Adrian Rouse started this topic @ 08:59 on 27/06/2012
I run London Tours by Taxi and although I am quite high in Google, I do not seem to be getting as much business as I would like. I wonder whether the content of my website is good enough or whether there are changes I should make. I would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks www.londontoursbytaxi.com
RE: Please could you rate my website
Ian J | 27/06/2012 01:02 PM
I think that you do need to make changes to the copy bearing in mind the 10 second rule which states that you have 10 seconds in which to grab the reader's attention otherwise he will just go on to the next site.
I find your opening paragraph - which is the most important one, to be a bit dreary and you are focussing on the wrong aspect in the safety of your driving as I think that proposed customers would be more interested in the fact that you can provide a unique and interesting experience rather than a safe one.
I'm no great wordsmith but I would suggest changing your opening paragraph to something along the following lines:-
London Tours by Taxi offers one of the most informative and unique ways of experiencing the diverse and historic City of London in one of the world famous London black cabs driven by someone with an intimate knowledge of the city who would be happy to be your guide as well as driver during the tour.
------------------------
Ian
Factoring ,
Invoice Discounting ,
Trade Finance and
Asset Finance specialist broker.Founder member of
Independent Factoring Brokers Association
RE: Please could you rate my website
Adrian Rouse | 27/06/2012 03:46 PM
Hi Ian
Thanks very much for your feedback. I take your point about the 10 second rule and will change my first paragraph based on your suggestion. Many thanks for this again.
RE: Please could you rate my website
mafikzaman | 30/06/2012 10:49 PM
To increase rank your site you should proper SEO from seo expert,
RE: RE: Please could you rate my website
Adrian Rouse | 01/07/2012 08:50 AM
Hi
Thanks for your advice - this is something I am looking into now
RE: Please could you rate my website
MicroliteSoftware | 01/07/2012 08:16 AM
Hi Adrian,
I agree with Ian that your wording could be a little more snappy. Try and put yourself in the shoes of a tourist and think about what appeals to them.
From an accessibility perspective, you could do with filling in the ALT tags on your image buttons. I use a screen reader and had no clue what the buttons did until I clicked on them and read the page that followed.
(The ALT tag is a textual-alternative to the image, for those users who are unable to see the image itself)
Whilst it is true that you could probably improve your rankings with the services of a professional SEO expert, there are a couple of quick steps you could take to boost your search engine performance:
- At present every page in your site has the same title. You should consider changing these so that the page title reflects the content of the individual page.
- Make sure your pages are marked up with good descriptions and keywords. This is really where the knowledge of a SEO professional comes in handy, but provided you make your
descriptions relevant and you don't overload your site with keywords, you should be able to do a lot of this work yourself.
- Look at signing up for Google's webmaster tools - it's free and pretty easy to set up. You can then see how Google is indexing your site, and what search terms people are using to get to your site. Visit www.google.com/webmasters for more details.
Hope this helps - if you have any questions feel free to ask.
Regards,
John
RE: Please could you rate my website
Adrian Rouse | 01/07/2012 08:41 AM
Hi John
Thank you very much for your reply. Somebody else set my website up, although my wife did most of the content for it. Because I have to rely on the person who did the website to make changes all the time, I do not feel it is very easy to keep on top of changes I want to make. For this reason, I may look at doing another website where we can make the alterations ourselves. I will read your email in depth as I have to do out. I am still a little unsure of ALT tags, but my wife may be able to have a look at this for me. my wife has put quite a lot of listings on Google and it does tend to get on the first page often. I will have a look at the webmaster tool also. Also, is it expensive to get the services of an SEO? Would they have to have access to the website to make the changes or do they pass on suggestions that I can forward to the person doing mine at present? Looking at other taxi tour companies my wife feels I need to outline prices and tours also on the first page - what do you think? Also, viewing my website from my computer it shows the text colour and font to be quite small and not sharp - is this how you view it from your computer?
Thanks very much for your advice John. It really is appreciated! I will sit down this week and look at the suggestion made by another forum user and make these changes too.
RE: Please could you rate my website
Ian J | 01/07/2012 10:28 AM
Be careful of "SEO experts" as every man and his dog claims to be one. I must admit that I didn't look at your site from an SEO point of view as you said that you already ranked quite highly but it was the conversions you were having trouble with.
My advice regarding SEO is to read up as much as you can on various forums and see what you can manage on your own before wasting hard earned money on paying someone else to do it
I assume that you have copies of your website along with the access details for the hosting so it's simply a matter of making the changes and uploading them - which is what I do with my sites
------------------------
Ian
Factoring ,
Invoice Discounting ,
Trade Finance and
Asset Finance specialist broker.Founder member of
Independent Factoring Brokers Association
RE: Please could you rate my website
Adrian Rouse | 02/07/2012 08:22 AM
Hi Ian
Many thanks for your input again. You are right, I am often on page 1 at least, not always at the top of the page. Maybe then I should focus on getting my content right at this stage. I am not able to make changes to the website myself, which is a bit of a problem in keeping it updated.
Thanks very much again for your advice.
Regards
Adrian
RE: Please could you rate my website
MicroliteSoftware | 02/07/2012 10:25 AM
Hi Adrian,
Concentrating on your content first is certainly the right way to go in my opinion. Many people focus on SEO first, which is a bit like putting the cart before the horse.
Part of Webmaster Tools is a free product called Google Analytics - www.google.com/analytics
It's a great way of finding out exactly how people are using your site - including which pages they visit and how they navigate around your site.
For example, if you find that you have a high bounce rate (i.e. the number of people who land on your site but don't explore any further) you could try your wife's suggestion of putting your prices on your home page and monitor your site's usage to see if it makes a difference.
Google Analytics does require that you copy and paste a small block of code onto each page of your site - it's quite straight forward provided you have access to your site's pages.
If you don't want to keep relying on someone else to make changes to your site and you're happy to start getting your hands dirty, I'd certainly suggest moving to a hosting account which gives you direct access to your site. There are plenty of good offerings out there for not a lot of money.
Regards,
John
RE: Please could you rate my website
Adrian Rouse | 02/07/2012 02:58 PM
Hi John
You have been a real help - thank you. I will have a look at the Google Analytics and see how people are viewing my site. Many thanks again John.
Regards
Adrian
RE: Please could you rate my website
DeniseTaylor | 02/07/2012 05:46 PM
Hi Adrian
I look at your taxi tours page and I can see how it would be a great idea. However, your tours descriptions don't compel me. If you made the descriptions more inviting, I think you'd get more sign ups. The Harry Potter Tour, seems like it would whisk people away, if the copy was more convincing.
Good luck!
------------------------
Denise Taylor
http://answers.sitesell.com
RE: Please could you rate my website
Adrian Rouse | 02/07/2012 05:51 PM
Hi Denise
Great feedback. We definitely intend to work on the content of the website this week. Thank you very much
Regards
Adrian