Website Review and Suggestions

**fradleycroft** · 07-31-2008, 11:33 AM

Guys I have had this website up since Jan 08 and have spent a lot of time optermising it and adding pages to it over the last 6 months but for some reason I am still only getting around 20 visits a day!

Has anyone got any ideas why this maybe? I have added it to loads of directories etc but the backlinks still dont really show in Google and my page rank is still 0 -

Any comments will be appreciated as im running out of ideas!!

www.fradleycroft-events.co.uk

**Sycrohix** · 07-31-2008, 12:56 PM

Hello

First of all, your site is VERY well designed, i must say i am impressed. It looks clean, professional and really captures your attention.

Because your business is very niche, it means you need to try even harder when advertising. Do you do offline advertising? Do you use Google Adwords? What keywords are you using for your backlinks?

**XBSHX** · 07-31-2008, 01:38 PM

No idea, it looks like its a pretty good site. One thing that bothers me though is the text is a little too light, try making it a little bit darker gray.

**redshirt** · 07-31-2008, 03:21 PM

Your site is well designed and easy to navigate. I also think the text is a little too light. There is too much contrast between the light gray and the solid red that it causes my eyes jump to the red text automatically skimming over the rest of the text.

On the technical side, some of your link highlights are not working correctly.
1. When I clicked on EVENT PACKAGES, there is no link highlights.
2. When I clicked on TECHNICAL DELIVERY, EVENING ENTERTAINMENT is highlighted.
3. When I clicked on VENUES, TECHNICAL DELIVERY is highlighted.
4. When I clicked on CONTACT US, VENUES is highlighted.

Your map is also not displaying correctly. In the VENUES section, I get the following error:

Forbidden
Your client does not have permission to get URL /maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Fradley+Croft+Events+Ven ue,+Middleton+House+Farm,+Tamworth,+B78+2BD,+Unite d+Kingdom&ie=UTF8&t=h&s=AARTsJocMg7x89qMSQGyI7CN5F EJChoNEg&ll=52.572333,-1.720304&spn=0.018258,0.036478&z=14&iwloc=A&output =embed from this server. (Client IP address:...

I’m from the United States. Maybe your network is blocking visitors from the U.S.?

And when I click on the View Larger Map, I get the following error:

Your search for Fradley Croft Events Venue, Middleton House Farm, near Tamworth, B78 2BD, United Kingdom did not match any locations.

**fradleycroft** · 07-31-2008, 04:20 PM

Thanks guys, to be honest I was thinking of making the text darker any way so thanks for the comments on that one!

As for the Google map im not sure what is going on with that I uploaded the link a few days ago and it was fine until today when i checked it out it had the same error as REDSHIRT found - not sure if this has something to do with the API number as I havent followed this through properly, Has anyone else had this problem?

All I did was copy and paste the code form the link option in google maps.

I have just started to use addwords again as after experimenting with this in the early days it didnt really bring me any enquiries although my website was very limited at that stage. Trouble is that its so bloody expensive (nearly £2.50 a click)
that it only really brings me 6/7 extra clicks a day!!

**highanddry** · 07-31-2008, 04:48 PM

I can tell you. It is because when visitors go to your site they do not know what they are seeing. After 3 seconds of their attention they have not figured it out and assume its a company's event site and leave. That is what I experienced when visiting. Furthermore, the site looks decent, but it is not "VERY" well designed, the link over colors are too light.

**matthewtruin** · 07-31-2008, 05:19 PM

I would suggest starting to use google adwords and if you don't want to spend that much try http://www.adexchanged.com which does traffic sharing for free. Otherwise site looks great.

**slightstk** · 07-31-2008, 09:27 PM

Yea. I also suggest you use google adwords. And seek an SEO consultant.

**vangogh** · 07-31-2008, 09:55 PM

As much as I hate to say it you need more links. It looks like you submitted the site to a few directories and that's about it. It's not enough.

Try adding a section to the site with informational content. Nothing that's directly selling your services. Maybe some articles or blog posts on why corporate events are good for boosting morale or how they help foster teamwork in an organization. You could talk about the things you do as a company and share how effective the results are.

You're going to need more people linking to you than are now and to do that you first need to create the kind of content people want to link to.

While it's not related to your search traffic I do agree with everyone above that the gray text is hard to read. I'd use a darker color.

**fradleycroft** · 08-01-2008, 04:22 AM

hmmm thanks for the comments - I will get the text changed today!

I am going to have a think about getting a blog or information section put on there as well - thanks for that Vangogh

**mandimak** · 08-01-2008, 04:37 AM

Advertise your site. Use yahoo answers. I have found this one helpful in many websites.

**God Of War** · 08-01-2008, 05:21 AM

Over all, why you didn't add "META KEYWORDS" to your website. I can see only the meta description on the site as of now.

add the following tag with your keywords:

Quote:

Call the crawlers to your website first. lol

Do you do article submission, which is a better way to drive traffic than directories

**fradleycroft** · 08-01-2008, 06:07 AM

The only reason I didnt add any key word tags was because I thought it had no affect within Google and other search engines anymore -

As for article subbmision - whats this?

Thanks
Jim

**johnlloyd** · 08-01-2008, 08:03 AM

I see no problem on the design and on the content, I think that you should double your effort in link building and ranking on SERP try some social bookmarkings and article writing that can drive traffic to your site!

**vangogh** · 08-01-2008, 03:39 PM

James you can safely ignore the meta keywords tag. Search engines ignore it since it's too easy to spam. If a keyword has very little to no competition then meta keywords could help with a couple of engines, but even then you'd be better off just using the keyword phrase on the page itself. The meta keywords tag isn't really worth the time it takes to write.