I Committed Website Suicide, I need to be Resurrected. All Help Is Appreciated

Marketing
1

Hello SitePoint Members,

I come to you with open arms.

I have a website that I foolishly messed up.

In 2011 I hired some various SEO’s and now I am paying the price.

I had links from every country, forum signatures left and right, and ads all around.

Now I sit lonely and unfound in Google.

Many people may come here and get rude and act like its someone else’s fault, where I am to blame for being stupid.

I have learned my lesson, but I am looking for some honest, and friendly help please.

All criticism is accepted, and appreciated. I understand even a few “I told you so’s” along the way.

My issue is my site is my families business. Without exposure, I do not work.

My site is allspecialtybuildings(dot)com

I have done a Disavow to remove the bad spammy links that I could not get removed without $$$ as many places wanted $20 per link removal.

I am in the process of editing my code to remove meta tags, and other things.

I got a price of $700 to do a wordpress site all seo ready and turn key, but I have no idea who to trust anymore.

So my question is:

Is wordpress decent enough for a site that does not get updated often? I have no problem learning what I do not know how to do, if in the long run will be better.

How do you find a good seo? Ones I have talked to said they can get me on Google again for $500 per month, because of adwords.

Can a Google algorithm be overcome? Like if I clean my act up, one day I may see the light again? Or bury the site and start fresh? My domain name is important, but if it cannot be recovered, then I have to let the ship go down.

I know for some of you this is an everyday post. Someone messed something up, someone did whatever. But I assure you I am an honest man who loves his family and life. I am looking to find a hand to help me dig out of this mess to continue to put food on my table for my son.

I made a mistake. But I am looking for advice on how to get found again on Google and get that needed exposure.

Thank you so much and Have a Blessed Day

Chris

2

Hi Chris. Sorry to hear about your plight. From what I can tell, your site is indexed by Google, so no problem there.

Unfortunately, a lot of people have worked out that offering SEO services is an easy way to make a quick buck without having a clue what you are doing. :frowning: If someone promises you good search results, you can pretty much guarantee that they are charlatans. You can no more promise search results than you can promise the weather. SEO and online marketing is really a science of gently improving a range of factors that help one do better in searches. It’s not about quick fixes.

IMHO, save your money and put your efforts into improving the content on your site. Google loves good, clear, well written content. Engage in a bit of social media, and remember to talk to people and promote your site in other ways than just online.

3

You say you’ve learned your lesson, yet you have contacted SEOers about getting back?

Forget about SEO except in terms of “on page” - having valid semantic mark-up, good navigation, and fast page load times.

And don’t worry about writing content based on “keywords”, just write good content.

You say that the content doesn’t change that often, so maybe WordPress or another CMS is not what you need most?

Unless you ship or do work outside of Colorado, do you really need traffic from outside of your area?

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Yes, focus first on optimizing your page (onsite). I just visited your site, it is not that bad but there are some pages that needed to be fixed. And maybe focus more on your target audience and not SEO necessarily. Try also social media, one of the best and effective approach for marketing. Goodluck!

5

Mittineague, do you really think too much SEO is the problem?

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You are right not to trust anyone any more. “All seo ready” for that price is a con. The person offering that does not understand SEO. You will find that this offering pays no attention whatever to content, which is the most important part of SEO—but also the hardest … which is why those after a quick, easy buck largely ignore it.

Is wordpress decent enough for a site that does not get updated often?

It’s fine, except that WordPress itself needs to be updated often to remain secure. So it’s not your best option if the site is likely to remain fairly idle. But that also won’t be great for SEO, either. The search engines reportedly like fresh, up to date content. :slight_smile:

7

From a technical stand-point I don’t see the value in redeveloping your site. At least in terms “SEO”. Yeah, there are some things that could be better and would I have built it like it was built – no. Having said that from a business standpoint I don’t honestly see the value in redeveloping it. Perhaps what you are better off doing is investing in some marketing for you business. What exactly that would entail I’m not completely sure. However, I do know that anyone who says they can get you back in the search rankings/business from a “redesign” is shoveling sh*t. The only way that might be possible is if you where to start becoming more involved in your site yourself. Perhaps publishing articles on topics of interest to your intended audience. Search engines reward content. Especially content that is helpful to other people without having a product directly associated with it. No one is going to the market and expertise better than yourself. Especially someone who sells SEO bs or some programmer or designer. What you need is fresh content via an attached blog or something not a completely new site.

