Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks for the reply.

The black backround is ok for he menu, but having a black backround on the other boxes headers puts them on he same level of importance, which I don' think is ok.

Thats a good point actually. I had a similar thought. If you check the menu headers on this page, I think this is how I will have them changed on the home page - all apart from the main one.

The main focus of the page is on FREE DELIVERY and PRICE MATCH and no on the mai banner.

Agreed. I have the design team working on two new banners for these as they draw your eyes away from the key areas.

Thanks for your thoughts Some good suggestions there!

20,000 products... scary!

"Is the banner under the header going to be a sliding gallery style design or fixed?Just showing 3-4 offers maybe? Just thinking out loud! "

Yeah, we have a design team here working on 3 banners, they slide across

"The only other comment for changing I would make is the header is too busy. I'd move the search bar to above the green 'Free delivery" image on the right of the page. In it's place I would make the phone number much bigger."

I was thinking the same to be honest. I was thinking maybe to reduce the width of the main banner and lift the two smaller banners (free delivery and price match) on the right hand side up a little and add search.

Are you able to give an example of a product that you think isn't 'buyable'?

Sure, here. I wouldn't even know what a "starter bay" or "extension bay" was. I also think there are WAY too many options.

Hi guys,

I have a list of things to do on this website that is longer than my arm but thought I would gather a few more thoughts on the site before moving on further with it.

The site is here. It went live a couple of days ago for live testing.

I have a news section coming very soon at theworkplacedepot.co.uk/news - it is in live testing now.

One glaring issue for me is that some of the products simply aren't "buyable". What I mean by that is that the options are too vague and too vast - as an outsider I wouldnt have a clue what I was buying!

Other issues:

• The banner at the bottom of the HP is a test - its design will be changing.
• The sitemap has some issues and will be addressed.
• There is no area yet to "log-in".

However, critique for me pretty please!

Absolutely go for individual pages. Find the best keyword for each service based on search volume/competition and add the keyword into the page title & meta details aswell as the URL (yourURL/Digital X-Rays for example).

Content is king here so make sure each page has a great and well written article.

To be honest, without knowing the URL of your site and the URL of your competition site it is pretty much impossible to say. It would need some in-depth research. It may well have something to do with your domain age.

What you are experiencing is possibly something called "Google Dance". It happens while Google's algorithm is trying to figure out the best place for you.

More on Google dance here.

HAHA Yeah... Thats the problem with the fiverr gigs, you cant actually tell their methods properly.

One way to check is to have a look at the profiles who +1 your page and see if they are real. If you can notice that they are fake then you can bet your bottom dollar that big G can too.

Nice test though, I like it!

Oh, and how competition on the search term?

OK, couple of questions...

• Did the +1's come from genuine accounts? What should usually class as a genuine account is an aged account which has had interactions with other accounts, has its own circles, has friends, photos, status' etc?
• Does any other page on your site have any/many +'1? - It might look slightly suspect if you dont have any other page on the site which has any social shares but then one page pops up with 150.
• Are there any other social shares on the page? It would seem strange that something worthy of being "sharable" is only shared on one platform. It looks even more suspect if it is only shared on Googles platform - how ironic...
• Is the landing page optimized at all?

There are so many fiverr gigs where they literally sit there setting up accounts (all from the same IP!) on one PC. Then there are others who actually ask genuine accounts to click the +1

Great research here! I love seeing these kind of tests

Yeah I know, I read the full forum thread... Im not sure what you mean?

Edit: Do you mean your post was not about the actual site it effected but more about Negative SEO? If so, we understand that, thats why we said it was scary. We were just pointing out the other issues in the forum thread.

Oh absolutely, the backlinks generated from the story will make it worthwhile. Not sure if it was intended but it will benefit the site in the long run Im sure. Also, they did state a few times that his website was non-profit so it certainly wont hurt his lifestyle.

Yeah I think that thread will be closely watched by big G... Probably not something to boast about on an online forum. However, he definitely knows his stuff so fair play to him - he has thought about it in great detail.

Definitely. I think that example was way OTT and not needed for most websites. I think it looks like it would be pretty easy for small businesses with smaller websites.

Unfortunately there seems to be plenty of to55ers around. It worry's me that some people have no remorse... It could mean jobs lots and life's destroyed! Shame on Google!

Scary stuff indeed...

I don't care how effective it may or may not be, I could never do this to a competitor... My motto would always be to beat them on merit and not cheating.

I have no doubt that this currently works but I also have no doubt that Google will close the loophole and instead of devaluing a website for "un-natural links" it will simply ignore the links - it is only a matter of time.

Lets cross our fingers that we don't have immoral competitors until that time comes.

As above... Thumbs up.

Also consider whether they have contact details, what kind of sites they link out to. Check what kind of sites link in to it. Have a read of some of the articles, are they good quality?

Remember not to concentrate your entire time on blog posts to obtain links... Blog links needs to be only one of many link types otherwise you may end up in trouble.

mmmmmmm.... I like Vanilla!!

My life would be complete if Google decided to do that!

Cool plan... Why not take it a step further and do three tests:

One landing page with lots of retweets.

One landing page with lots of +1's.

One landing page with lots of "likes".

Could be interesting if it is on a throw away domain?

Might not be as detailed as you would like but this could be useful: http://outreachr.com/bulk-domain-checker/

I think it's pretty fair to say this method should not be used - however, if you gradually built 50 +1's over a month or two then this might not be too bad - AS LONG AS it was only a small part of your overall link building project.

I ran a test a few months back on social marketing...

I had an old domain with an old page which had no incoming (external) links and no on page optimisation... It ranked 58th in Google UK for the keyword I used in the content of an article which was posted on the page.

I grabbed a crappy Fiverr gig which added 50 Google +1's - two weeks later I was on page two.

I wrote an article on it with images etc but never uploaded it to my blog and now I cant find it

There is a small chance that other factors also helped it rank but I think its fair to say that the +1's certainly helped (in the very least!).

After seeing these SERP improvements I was happy with the results and deleted the page before finding out whether or not Google would have frowned upon the tactic - Im pretty sure that a page with no links coming into it which all of a sudden gets 50 +1's in a day looks pretty spammy to the big G!

There are so many cowboys out there in the SEO world so be very careful. Algorithms change and along with that, techniques need to change... There are LOTS of SEO companies who use very old methods and are actually quite dangerous instead of useful.

Take a look at SEOmoz' list of recommended companies here.

Generally, you get what you pay for!

Thanks