Can you check my site....

[GeorgeKing]

Good afternoon All,

I have never really given time over to SEO and it is time I should. My market is extremely competitive (virtual tours) and there are "experts" popping up everywhere it seems. Can you check out Virtual Tour - High Quality & Full Screen - Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland - and be brutal, I can take it (I think!).

Our site is different from our competitors in that I don't have a sample virtual tour at the top of the page (I used to) which is common, but maybe a change in layout/design is required to grab more attention. To compare with a company which I think is one of the leading companies in the UK, see "Eyerevolution"

If you were looking for a virtual tour would you get far enough into the site to be interested/contact us? Quality is our strongest selling point - our industry peers have rated us as one of the best in terms of quality in the UK. I just feel that we are getting lost in the noise!

Thanks in advance
George K.

PS. We use adwords regionalised for Scotland. And why does the link text change on my url above??

 

[Brian McIntosh]

George, I like your site. I love the full screen immersive tours. The quality is really good. What are you shooting them on?

 

[GeorgeKing]

George, I like your site. I love the full screen immersive tours. The quality is really good. What are you shooting them on?

Canon 400D with Sigma 8mm Fisheye.

Quality on the web is as always a compromise .... the typical 360 tour image is around 2MB - 3MB which is compressed down from the masters which are typically between 20MB-30MB depending on the image contents.

Mind you it has taken experimentation with £1400 of different lenses and literally years of hard work to get to an optimal workflow which produces quality results every time. Even then every shoot ends up different from the last.

The problem with the virtual tour industry is new companies startup offering "quality" results using one shot 360 spherical lenses which are dreadful. The unsuspecting customer is often none the wiser until it is too late. One shot solutions can never ever come close.....

Regards
George

 

[Brian McIntosh]

So, roughly how many images are you stitching to make a full 360 image?

 

[Gordon N]

Never got round to looking at your SEO stuff, to busy playing with the sample tour - that rocks! :thumbup:

I have seen many virtual tours over the years with quality that is utterly pathetic, but this is fantastic - great full screen feature too!

Can you do smaller rooms/environments too? The reason I ask is that I think this could be an innovative way to showcase some of my work for my website (would really stand out and show the quality of work:blink, never seen anyone else using it for kitchens/bathrooms and the like...

 

[GeorgeKing]

So, roughly how many images are you stitching to make a full 360 image?

Usually four round plus 1 or 2 for the floor shot depending on what you are standing on.

GK

 

[GeorgeKing]

Can you do smaller rooms/environments too?

Any size of room can be done. You can see an example of a typical sized kitchen on the Westchurch showhome tour.

Thanks
George

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

Hi George,

I agree with the guys the tours are excellent so we can deduce there is nothing with the product.

I think SEO wise (i'm no expert but this is my opinion) you need to do some initial keyword research to see how people find these types of site. Do people actually use "High Quality" & Full Screen" in a search? If they dont why are they there?

You dont seem to use alt tags at all, is there any reason for this? For me I would have the tour at the bottom of the homepage at the top, it's what the page is all about but I also dont see any call to action. What is it you want me to do on that page?

What's your newsletter signup like? I would guess not great considering where it is. You should reposition this above the fold and offer some sort of free report in return for someones email address. Could it go where the live chat is and move the live chat to the contact page?

As I say these are only my own opinion, i'm sure others will give their views as well

 

[GeorgeKing]

Thanks ,

That gives me some things to think about.

George

 

[peteark]

In terms of SEO, if you answer this question with a yes, you will be going down the right track

Before building the website was in depth keyword research carried out, with the results forming the main structure for the whole website.

Most people answer the question

eh!

 

[GeorgeKing]

Well, sort of. I had built my list of keywords from my previous sites keyword history and by use of the free google tools. However I did not particularily use this information to structure the site in any way. Some work is required I think. As points out "full screen" and "high quality" in the page title are not particularily relevant.

 

[peteark]

Bases each page of your website around good quality achievable keywords, follow this up with

On-site optimisation
Link building
Incorporate a mechanism for adding content regularly

Your site will then work well within search engines, most don't hence the percentage of small business websites that do not generate business via the net is high

 

[GeorgeKing]

In reference to external links, any idea why google web master tools fails to see all external links that point to my site - and does this have a bearing on a pages rank?

 

[peteark]

The quality of links has an effect on pageranking

If you are not selling advertising space pageranking is irrelevant

Why does Google not display all backlinks?

It displays a percentage if you type "www.mysite.com" in the search bar, note the quotation marks.

Why does it only display a percentage?

Reverse engineering

Why is there a difference between external links displayed on yahoo site explorer and Google's wmt?

Google wbt's is notoriously slow in updating sometimes by up to 2 months also Google will discount multiple links from the same source, yahoo will display all links

Hope this helps

 

[GeorgeKing]

OK. Thanks for the info....

 

[Tim Barlow]

A 30 second review

• consider use of bullet points in text
• suggest stronger headline than "Why Choose Us"
• try to come up with ways of quantifying quality message (greater resolution, chosen by X% of top 50 shopping centres etc, etc)
• how does your pricing compare (my instinct tells me you are cheaper and better, if so prove it)

Echo call to action comment

 

[stuarty]

If you were looking for a virtual tour would you get far enough into the site to be interested/contact us?

Hopefully this will help you out.

Cheers

Stuart

 

[peteark]

Some interesting stuff there Stuart, if your theories are backed up by your own site ranking highly for the competitive terms you are targeting, I am sure it will add more weight to your post and the working standards you employ.

 

[stuarty]

Some interesting stuff there Stuart, if your theories are backed up by your own site ranking highly for the competitive terms you are targeting, I am sure it will add more weight to your post and the working standards you employ.

Thanks for the comment Pete. The theories are well tried and tested. Our site ranks exteremely well for the competitive terms we target. But it's not about rank - it's about conversion.

I'm not sure how the forum works just yet so I'll not mention anything about how we rank by phrase. We do however rank alongside (and sometimes outrank another) Global Scottish Company. (We have global clients too). It's what we do for our clients that matters most.

Anyway, I'm on here to give advice, frugal, impartial, honest and gainful. I personally have 12 years industry experience and am happy to share this with the forum. I'm happy to learn from others as I hope others can learn from me.

Happy to keep it all good natured and everyone benefits.

 

[peteark]

Welcome to the forum Stuart

I personally ignore the self confessed experts, that happily dish out online marketing advice by the bucket load but cannot back anything up

There are only 2 genuine metrics industry experts should be measured by

The position and structure of their own website
The position and structure of their clients websites

Of course there are people who are good at Internet marketing who come across very well. However if their theories cannot be backed up they fall into the 'mega punt' bracket and should be avoided.

What would happen if someone read a post, believed every word, acted on it and the result was a drop in ranking and earnings, would there be grounds for litigation?

What people should do is express their views, not post in a manner that appears to be factual, when the truth is it can never be that way.