Suggestions for My New Website/SEO?

[andreab35]

Hi guys!

I just finished my site, Deal Canine.

Here's the about us page to give you an idea about what my site is geared for: About Deal Canine

The site is just about done, except I need to fix the front page slider (it may be slow due to flash).

Could some of you give me some specific steps on how to grow this site out or if I need to make any changes to it? I really want to prosper this one...
I have already gotten the site map on Google and such. Another step I will be taking is trying to advertise my site in the local paper.

I appreciate the guidance. Any suggestions, thoughts, etc. I would love to know!

Thank you!

http://dealcanine.com

[IBradMac]

I'm not much for web design. I only dabble with it a little but I can tell you from a browsing perspective that the site definitely caught my attention.

Some of the sites I see listed on here I might click on the link and not look around long and close the tab or window. I actually read your site. Nice...

[MorphingDragon]

With the contact form, this is just my personal design preference, but you could clean it up a bit, centre it maybe? I've attached what I mean. It just looks messy to me.

[CANEHDN]

I've actually been doing a lot of research on that lately. My site http://www.smsamp.com is about to launch. The best thing to do is get links from other sites to yours. Like blogs, forums, and other trusted sites. The more your link shows up the more important it appears to google and other search sites. I found a list of over 3k sites that you can post your site on for more exposure. Even going to different forums and stuff and commenting and putting your link a few times a day can have huge positive results. Also the other big things are obviously lots of text on your site, meta keywords, meta titles, and meta descriptions. I've also read that the more the keywords differ from page to page makes a big difference. Once, you're able to you should do some adwords. Even it's only a few dollars a day. The exposure would help and increase your natural rankings.

Also Morphing is right. Your form titles should have the same length. I would also put a * for required fields as in Morphing's example.Just not at the top that the * mens required.

[Cromulent]

Originally Posted by CANEHDN

I found a list of over 3k sites that you can post your site on for more exposure.

I'd be very careful with things like that.

Google specifically penalises sites that try and link whore by just getting as many random links as they can. Go for organic link growth and use standard advertising methods as well as making sure your site has lots of decent content that is updated regularly will yield far better results than dodgy link farms.

[CANEHDN]

Originally Posted by Cromulent

I'd be very careful with things like that.

Google specifically penalises sites that try and link whore by just getting as many random links as they can. Go for organic link growth and use standard advertising methods as well as making sure your site has lots of decent content that is updated regularly will yield far better results than dodgy link farms.

That's true. I'm posting it with links that I've heard of or have decent traffic. Cromulent is right and you must be very careful with link spamming. But it does help to get your link on a few sites out there. It gives your site a little more exposure until you can have your site naturally show up on other sites.

[andreab35]

Thank you for all of your advice guys, It is greatly appreciated.
I actually just changed the whole layout. It's brand new but still in the works.
What do you think of the new theme now?

CANEHDN your site is awesome by the way! Good work!

[CANEHDN]

The new design looks good. Looks like you're following the Apple design. I personally liked your other design a little better. Both look great though. One thing I would think about is when clicking on Store. It takes you to the store but it took me a min to figure out how to get back to your site.

[alm99]

NM, I see it's a wordpress theme

[efovargue]

I like your dog graphic. Your 'ask a vet online' box is only showing half in my browser (latest IE at resolution 1152 x 864). And the 'home' menu button is missing

As for recommendations, I would make your text larger - hope this helps

[Sdashiki]

If you are honestly trying to be a viable commercial site...lose the blog backend and code a real site.

Youve used the template...youve kept elements (like the tag cloud) that serves customers no purpose...

[AdamA9]

In my honest opinion, it's an okay start, but doesn't draw me in. It could do with something more, maybe a logo/banner or something. It would appear you're just using the text placement on the template.

Originally Posted by MorphingDragon

With the contact form, this is just my personal design preference, but you could clean it up a bit, centre it maybe? I've attached what I mean. It just looks messy to me.

I disagre with this, I don't like centre align on contact forms, but it's all personal preference. Also, not sure what the store has in reference to your site? I thought it was about dogs? Or is that just the catch phrase? Actually, live writing, I realise that's the catch phrase, but it wasn't immidiately obvious to me.

Typo spotted:

Deal of the Day: It’s one deal for one day. Each deal is exclusive to you from our partners who give us the savings the pass onto you!

Look forward to seeing any updates.

[CANEHDN]

You should have seen the other design. It was unique and very catching. It was a cool design.

[7on]

Yeah the old design (attached a few posts above) was more eye-catching. Just a swap of the background image would have done wonders for it (some bokeh maybe)

And there's nothing wrong with Wordpress, though only when designing your own themes. It's an excellent CMS in it's own right.

[Sdashiki]

Originally Posted by 7on

Yeah the old design (attached a few posts above) was more eye-catching. Just a swap of the background image would have done wonders for it (some bokeh maybe)

And there's nothing wrong with Wordpress, though only when designing your own themes. It's an excellent CMS in it's own right.

I didnt say wordpress or CMS in general isnt a good thing...but for a commercial, make money site...its kinda unprofessional aint it?

[angelwatt]

Originally Posted by Sdashiki

I didnt say wordpress or CMS in general isnt a good thing...but for a commercial, make money site...its kinda unprofessional aint it?

Well, CMS already have security and the like polished off, so why reinvent the wheel if the CMS does what the client needs? They'll likely end up with something better this way. I just wouldn't pay someone as much for a WordPress theme than a full site design.

[definitive]

site looks good, though i noticed that you used wordpress, and did hardly any customizations to it. if you want the site to grow, it will need some originality to it. since the theme is a cms style, i'd suggest you check out drupal or joomla since those are probably better suited for this kind of stuff, but might be more difficult to get used to and modify.

regarding seo - there are many forums out there that contain tons of useful and free information on how to get your site noticed. just a word of caution: try to double check the advice before you actually do something in terms of optimizations. some stuff might be considered black-hatting, and can wind you up in a sandbox where your site won't be getting ranked by search engines. ex: submitting your site to several hundred other sites in a day. search engines will see that something is not right, and will dump you quickly. instead, adding yourself to about five sites a day over a period of time will probably not raise any red flags with them.

read up on keyword optimization so your site contains the terms that you want people to find while searching for something (ex: "tie a shoelace"). also read up on heading tag seo. this can also help your site improve results on search engine results.