SEO Tycoon

**lgc252** · 12-19-2006, 02:03 AM

Here's the skinny: I have had as many as 20 unique visitors to my site in a day (the average is 7) of which about 25% were repeat visitors. They stayed anywhere from 10 seconds to 4 minutes. I can't tell where they went or where they exited because the only page my site designer put StatCounter on was my home page. From a keyword POV, it looks like 'guitar strings' gets them there -- upon which I earn maybe 2 dollars a sale. The real money is in selling pedals and effects. And, of the 30 sales I've had in a year -- I haven't sold one yet.

Many of these visitors are coming from links from other sites. I realize how important they are and that I've not done a very good job at getting them. Would a LINK REQUEST like the one following make sense?
************************************************** ***************

FROM: Larry Collins
E-mail: larry@USStrings.com
SUBJECT: Link request
URL: http://www.USStrings.com

My name is Larry Collins. I own US Strings.com. We provide professional, touring and aspiring musicians with a wide variety of guitar, bass, banjo and mandolin strings, effects and accessories. In addition, we provide valuable technical, touring and instructional information on-line and in our Newsletters.

The site is well-established offering the finest in personally-tested products with a 100% money-back guarantee. Brand names include FENDER, MARTIN, GIBSON, BOSS, DUNLOP, PLANET WAVES, SHURE, GHS, DR HAND-MADE STRINGS, D'ADDARIO, DAVA, GEORGE L's, CLAYTON and many more.

I've worked long and hard to create an environment that provides real service to my customers and friends. I think our site would be a good resource for Guitar World's customers, visitors and members. And, I believe our audiences would be a good match - and that each site would enhance the other.

If you agree, please post my site on yours as follows:

DISCOUNT GUITAR STRINGS & BASS STRINGS, PEDALS AND EFFECTS.
(link to http://www.USStrings.com )

If you require code - it would be:

<a href="http://www.usstrings.com">US Strings.com – discount guitar strings & bass strings, pedals & effects</a>

I would be very grateful if you would post a link to my site. Once my link is posted - if you'd like - contact me and I will post yours on my site.

Thank you,

Larry Collins –
larry@USStrings.com

615-413-3358
************************************************** ************************************************** ***

**chrishirst** · 12-19-2006, 08:03 PM

I'll tell you what If you sent me that nice email with "Link Request" in the subject......

**ADAM Web Design** · 12-19-2006, 08:12 PM

Dude, you're missing the point completely.

I'm going to spell this out as cleanly, as plainly, and as obviously as I can. And this will be the one time I will do this, so if you miss it, your loss.

THERE IS NO POINT IN ACTIVELY PROMOTING A BROKEN WEBSITE THAT NO ONE WOULD WANT TO LINK TO WITHOUT EXPECTING ANYTHING IN RETURN.

IF YOU MUST SPAM OTHERS AND ASK THEM FOR A LINK, YOU HAVE MUCH DEEPER ISSUES WITH YOUR OWN SITE.

Sorry for the drastic measure, but sometimes it's necessary and I think this is one of those times.

**chrishirst** · 12-19-2006, 08:22 PM

.....

it would be deleted probably before I even saw it. About the only thing it will get you is to be reported for spamming.

You're not thinking outside the Guitar Case yet

Forget stupid link exchange emails. You wouldn't want a link off the only ones who are likely to reply anyway.

There are musicians forums all over the place. Go introduce yourself, be helpful. you must have a lot of knowledge stored up about strings and things, Go and tell them directly what's good and what isn't.
There are hundreds of tablature sites, go find them see if they have links to string sites, guitar sites etc. Get one from them
Music schools and tutors, local guitar bands and the rest. if you get desperate, Country Music sites

(only joking, before somebody sends Garth Brooks to have a word with me )

THESE are where your GOOD visitors should be coming from.

Build yourself some "resource pages" listing some the better quality "tab" site (In Your Opinion of course) these pages oddly enough can also have some of your products nicely displayed and related to the page contents

You're advertising! Think like an advertiser not a shopkeeper

**chrishirst** · 12-19-2006, 08:33 PM

On the stats side

sign up to Google Analytics it's free.

Get your host to provide you with logs and use a log analyser If they won't, get a host that will !

**ADAM Web Design** · 12-19-2006, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Music schools and tutors, local guitar bands and the rest. if you get desperate, Country Music sites

(only joking, before somebody sends Garth Brooks to have a word with me )

I got Friends in Low Places who can take care of you for that remark. Be careful, city boy.

