Does anybody know anyone that can help me out with SEO or know of any companies in Sheffield that could help me out with SEO for my website?

I feel like I've taken the site as far as I can SEO wise and don't really know what more I can do to climb Google.

I'm only a student and can't afford a lot of the services that are available, even the cheapest ones! I understand SEO is a time consuming service and a costly one which is why it's so difficult for me to take the next step.

Or if anyone knows of any seminars or lectures about SEO?

SEO needn't be costly and is not a rocket science but it is a skill learned over time much like anything else really. A couple of hours a week committed to your website optimisation every week for a year can have excellent results. It's actually pretty tedious stuff. People don't want to pay but they don't want to have a go at doing it themselves even when instructions are laid out before them.

You don't have the money to pay for it, so work out how many hours per week you are willing to commit to learning and doing more yourself. All the info is actually out there on the net. Only tactics and strategies of SEO's is for obvious reasons, are kept secret. But basic optimisation procedures is common knowledge on the internet. Your meta tags can still be improved - that's a very fundamental thing and is core to success, as is keyword research and keyword link building, not just any old link building.

However, you haven't had this site up long so it's really way too early to be seeing the results of your efforts just yet. It's a slow plod job, not an overnight thing - slowly, slowly, catch the monkey.

Does anybody know anyone that can help me out with SEO or know of any companies in Sheffield that could help me out with SEO for my website?

I feel like I've taken the site as far as I can SEO wise and don't really know what more I can do to climb Google.

I'm only a student and can't afford a lot of the services that are available, even the cheapest ones! I understand SEO is a time consuming service and a costly one which is why it's so difficult for me to take the next step.

Or if anyone knows of any seminars or lectures about SEO?

try here https://yandh.regionalknowledgesystem.com/EDMSPortalWebsite/ClientApps/Silverbear.Web.EDMS/public/default.aspx?tabid=36&id=7199&p=&orgId=1&guid=0d787caa-969b-40dd-a474-b910edc77c2a

Does anybody know anyone that can help me out with SEO or know of any companies in Sheffield that could help me out with SEO for my website?

I feel like I've taken the site as far as I can SEO wise and don't really know what more I can do to climb Google.

I'm only a student and can't afford a lot of the services that are available, even the cheapest ones! I understand SEO is a time consuming service and a costly one which is why it's so difficult for me to take the next step.

Or if anyone knows of any seminars or lectures about SEO?

Buy "SEO for dummies"; it is the basis of all the SEO work we do for clients these days...best £20 you'll ever spend!

Have you looked at all the help from Google? Google Webmaster is pretty useful and there is a handy basic SEO PDF document you can download.

<title> Spy Pens - Hidden Cameras Spy Gadgets Online</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta name="description" content="" />
<meta name="keywords" content="" />

<h2>Spy Pens</h2>


I don't think you have checked your site recently. I would go over your site again and look at the meta info and the header tags to start with. You then need to add more content containing your keywords.

Does anybody know anyone that can help me out with SEO or know of any companies in Sheffield that could help me out with SEO for my website?

I feel like I've taken the site as far as I can SEO wise and don't really know what more I can do to climb Google.

I'm only a student and can't afford a lot of the services that are available, even the cheapest ones! I understand SEO is a time consuming service and a costly one which is why it's so difficult for me to take the next step.

Or if anyone knows of any seminars or lectures about SEO?

You need to add keywords, also a different description on everypage, if you use the same description, the search engines will treat the pages as duplicates and you will lose rank points. Also you have a lot of white space in the body section. Also a sitemap.xml and robot.txt would be nice, as mentioned above, google webmaster tools can prove to be invaluable at times.

When you say add keywords, I assume you mean in the meta tag? If so, I'm being told that Google no longer looks at the keyword Meta tag data for SEO purposes focusing more on site optimisation (keyword density) and the quality and relevance of in bound links (but of course it will do no harm putting keywords in the Tag).

Anybody got any views on this?

When you say add keywords, I assume you mean in the meta tag? If so, I'm being told that Google no longer looks at the keyword Meta tag data for SEO purposes focusing more on site optimisation (keyword density) and the quality and relevance of in bound links (but of course it will do no harm putting keywords in the Tag).

Anybody got any views on this?

