Why am I not at No. 1 on Google?

Grombleton · Nov 6, 2014

I've had that - one of my clients did the exact same thing (but left it 2 weeks rather than one day) before getting angry. Thankfully he had also settled the balance invoice, so I sent him a long email explaining how SEO actually works.

Never heard from him about the subject again.

I think we need an NSC web designer support group.

Super Steve Earle · Nov 6, 2014

Brighton TID said:
The self-centredness of some people in post Thatcher's Britain is overwhelmingly unacceptable.

A grand don't come for free.

That would be the self centredness of the Blair/Brown generation then?

DumLum · Nov 6, 2014

Bozza said:
He's got a fair point.

I did a site dedicated to Pot Noodles and whether they really go out of date or not.

Someone else has the #1 ranking though - https://www.google.co.uk/#q=do+pot+noodles+go+out+of+date

I have found NSC comes up number one on a number searches over the years.

Grombleton · Nov 6, 2014

sebtucknott said:
We got shafted for £5k. A directory site thought he was going to rank number 1 for all his categories even though we clearly state it wasn't possible.
Then got some "SEO expert" who claimed it was possible and we had over charged for the website and he would build a better one for them.

I suppose in theory it is possible, although it would take a long time and a LOT of money thrown at it. More than they probably had!

skipper734 · Nov 6, 2014

Maybe he could pay you with fruit. He seems to throw a lot of it about.

Bevendean Hillbilly · Nov 7, 2014

bashlsdir said:
Webdesign is a frustrating business to be in. The problem with people is that they get poisoned by other peoples opinions, when those people who dish out this advice know **** all about it really.
If you asked them to build a database driven website they wouldn't know where to start.

Just a guess...are you a web designer by any chance. If you asked me to build a data driven website I would laugh in your Trekkie face.

sebtucknott · Nov 7, 2014

Grombleton said:
I suppose in theory it is possible, although it would take a long time and a LOT of money thrown at it. More than they probably had!

Yeah they really didn't have the money or willingness to know how.

I'm not sure it would be possible anymore anyway. Even the likes of yell.com aren't there anymore.

I put it this way to them -

If you're Google why would you rank a page on a new website about "plumbers brighton" when there are sites all about plumbers in brighton that are plumbing firms. Also Google has made a big shift in local search with its map listings and google plus pages. They dominate the serps for local search now and I don't see it going back especially with the boom in mobile search.

martin tyler · Nov 7, 2014

A daft question maybe but how do you improve your rating on google if you built a website?

Jam The Man · Nov 7, 2014

martin tyler said:
A daft question maybe but how do you improve your rating on google if you built a website?

Its not a daft question at all. My wife's website still doesn't seem to index properly and we can never find it on a google search.
We've tried to do all the suggested things with coding etc, but still no joy

Superphil · Nov 7, 2014

Recent google adjustments to Their search algorithms have hit a lot of websites traffic. Mine has seen a drop in visitor numbers around. 25%, happened literally overnight about a month ago. Amongst other things it Seems they're happier if you have google-ads all over your site (obvs) and penalise you of you have ads from other sources on your site. Other things we discovered was having RSS news feeds on all the team pages is a nono, I think they regard it as plagiarism, and also they generally don't like copy/paste words. So now it's a challenge to climb back up to where we were. It's a bit of a shame as for many years now we've been working on the site and making it as engaging as we can, and following established principals of SEO. We'd been successful in getting decent viewing numbers, all for google to undo the work. Google have a stunning record of success in their field, including Android, but they now seem to be able to control things without there being a viable competitor to what they do.

sebtucknott · Nov 7, 2014

martin tyler said:
A daft question maybe but how do you improve your rating on google if you built a website?

There are a lot of factors involved, no "secrete tricks". You have to think it's Google's aim to show the most relevant website to your search term. Ideally the ones at the top answering your question or giving you the information you need.

There are two parts to optimising your site -

Onsite - here it's about making sure your content is about the keywords you want to rank for. Making sure the site is structure clearly, the code is clean and "friendly", the website loads quickly, is mobile friendly.

Offsite - have other websites link to your website, make sure they are relevant links and not paid for. Also it's about quality not quantity. Make sure you're active or social media, especially Google plus.

If you want to learn more here's a basic article on it http://www.bright-site.co.uk/blog/what-is-seo

Or if you want to do it yourself try looking at www.moz.com

Hope that helps!

Billy the Fish · Nov 7, 2014

Webdesign is money for old rope these days, anyone up to enterprise level can build a professional looking website from template. A mate of mine is a fireman and built his own retail site in his spare time complete with an ordering system and stock database, and managed to get a decent rank on google for all the products he sells.
If oven man had half a brain he'd build his own site on wix, they look good and you can knock it up in an evening. Then all you have to do is spend a bit of time improving your SEO results and you can learn that from google.

Dorset Seagull · Nov 7, 2014

Google like money and Adwords is the way to go. It's all about return on investment so as long as you pay Google less for the number 1 spot than the revenue that genrates in orders then it's a win/win. It costs me about £15 to acquire a customer on Adwords and the lifetime value of that customer is considerably higher than that.

I spend about £750 a month on Google Adwords and make more in return.

