SEO Tycoon

**SimpleLance.Com** · 04-15-2006, 08:06 PM

Hi i need HELP i have been running my site now for 3 months and i am not doing well at all i am number 6 and 7 in msn but google and yahoo im doing poor.

I have low signups per week sometimes none and i am not getting very good traffic.

What can i do i have SEO'd my website and gotten over 2000 links to my website but i am just not doing it right i am not in yahoo top 50 for 2 of my main seraches but some of my competitors with low link popularity are.

Any suggestions for me please do let me know.

my site in question is www.simplelance.com

**vangogh** · 04-15-2006, 08:21 PM

I'm not sure what you consider your top keywords, but you show up #3 in Google for freelance programming. Looking at your meta keywords some of them are just very competitive keywords and you can do everything right and it can still be years before your site is found in searches for them.

What are the main keywords you're going after? It might just be that you need to target other keywords. The keywords you chose might not be the best ones to convert traffic.

Are you getting traffic to the site? I get the feeling that a business like yours is one that will take some time to grow initially. Most people will want to see that others have either put projects out for bid or have been bidding on the projects there. Kind of like a forum in that most people don't want to participate in an empty forum, but as soon as you pass some point of critical mass a lot more people will sign up.

**SimpleLance.Com** · 04-15-2006, 08:27 PM

You have made some intresting points my keywords i am going for and the percentage of site readiness for the keywords are

Freelance 95%
programming 95%
programmers 95%
webmasters 95%
outsource 90%
web design 100%
custom programming 100%
custom web design 90%
freelance programmers 100%
freelance programming 90%

I also just checked google and i am not in pos #3 for freelance programming

**vangogh** · 04-15-2006, 08:51 PM

Sorry you're right just another site with a similar name and I didn't look close enough. My bad.

I think it mostly has to do with the keywords being competetive. For example there are 2,750,000 websites with freelance in the title according to Google. Most of them have probably been optimizing and gathering links a lot longer than a few months so it's going to take awhile to get your site up there.

You might want to try going after more specific and longer keyword phrase at first since you'll have a better chance competing on them now. They'll also be more targeted and might lead to better concersions.

**blue-dreamer** · 04-16-2006, 02:56 AM

running a succesful site does not just depend on search engine placings alone, yes it does help you get noticed, but your content is what will make or break it.

looking at your sites home page there are not many jobs posted, as a prospective customer that doesn't make much impression on me, so first job is to get lots of ads on there to make it look like you're busy.

I see that you are charging to place ads, that's fine but if no-one is buying you need to do some sort of promotion to get the ball rolling. Probably the best method is to offer free listings for say 3, 6 or 12 months to fill up your database. When you have got a decent amount then consider charging.

**SimpleLance.Com** · 04-16-2006, 11:57 AM

Thankyou for your input so far i have found this very constructive i am going to review your input and put into action some of it keep it coming i am very appreciative of your input.

**vangogh** · 04-16-2006, 04:56 PM

blue-dreamer's advice makes a lot of sense. I agree that before you're going to get a lot of people signing up you'll need to have a lot of people already there. Kind of a catch22, but offering free listings is one to get around that.

**SimpleLance.Com** · 04-16-2006, 07:06 PM

I have read through about the free listings idea and although it is free to list a project it is not advertised much so in the next few hours i will be setting up a promotion of free listing for the site via some methods on the homepage i will setup my first idea on the site and let me know what you think if as a visitor the promotion message gets accross

**3pointRoss** · 04-17-2006, 12:56 PM

Yeah, I would focus on other aspects right now.

There are lots of sites where people want to find freelancers, or sign up as freelancers. Start posting at those forums, and people will start noticing your site.

Further, try and do what you can locally. If you work with any companies, mention to them that "Hey if you ever need web design/programming, I run a freelancer site and you can find some excellent workers there!"

etc, etc

**SimpleLance.Com** · 04-17-2006, 02:16 PM

I have tried advertising as best as i can through these types of site but this is costly and my budget is now very limited for this type of advertising what budget should i set aside any ideas