Whats Next, noobie needs some help :)

[bonmaklad]

Hey Everyone,

I have been a member of SEOMOZ for about 4 months and love it, it really has helped me out.

my first website I am trying to get well ranked in the new zealand market is

www.shopezy.co.nz

I have chosen:

• sell online

• free ecommerce website

• ecommerce website builder

Are paid links the way forward for me? should I aim for more keywords? should I pay for help?

Just looking for a lttle direction, if someone could help. thanks.

[intSchools]

No, do not pay for links - you will be penalised. Start a blog and create content that will help people who may use your service. Think of things like 'How mobile is effecting ecommerce' or 'How to use social media to build loyal customers'.

Once you have a blog and are creating your content then you will begin to see a quick rise in search traffic on your analytics package. Take a look at some of the keywords people are searching to find you and you will see that just having 3 is too low. You will need to constantly update your list of keywords.

There is no harm in paying people for help, as long as you find the right vendor for you. SEOmoz have a great list of recommended companies.

[matbennett]

Paid link would be really risky. Buying links to influence results is against google quality guidelines so you could expect a penalty if caught. It certainly works for some, but you need to know what you are doing as damage caused by such techniques can be very hard to reverse.

I'd start by going back to your keyword research to be honest. Where your site is still very new (in terms of backlinks) I'd be looking to broaden out the number of terms that you are looking to rank for.  I'd then ensure that you have pages that target each of those terms, hopefully with content good enough to pick up it's own links.

Link building wise I would probably start by  offering up accounts for review from sites that have previously reviewed rival platforms. Referral sign ups should be key in your market anyway, so starting with these will give you a double whammy. I'd do the same to sites that target work from home markets, mummy businesses etc.

**should I pay for help? **

If you have the budget now, then yes.  It looks like you have a lot of basics still to cover. Even some consultation time that left you with a solid plan that you could work through yourself would probably be very valuable to you at this stage.

[bonmaklad]

I have been thinking about this, I have a bunch of questions kiwis search for and I am thinking of answering them on my blog

I have looked into my rivals but none of them have done much SEO that I can see, worldwide rivals I could but I am always fearful getting too many links from outside New Zealand would be worse for me?

[intSchools]

Not at all. Good links from around the world will be of huge value to you.

You will end up fostering a worldwide community. Many people that read your blog and use your information will not be from New Zealand - although your core customers will be. This is often the case with online companies - your community will reach further than your core location.

[bonmaklad]

hmm interesting, well I have started laying the foundation for all the blog content which is linked to facebook and i'll link to it on twitter as I complete it and see how that helps.