Newbie needs seo help

[Quadra]

Hi,

I'm a driving instructor, and have built my own website.

amber-drive.com

I need help to get to the top of Google in my local teaching areas. I am doing better in some areas, worse in others.

I cover the Woking, West Byfleet, Chertsey and Weybridge areas of Surrey.

Any Help in greatly appreciated


Thanks

Richard

[fisicx]

All your pages have (almost) identical content which means that the search engines will in general ignore them. If you want to do well for each of your target areas you need to build pages that discuss each of the locations. So for example build a page that discusses the local area. Include information about the roads you use and why, if there is a test centre give details about the usual test routes and so on.

You also need a lot more on page optimisation. Provide keyword rich text, relevant page titles, description, headers, opening paragraphs and so on. But I notice that you are already listed in the google Local Business Results so you should already be getting some traffic.

And you really need to sort out the layout - there is a HUGE gap between the top oval and the next bit of copy - the middle oval is empty.

[Quadra]

Wow, that was quick. I only joined earier this evening, and I'm getting advice already.

Thanks

OK, I'll tighten up and diversify the content. I'll add stuff about the roads in the new haw area, and the local driving test centres at Weybridge and Chertsey.

I have been using NetObjests Fusion to build the site, but it doesn't seem to build HTML like I have been told to. For example, there are no H1 or H2 headers. I think I can add these, but I don't know the correct place. I guess I'd put in keyword rich test here also, like "driving instructor New Haw" or "driving school Woking"

I am on Google business, and that helps with Google maps always being close to the top of the rankings. But what I'd really like to do is get above all the directories. If you do a search for "driving school new haw", I'd like to get where 2020 driving are.

Thanks for your help

Richard

[fisicx]

Simply writing new copy won't actually do very much for your ranking. You need to consider the whole package: page titles, descriptions, headers, copy, anchor text, alt tags and so on and so on. If NetObjects Fusion won't let you do what you want then don't use it. It's much simpler to use a simple HTML editor.

[MrCat]

Title is too long with most of your keywords there, I suggest you shorten it to the most apt description of you site - afterall, that is what its for

[blasphermour]

Thats simple..
U just need build backlink for your site to generate traffic..
Google will crawl any site that have more backlink to top 10 ranking...

[TWD-Tony]

Originally Posted by blasphermour

Thats simple..
U just need build backlink for your site to generate traffic..
Google will crawl any site that have more backlink to top 10 ranking...

That is very dubious advice - if having the most amount of inbound links won you the "top 10 in Google" award then everyone would be doing it... Oh hang on a minute - they were doing it about 10 years ago...

Sure - inbound links are a PART of getting ranking and traffic but only that... a piece of the jigsaw

[Quadra]

Thanks for the help guys, I appreciate it.

I will continue my ongoing mods.

[dotwhack]

Page rank and therefore position 1 is made up of a number of components - you need to tackle them all really.

1) Age of website - there's no getting round this one really - part of the page rank score is made up by the age of the website - therefore a new site has a disadvantage.
2) Content - the correct keywords in the correct palces on & off the page
3) Links - you need to get strong, relevant inbound links. Steer clear of agencies offering you x thousand links for £x price - they don't particularly target the links so aren't worth anything on the google score sheet. If you're aiming for traffic in a particular area, aim to get links from other sites in a similar area as you'll all have some matching keywords i.e. pick car related places like garages, foecourts etc - 'car', 'driving' and 'your area' will all probably match. It's an advantage if the site you want a link on has a good page rank.

Hope that helps and remember it's early days - websites need ongoing tinkering and tweaking. If I can help at all, let me know.

Dotwhack

[admagic]

First of all step back and put yourself in your customers shoes.
The first rule of all advertising is to describe the solution, not

What do they type when they go to the web?

The answer is far more type "driving lessons" than "driving school" so that is your prime keywords

So do your Keyword research and base your site and pages on what your users are asking not what you are .

Now SEO is only a small part of a small part of the game.

Start posting great articles with good content on driving lessons, how to drive and so on, and creating web 2 minisites (eg hubpages) based around your keywords. these are far more trusted by google than you are.

And link them into pages on your site that are focussed on the same keywords.

Create a facebook page too.
Social marketing is where it is at now.

Promote these articles on such as digg, stumble upon and netscape

My suggestion is you recreate the site on wordpress, or create another blog since everything you put there will ping blog engines and be indexed quicker by google.

The above sounds hard , but is a lot easier than creating your own site!

These activities will bring you traffic - and sooner rather than later search engine rankjing

NOW go the extra mile.
Your key objective is to get people to sign up...so create a downloadable guide called " the ten most common reasons for failing your driving test, and how to avoid them" in return for email addresses...

The n you can promote to that list.

Also consider methods like ppc - done correctly that will do well

for example this site
Local Driving Schools covering West Byfleet
is high ranked for "driving school byfleet"

Use site targetted ppm advertising on google and you will get one big ad that zaps all the other advertisers on that site!!! And it is far cheaper than bidding on those terms. - there are other down and dirty ways to leapfrog competition on adwords, but I wont advertise those on a forum!!