Am I on the right track -- still not seeing results in rank, traffic, etc.

[WendyKKelly]

I am a complete novice, but I tend to learn quickly.

My site is one year old, and I have very low traffic. I also rank poorly. I have recently learned a ton, and made some changes:

1. Put in meta no follow, no index tags on certain pages

2. Found and fixed some horrid content -- I had forgotten to finish certain pages (!) and they had been left up for months -- a good example is /California-homeschool.html basically said "Washington homeschool, blah, blah, blah" for about 8 months before I fixed it (!)

3. Added new content, changed the look and navigation of the site, added social media links and have been working to build those up (FB, Twitter, etc)

4. Started blogging regularly.

Those are the main things I have done.

I plan to continue to add content, tweak the navigation, and blog regularly. From what I can tell, link building should happen organically.

My question is: Am I on the right track?

Here is a link to my site: http://www.i-school-at-home.com

Am I missing anything -- there seems to be so much info out there. Because there is a time lag between making changes and seeing results, I just would love to know if I am on the right track, before I devote more time to this strategy.

What I would like to do is be the #1 homeschool website (long term goal) and generate revenue (eventually) from affiliate marketing and creating my own curriculum and resources.

Thank you!!!!!!

[shiftins]

Of course. SEO is basically about 2 things:

1. On site optimization
2. Off site optimization (link building)

once you have optimized your site with good content and a great site structure, you should start promoting  and marketing your website. I don't know if you have done it or not but I would make an site map and robot.txt file for the webstie. Once you finish the onsite, move on the marketing it and thats when youll start to see ranking improvements. While good content will drive links being built it doesnt hurt (well it can) to give your website a kick start. If you are ready to move on to the off site optimization I would start learning about link building which is the hard part.

[WendyKKelly]

I do have a site map and submit it regularly.

I have a sub-question -- this is kind of weird. So, I get zero search engine traffic -- zero...and I get some from direct and referral traffic.

Traditionally, my bounce rate was hovering around 50% ,which was okay with me.

Recently, and today is especially bad, I have received 13 visitors so far (it is 12:00 noon) and 11 of them are direct traffic, with 100% bounce rate...and I checked, and all of them are from Lebanon. That just kind of seems weird.

Any ideas? What am I doing wrong? My site isn't the best in the world, but it is over 100 pages of (I think) not too bad content...what's up?

[shiftins]

I would start here SEOmoz beginners guide It will give you a basic understanding of what you should be doing.

[WendyKKelly]

Thank you so much -- I actually rephrased my question here:

http://www.seomoz.org/q/rephrasing-my-question-i-have-no-search-traffic-i-would-love-some-feedback

The thing is, I have read the beginner's guide -- and do think I know the basics (basics!)

My main concern, which I didn't put in this question, is that I receive no search traffic -- none. It's odd. I know I have recently done a few things to improve my site, and I know it takes time, but I guess my question is better phrased as "I would really like some feedback, specific to my site"

I so appreciate the responses, too -- I have read, and read, and read about SEO for awhile, and this forum and SeoMoz in general, is the best I have seen, by far.

I very much appreciate this community -- Thank you!!!

[RobertMackey]

That is unusual Wendy -  that you have recieved no traffic to date

Have you checked the robots.txt file to see the Search robots are coming through ?

You can check  https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools for any problems with the site access.

You seem to have the basic grasp of Seo and you have the ambition to learn and ask questions, it should not be too long before your on track - wish you good fortune with it

Rob

[WendyKKelly]

Thank you for the encouragement, Rob. I am really glad I posted this question, and I think I just have to chalk it up to "this is odd"

I have checked my site out at Google webmaster tools, and also at Bing's webmaster tools - and with SEO quake -- I do read a lot.

I can get traffic -- I see my own searches show up. But most days it is zero, other than that -- yesterday there were three other search visits, and I am pretty sure at least one was in response to this question.

It seems as though it's just "bad luck" -- my content needs to be better -- it isn't that bad, I don't think  : )

I thought to as this question mostly to see if there weren't some glaring thing I missed about SEO -- but I think, in the end, that I do need to keep plugging away...

Thank you!!