Need some Expert SEO Advice Please

Hi all,

I am looking for a bit of advice on the SEO of my site.

The website is nicely built and is optimised on-site, it also has hundreds of pages of unique content. The site & domain are around 4 months old, and it is hosted in the UK.

I currently have Google Webmaster Tools setup like this: (paste URL into browser - I don't have privileges to post pics yet)
img192.imageshack.us/img192/2865/bhwpost.jpg

I am targeting a keyword that gets 7,000 global exact searches per month.
I recently got into the top 10 in Google UK for my target keyword, with my site fluctuating between positions 3-6 in UK Google. However, I have yet to see any traffic for my keyword from Google for this. It is in around position 16 for the same keyword in Google US (gl=us).

I am wondering if my webmaster tools setup/location of my hosting, or my selected keyword not being popular enough are playing a part in me ranking highly in the UK SERPs, but not the global US ones?
Also, I have no XML sitemap yet - would this make a difference if I created one and submitted it to Google?

I would appreciate any advice on this, as I am working on building natural back links and content for this website for 8+ hours per day and don't want the time going to waste.

Many Thanks in advance

What about local search number? Do you know that all English speaking people (pakistan, India,...) plus individuals in the world are counted regarding gloal search? Sometimes local search becomes just a small fraction of global search.

Actually 7,000 global exact searches per month is such a number that you should have been already on #1 after 4 months and 8 hours a day work. And regarding your struggle, you could even have created at least 40 sites hitting first page of google getting a huge number of organic traffic (maybe at least 10-20 times bigger than your 7.000).

But the only and the only main issue: Did you made a good keyword analysis? Your competitors? There are lots of sites standing between top 5 on SERPs with just one post.

Second: Does your domain contain your keyword?

I forgot to mention, it is a competitive keyword, with many leading industry, aged domains ranking at the top already. So I doubt I could have crated 40 sites ranking for such terms.

The keyword is in 2 parts: word word2. The domain is branded, so only contains the 2nd word brandword2.com

edgematch said:

What about local search number? Do you know that all English speaking people (pakistan, India,...) plus individuals in the world are counted regarding gloal search? Sometimes local search becomes just a small fraction of global search.

Actually 7,000 global exact searches per month is such a number that you should have been already on #1 after 4 months and 8 hours a day work. And regarding your struggle, you could even have created at least 40 sites hitting first page of google getting a huge number of organic traffic (maybe at least 10-20 times bigger than your 7.000).

But the only and the only main issue: Did you made a good keyword analysis? Your competitors? There are lots of sites standing between top 5 on SERPs with just one post.

Second: Does your domain contain your keyword?

Click to expand...

I should have mentioned also, it is a high payout niche. Sales are $800 minimum

edgematch said:

...
Second: Does your domain contain your keyword?

Click to expand...

Having the keyword in the domain name probably isn't really an issue in this case. Do a good enough job on seo, site promotion, and backlink building and you can get "bigbluebowlingballs.info" to rank higher in the serps than "redferrari.com" for the search term "where to buy a red ferrari". Rather than ask about keywords in the domain name, I was thinking more about if he used a global tld or if it was a .uk, since he answered your question that he chose brandword2.com then I'm assuming he chose a dot com.



@OP - I wouldn't call myself an expert, but I'll give you my thoughts anyway.

Your GWT setup looks ok, you left it unselected for geotargeting which in this case is what you want. I'd suggest that you do choose a prefered domain though, either www or non-www. Google likes for you to make a decision on which version you consider canonical. You could be losing the effectiveness for a small amount of link juice because of it. I doubt that's your problem but I would make a decision on it anyway just because.

As far as your sitemap? After as much work as you've done promoting the site I doubt that's your problem. It's still a good idea to submit one anyway though.

I'd look at your site to see if your doing anything to make google give more weight to your site in the uk more so than the rest of the world. Do you mention uk a lot in your content? What about UK cities? Phone numbers? If you have that kind of info on your site then I imagine you need it there, but it might be better to put it in an 'about us' or 'contact us' page and then set up any internal links to those pages as no follow.

What about your backlinks? Have you favored uk sites a little more than other sites for building backlinks? Have you included the backlinks on a lot of pages that mention uk or uk cities?

Have you been doing anything else that may be causing google to geolocate your site even though you have it unselected it in gwt? I would say you should really look through all the content on the site, and take a good look at the backlinks your building to see if there is anything like that going on.

I wouldn't think that being hosted on a uk server would be a huge factor, but it probably comes into play some. Just in case it really is a problem you could try compensating for that by doing the reverse of what I listed above. Try adding some global locations in your content. Mention the US and any other countries your interested in. Something along the lines of "Many happy customers from the US", or testimonials ie. "Mary Kate from Sacramento, CA says..." or anything else you think could be appropriately included in your site's content that might establish you as a global site.

You could try the same thing with your backlinks. As your building them occasionally include a country or city along with the keywords your targeting. If you do try this tactic, be sure the cities are scattered so you don't inadvertently geolocate your site somewhere else. (ie. U.S., U.K. Australia, London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Belfast, Liverpool, New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Houston, Tampa, Akron, etc.). Don't make that become your primary anchor link strategy, just do it enough so that google can figure out you're a global player. You'll need to figure out for yourself how much that will be. I'd think less than 5% of your backlinks would be more than enough. You still want the bulk of your anchors to be unassociated with location.

I think you should also take a good look at your global competitors sites (if you haven't already) to see if there's any onpage seo factors or backlinking factors that they're just doing better than you.

I haven't had to deal with the problem your having myself, so these are just some ideas to think about.

Wowza, thanks for the help GreyWolf - I will try out the methods you mentioned!