, think about arrangement of a photos and consistent style.

Use simple and understanding sentences, without unnatural forms, remember good marketing is not closed in the word "BEST" "Very BEST" etc... I usually avoid companies with such a communication.

Be natural and successful

Good luck

[edit]

and one more idea for marketing, use before - after show "Carpet before cleaning and after cleaning" clients like to know how it works - employ j-querry plugin e.g. http://test.wpworks.net/wpw_ba_j/

[ayetti]

good tips, I will begin correcting all that you have listed.  I wonder how my server IP got on the sorbs_spam list? it is a shared server, I wonder if this is going to be problem?

[ayetti]

Thanks for the tip on the press releases, I will not submit for awhile.  I think I did 2 of them in the last month  What would you recommend for link building for me? I am always open to new suggestions.

[ayetti]

So I am fixing the alt image text, but I checked the keyword analysis and I got an A for my search term.  I think that the search term you checked was just carpet cleaning? do I have to worry about keyword stuffing if I am not going after the broader keyword? My search term is "carpet cleaning my city" or my city carpet cleaning." Not sure how I could lower the instances of "carpet cleaning" and maintain a proper use of those two keywords?

I will definitely work on the heading logo alt text too, I had never noticed that.

[mad2k]

I don't know your market but in my 95% of people will write "carpet cleaning" instead of "carpet cleaning my city"  - now in google places and localization is not a point to emphasize "my city"

About keyword stuffing - I'm not sure - probably not.

your site: If you think like a lot of people what is their need? order and simplicity. You can read book about site usability written by Steven Krug "Don't make me think" - it's my usability bible. (site: sensible.com)

And I suggest buy better photos from stocks or employ a professional photographer to take few very good pictures and use it on page. Photo can tell more than 1000 words

stock example other

Sorry for non SEO advise, but the truth is that SEO is only way to attract customers, next you have about 5 seconds to keep him on the site. Bounce is a loss!

[ayetti]

that Jquery slider is AWESOME! totally going to use it. great tip.

[Syed1]

Do guest posting - it's free content for others and nice backlink for you.

Connect with people in your industry on Twitter; once they know you, it's very easy to get links from them