Hmmmm, I use google webmaster tools and analytics for my websites optimisation, every month they display the relevance of the keywords I am using in my meta tags, according to the number of searches performed, and click throughs. I then replace the keywords that are not performing well, or, just add keywords that are performing better according to google's keyword research tool. :)

When you say add keywords, I assume you mean in the meta tag? If so, I'm being told that Google no longer looks at the keyword Meta tag data for SEO purposes focusing more on site optimisation (keyword density) and the quality and relevance of in bound links (but of course it will do no harm putting keywords in the Tag).

Anybody got any views on this?

Google has not paid much attention to the meta tags for a while as people used to spam them to try to unfairly influence rankings.

That said it may not be a total waste of time to use meta tags as I believe bing uses them and some meta tags such as the meta description tag are still useful as it can sometimes be used by google when displaying results.

it might be an idea for the OP to head over to one of the dedicated SEO forums. I use sometimes read one called seo chat just google it, it should come first if you search for seo forums.

Cheers everyone, I got a copy of SEO for dummies which is great. Also I use Magento for my site which gives me all the options to SEO the site. So I'm not really doing it manually so to speak...

Does optimising your site improve your ranking in Google Shopping also, or is this seperate and require different techniques?

hello there,

here are some tips. based on what's been said so far & my own experience. (i've managed over a dozen sites, a few of them bringing in several millions per month).

I hope this is useful & I don't mean to offend anyone.


The big, big problem with your site is it has a lack of quality inbound links. Your on-site SEO is good enough & tweaking it to death isn't going to help you at all.
SEO for dummies is not a good book. Read it, but take it with a pinch of salt. Have a look for SEOMoz's 'Beginners Guide to SEO' for something more useful (it's fairly old, but - even so - far better than SEO for Dummies).
Optimizing your site only affects google shopping in that (theoretically) they measure clickthrough rates on results within their shopping pages, along with the time between clickthroughs to competing sites. If visitors consistently go back immediately google & click on a competitor, eventually it will effect you. That's difficult to 'game' & you're better off focusing on improving your site for its own sake, rather than for that.
To improve google shopping results, make sure everything has a good image, make sure you fill in as many feed attributes as you can, make sure you include words that someone will actually search for related directly to the product in your title/description. Another trick is to get reviews in there, but that largely depends on having reviews on other sites (eg. kelkoo, shopping.com) - all of which cost money.
As someone said, meta description is still fairly useful in that the contents often appear as the description within search results. Sticking a call to action in there, using special characters, repeating the target search term so that google bolds the text - all of these help. (To reiterate, the larger problem is, you have so few inbound links & you're such a commodity site that you probably don't appear in search results too often)
Ignore 'keyword density' - the concept was discredited many years ago.
Ignore 'meta keywords' - as some have said, they're virtually useless.


In summary - you basically just need more inbound links. Here are a few sources:


comment on other peoples' blogs
link to other blogs in your on blog posts.
approach those who link to your competitors, ask them to link to you. (for example - here are some examples of those linking to one of your chief competitors: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=linkdomain:spycatcheronline.co.uk%20-site:spycatcheronline.co.uk ). To do that, just visit their site, find the email address, send them a personal email saying "hi, I see you're linking to xyz, I'd love it if you'd take a look at my site & link to it too if you feel it's appropriate".
add your site to every relevant directory you an find. an easy way of doing that is to go to google & search for: "spy gadgets" "add url" - that will present you with a list of pages that include both of those terms.
get as much local PR as you can. This is extremely easy & surprisingly effective.
ask your suppliers for links.
send out samples to bloggers who cover your type of products - even if the products are cheap. this works well if you can get them to review the products; even better if you can get them to run a competition, featuring your products as prizes. (make sure to get a link back every time with the keywords that are most valuable to you used as anchor text).
just keep putting work into the content on the site & make sure there's nothing that would put someone off linking to you. for example, your blog leads with a post from the 19th April about volcanic ash.


Keep up the good work with the site. Don't pay for SEO services as you'll probably end up buying snake oil!

Hope that helps

Or if you buy seo services, ask for proof of the before and after. The proof is usually in the pudding. Agree though, a lot of folk charging very high amounts but that should only be for very competitive keywords. So yes, if you want page 1 for ipods and loans, spend thousands and thousands per month, per year for years on end, anything less, dilute it from there.

thanks, indizine.

something weird: i once posted some tips on seo personally for you. i see you followed them &, looking at your rankings, they seem to have helped you. but then my post was deleted?