Grombleton · Nov 7, 2014

Billy the Fish said:
Webdesign is money for old rope these days, anyone up to enterprise level can build a professional looking website from template. A mate of mine is a fireman and built his own retail site in his spare time complete with an ordering system and stock database, and managed to get a decent rank on google for all the products he sells.
If oven man had half a brain he'd build his own site on wix, they look good and you can knock it up in an evening. Then all you have to do is spend a bit of time improving your SEO results and you can learn that from google.

I agree to a point - yes you can just use a template (i know a fair few local web agencies who do just that) but you then get the issue of ensuring that the template isn't widely used (who wants a site that is similar to someone elses'?) and that the template itself is robust (I've tried a few that are flimsy when trying to edit them)...which is why I use a framework for my clients and it allows for entirely custom designs. Horses for courses, I guess.

You can use sites like Wix, but those (in my experience) are a pain to use a manipulate and don't tend to have the same level of flexibility and benefits that employing a web designer can offer. Plus it keeps people like myself, [MENTION=2647]gripper stebson[/MENTION] and [MENTION=21093]sebtucknott[/MENTION] in jobs :thumbsup:

Arthur · Nov 7, 2014

Brighton TID said:
The self-centredness of some people in post Thatcher's Britain is overwhelmingly unacceptable.

A grand don't come for free.

The woman has been in the ground for 18 months and not had any say on how the country is run for 25 but yet it is STILL her fault that someone has been knocked for a bit of work he did. Fantastic!

symyjym · Nov 7, 2014

Grombleton said:
I agree to a point - yes you can just use a template (i know a fair few local web agencies who do just that) but you then get the issue of ensuring that the template isn't widely used (who wants a site that is similar to someone elses'?) and that the template itself is robust (I've tried a few that are flimsy when trying to edit them)...which is why I use a framework for my clients and it allows for entirely custom designs. Horses for courses, I guess.

You can use sites like Wix, but those (in my experience) are a pain to use a manipulate and don't tend to have the same level of flexibility and benefits that employing a web designer can offer. Plus it keeps people like myself, [MENTION=2647]gripper stebson[/MENTION] and [MENTION=21093]sebtucknott[/MENTION] in jobs

What framework do you use?

sebtucknott · Nov 7, 2014

Billy the Fish said:
Webdesign is money for old rope these days, anyone up to enterprise level can build a professional looking website from template. A mate of mine is a fireman and built his own retail site in his spare time complete with an ordering system and stock database, and managed to get a decent rank on google for all the products he sells.
If oven man had half a brain he'd build his own site on wix, they look good and you can knock it up in an evening. Then all you have to do is spend a bit of time improving your SEO results and you can learn that from google.

We come up against this quite often but actually it can be a naive approach. Yes you can build your own website but it will take you a lot longer and won't to the same quality or get the same results that a web company can offer.

I could quite easily tile a bathroom but it would take me longer, won't look as good and I'll probably make mistakes.

You're paying for the whole experience not just the end product. I could advise a client to have certain content or features that would generate them more business that they wouldn't have come up with themselves.

As for WIX, yes they look good but behind the scenes the code is horrendous. Good luck ever trying to optimise them properly for search.

Take a look at this example - http://www.wix.com/demone2/marketing-firm

If you right click and "view source" have fun trying to find any content. Try to search for the headline "LEAVE A MARK". Hmm nowhere to be found...

Google will look at the code and think I'm not going to bother...

Billy the Fish · Nov 7, 2014

sebtucknott said:
We come up against this quite often but actually it can be a naive approach. Yes you can build your own website but it will take you a lot longer and won't to the same quality or get the same results that a web company can offer.

I could quite easily tile a bathroom but it would take me longer, won't look as good and I'll probably make mistakes.

You're paying for the whole experience not just the end product. I could advise a client to have certain content or features that would generate them more business that they wouldn't have come up with themselves.

As for WIX, yes they look good but behind the scenes the code is horrendous. Good luck ever trying to optimise them properly for search.

Take a look at this example - http://www.wix.com/demone2/marketing-firm

If you right click and "view source" have fun trying to find any content. Try to search for the headline "LEAVE A MARK". Hmm nowhere to be found...

Google will look at the code and think I'm not going to bother...

As grombletron said it's horses for courses and how much money your company has. Any tradesman or startup should be capable of knocking up and managing a small website. Once it gets more complicated obviously you need to know what you're doing.

I tiled my own bathroom btw, it looks great! :lolol:

scoobiewhite · Nov 7, 2014

General website design is a commoditised, price driven hell hole of a business model to be in. Even if you are really good! Of the 693 (very precise number I know but it's from a reliable research company) top agencies by turnover, less than half made a profit in their last financial year.

Best thing to do...find a niche sector or requirement and focus on being best at that. There is simply an over supply of cheap young agencies who rely on putting in their own time to reduce cost.

If it makes you feel better, we recently got 12k final payment refused on the basis that 'some minor brand guideline elements won't render on a nexus 7'. Did all the maths and it would cost 30k and approx 120 hours to peruse it, with no guarantee of success.

Client knew it and saved themselves 12k off the bill.....lovely....(and no longer a client)

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