I don’t think any of that is going to make a difference here. The site isn’t all that bad and those micro-optimizations will always be thwarted by quality content. The only exception would be a quality user experience. Though I don’t necessarily see anything really wrong with the existing user experience. I mean it follows the standard UX patterns and for such a simple site it works fine. I don’t see any real value coming from doing any of things given the current state of the site. I think it is just idol due to poor and/or lack of marketing on the ops end. I mean you need to be realistic this isn’t a web application that offers an online service which is going to command foot traffic. It is a site that someone is going to come across in looking for a specific service. The site is really nothing more than stepping stone to contacting the business owner about their service. People are only going to find the site through other marketing avenues such as; print and referrals – realistically.

8

Just an extra thought on this. It’s not a good idea to wait and hope that Google will save your business. Google and the internet are fickle, shifting sands, and it’s not enough to rely on a search engine to bring in business. You have to be more proactive. Internet marketing is a lot bigger than just SEO. You need to continue to meet people (online and offline) and actively support and promote your business. Adwords will certainly get you some attention in Google, but it’s very costly and often not worth the money, so be careful with that as well.

9

Wow a lot of great stuff here. Thank you so much.

The points are right on.

The site is a stepping stone to find my families business. It’s a family business and I am proud of my family and the work we do. It’s just this site crashed hard after the penguin or spammy link update.

I have been working hard for sure to get links off, but it’s slow to update.

Why I was leaning towards Wordpress is maybe its a magic cure to proper coding?

Like better coding equals better seo. Better indexing etc

I mean my site is already rock bottom. Ands so its hard to find help that is trustworthy. Of course you all are honest and your help is greatly appreciated.

So I went to the local yellow pages looking for a local seo, maybe for help the proper way.

Our brand is important, so since I have no manual penalty, I hoping with time I can beat this.

But what is the definition of quality content?

I read about it everywhere, but is it like 1000 words per page? Or just talking without being spammy?

But do you still add in keyword phrases in your content? Like we build barns in Colorado, so do I say blah blah blah barn builders in colorado blah blah blah?

So is it best practice to add keywords without sounding stupid or adding in unlinked or anchor text links, within your content?

Thanks again for your help.

My family and I thank you for just taking your time

Have a blessed day
Chris

10

IMHO “quality content” means something that is worth reading.
For example, you could do product reviews of the materials you use. Then if someone is searching for “pressure treated”, they won’t be impressed if you only mention it for “keyword” value, but if you provide some insight, comparison, etc. they be more likely to look around the site and eventually contact you.

Also, I wouldn’t spend time worrying too much about keywords. You seem to have a good grasp of the language with the ability to express yourself clearly. I think if you write naturally like you would explain it to a friend the SEO will take care of itself.

11

Well that sounds great!

So moving forward, what reading or site do you recommend to learn what is a good backlink and what is a bad one?

At one time it seemed like forum signatures worked, now blackhat, heck it may have been bad in 2011 I don’t know.

I am hoping that by removing these bad links and working on content, then maybe with the new update maybe in may? It will bounce back

12

Hello Chris,

I have just checked your website and its stats. And it shows that there has been loss of backlinks and still losing. Your website had 4k backlinks in 2012 but now it has only 1k which is very less. Also the keyword which your website target is “barn builders colorado” which is 40% and that is very high for very less numbers of backlinks. My only advice would be start building new links with new anchor text. It might take some time but your website will start ranking again without making any more investment or without making any changes in your website.

And when you use disavow tool remove the links that target “barn builders colorado” keyword. Maybe your website was hit because of over-optimized keyword density.

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A good backlink is where someone has said—“Wow, that page had some really useful content on it. Look at this, guys!” The rest are bad. :slight_smile:

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Agreed. :slight_smile:

I wouldn’t go quite that far. There are a few instances where it’s quite legitimate to place a link to your own site (but not multiple links ;)). However, while not “bad”, these links are pretty well worthless in terms of SEO. Any link which you can easily place yourself is of little value - except for whatever traffic it might bring.