I havent followed anyone's tips from here. All my achievements are as a result of trial and error over a long period of time. I've studied SEO from a range of sites and people over the years. However, and that said, its all much of a muchness really not all unique though I have my own strategies which seem to work. So no, not weird, just coincidental. I can take the Jeremy Kyle lie detector test if you don't beliebve me :P

Cant remember what post you are referring to, it was so long ago. I dont think I was a mod then anyway, it was a long time ago.

PS I wanted to reply to your post but im also mindful we should not take this off topic form the OP's discussion so lets not take this discussion further so that does not happen. Happy to answer a couple of questions by PM but not looking to get into any deep dialogue about SEO. If you have a query about a post, it should go to Help Desk not be queried on the forum.

hello there,


SEO for dummies is not a good book. Read it, but take it with a pinch of salt. Have a look for SEOMoz's 'Beginners Guide to SEO' for something more useful (it's fairly old, but - even so - far better than SEO for Dummies).


Why do you say this, I've read it, implemented most of its suggestions and are ranked on page 1 of Google for my keywords. Done the same for a few other clients too. Have not read the book you recommend so cannot comment.

Regarding Indizine; I think it is a little disingenuous of you to:

a) Take credit for what Sandra does for a living as your own. Sandra, can I now claim that, everything you know about business is as a result of my postings :loopy:
b) To accuse Sandra of removing posts because she has not liked what you have written; this undermines the whole purpose of the Forum

Steve, it all depends how competitive those keywords are. If not many competitors are trying to get to page 1 for those keywords, its quite easy. I've read other 'for dummies' books & they skim over the details & just cover the basics, but for a similar price to a good book.

SEOmoz provides much better & more up to date information foe free.

Forum moderators always have their own agenda, this place is the worst forum around for that. They aren't paid for moderating here, the only purpose in doing it is to support their own interests.

i can recommend cost effective seo for those who want it.. once my website is completed
i will be utilising this chap to do all seo work for my clients..

I have just got a £50 voucher from Google adwords in the post. Which needs to be used before the end of the month otherwise it drops down to £30. I've been avoiding topics surrounding Adwords until now as I've never had the money for it. Can anyone recommend a website which can help me through adwords?

When I have a bit more money I will look into it more and spend more time on it, but since I want to use it before the end of the month I need to learn quick :s

Try www.kksmarts.com

I know the guy (Mike Seddon) who owns this company and he gives lots of useful free advice and webinars on the subject.

Of course he does sell an adwords ebook (but there is no hard sell or silly gimmicks from Mike) and I have a copy of it since I proofed it for him, and its really in depth and great for someone who wants to DIY their own campaign but to learn it properly from an expert before wasting money.

SEO Moz has some good stuff on it, try there

I remember using adwords once, think my money lasted about a day....

I'm updated my content and working on the site constantly but what I lack is links!

I'm in desperate need for quality links to my site and it's much tougher than I thought. I did a bit of research and discovered that my competitors have thousands of links to their site..

I realise it takes time to build links and to write blogs etc but how do I go about getting so many links? I write new fresh content but then struggle to think of places to upload it to.

Have you tried submitting to directories (http://www.indizine.co.uk/submitting-to-directories)?

yeah I've submitted to quite a few directories

Ok, are you submitting your articles to article submission (http://www.indizine.co.uk/article-submission) websites?

Also social bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious etc. Doing a search on the web will give you quite a few too submit to.

I've submitted articles to a few article submission sites (theres loads!). Haven't yet submitted to Digg or Delicious...

You mention your competitors have thousands of links, this might not be the case.

You might find:-
1)The majority of these come from one site. (for instance if they have a link on a footer, or sidebar (the link appears on thousands of pages to one site)
2)These might come from the same domain, and therefore won't also be a big problem.

Checkout www.majesticseo.com. They have a free tool that will allow you to delve deeper into your competitors links then yahoo site explorer. You will be able to see how many actually come from unique domains.

To climb to the top position in the Google or any search engine you need to follow some SEO strategies. There are numerous SEO strategies like article submission, directory submission, blog comments, social video submission, social profile creation, forum commenting and so on. These strategies belong to off page optimization. it is also called as link building process.

If you want content that makes provides well-researched keywords, I recommend the new article writing service at Servio. They have quick turn-around times and let you either stipulate your own keywords or do the legwork for you. You can specify tone of voice to make your content more personalized, too. Each piece of content is carefully reviewed by an editor before you ever see the end result.