**lgc252** · 12-19-2006, 09:25 PM

GUYS - I know. I agree. I would have only sent this to relevant music sites that I myself would have found useful, helpful, interesting. There's a million of them out there. (I belong to many of them.)

And, I do participate and offer advice, tips, etc. just like you do. And where there are forums, I participate and I have my website in my signature. Although, I don't know how to show just the site title (description) w/o the URL.

And, Adam - I know the site is broken. I'm looking for a 'site re-builder' right now. Nothing would have been done 'till then. I just wanted to know if this is a reasonable way of communicating.

Chris - you're the greatest. But what am I saying wrong in the language of the request. Or is it simply the Request, itself.

**lgc252** · 12-19-2006, 09:27 PM

Chris - do you know the analytic 'StatCounter'? It's free - but it seems to give me tons of info; 22 unique visitors came by today.

**ADAM Web Design** · 12-20-2006, 12:33 AM

Chris is referring to the request itself. If you sent me that request and I didn't want to waste the time laughing at it or making fun of it in a reply back to you, I'd delete it. And he would too.

There are more than enough places to get a good, free, one-way link that you don't have to ask to exchange. Good sites have a way of picking up organic links in ways the owners never expected.

**vangogh** · 12-20-2006, 04:47 AM

Larry I don't think there's anything wrong with requesting links from related sites, but I think you would be better sending a more personalized email to each site that shows you've been on that site and are fmailiar with it.

I agree with Chris and Adam that most people will delete the email and there are probably more important things to be doing with your time.

I'm not sure how comfortable you are editing the files for your site, but if you search the source of the home page for:



and



the code in between those two lines is natually enough the statcounter code. I think if you just paste that code on your other pages then it will track more about what visitors are doing on your site.

You can also sign up for Google Analytics which is free. It will also require adding some code to your pages.

You're page titles are looking very similar to me and quite honestly too long. A better title for your home page might be:

Guitar, Bass, Banjo Mandolin Strings and Accessories | US Strings

An interior page title might work as:

Dr Hi-Beam Nickel Plated Electric Guitar Strings | US Strings

I think you're trying to target too many keywords on each page. You're not going to be able to rank a page for so many different keywords. You're better off trying to focus different pages on different keywords and phrases. The site as a whole can rank for many keywords, but the individual pages will be better off focusing on a core keyphrase or two.

It looks like your meta keywords are also trying to target every keyword there is. You could rewrite them, but since they won't do much it might be easiest to just get rid of them.

Since you say the money is in the accessories like the foot pedals I'd try upselling on the the pages where you're selling strings. Maybe just a sentence on the page that mentions the pedals with a link to them.

If I'm not mistaken you've paid to have the site designed and developed twice now. I know you probably won't want to hear this, but I think it could stand one more attempt. 3rd time is a charm. But I would suggest having someone with more experience work on the site. The design itself is fine, though it could be improved as well.

But I can tell that whoever coded the site doesn't understand search engines at all. There are a lot of things that could have and should have been coded differently. In fact I think that by having the site recoded to be search friendly and also having someone do some very basic on-page seo you could get considerable traffic from search engines with even just a few links pointing to the site.

I'm thinking it's not what you want to hear and I know you've already spent more money on the site than you wanted, but I really do think that a redesign/redevelopment by someone more experienced and someone who has an understanding of search engine optimization can go a long way toward improving things.

**lgc252** · 12-20-2006, 02:05 PM

Adam, Chris and Steve - thanks again. You are ALL right.

I did send out 4 requests like the one above last week -- and got 2 back OK'd yesterday -- and they're already up.

Let me go back and digest your comments and I'll employ what I can. I'll write back soon.

**ADAM Web Design** · 12-21-2006, 01:23 PM

One other thing I'd like to add: if you do hire anyone that is capable of fixing this (and there really aren't that many people out there that can and will), be prepared to pay for a bottom-up redesign/redevelopment. And by that, I mean something in the 4-digit range ($3000-$4000 for something that would work for you.)

I know that's probably not what you want to hear, but it's one of those situations that is sadly too common in our industry. Hire a designer/developer, he/she messes up, hire an SEO, he/she messes up. Owner flushes money down the toilet. Sad but true.

(And no, I'm not looking to redesign/redevelop the site since I'm not looking for new business, so this is a totally objective remark. If I were, I'd tell you upfront for full disclosure purposes.)