Thoughts on my website if you can please?

[BigonaBianchi]

How's it looking now? ANy better? www.biketripcyprus.com
It's still an evolving thing...learning curve....so any input from real riders can only be a good thing. Thanks.
Mods....If this falls foul of cc ad rules just remove it. Ta.

 

[Bollo]

Stepping back a bit, I think you need to consider how people are going to find your site other than by word of mouth. At the moment your site didn't show anywhere in the first couple of pages of a Google search. You can spend (and waste) a lot of money on search engine optimisation (SEO). There are one or two good books out there that would get you started.

With this in mind, I think your landing page needs a section of content that is regularly updated - short articles and cycling on the island, history, anything. Just make sure the content is interesting and original. This will keep people coming back and improve your search engine ranking. At the moment you have to scroll past lots of pictures to hit any content at all. I think you need more text upfront, but that's a more personal thing.

One thing that I noticed was one of your background images shows a hillside with the Turkish flag. It's a great pic, but it might be better to avoid anything so overtly political. All it would take is some young two hats from Athens with Golden Dawn sympathies and an Internet connection to start trolling.

Good luck!

 

[MontyVeda]

looks great BOAB... although I'd make the font a little bigger in the body text, but that's just me.

Looking at the source code...

<!--
Important Note About This Website's SEO
Find the SEO content of this site's homepage via http://www.biketripcyprus.com/?_escaped_fragment_=
(That is where search engines like Google go to read your homepage's content.)
To view the SEO content of your internal pages, such as " Team", go here: http://www.biketripcyprus.com/?_escaped_fragment_=the-team/cquc
(That is where search engines like Google go to read the content on your internal pages.)
For more information about Ajax Crawling technology, read Google's explanation here: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/
-->

...not sure if that's going to be an issue or not regarding your search engine rankings.

 

[BigonaBianchi]

Cheers Guys!

The site is hosted on wix.com and ive been using the seo editor in there...but to be honest I still dont understand it properly. Ive got keywords where it told me to put key words...thats about as seo savvy as I am right now. I do need to get it higher in google rankings for sure. Alos its not been hosted for long, dunno if thats relevant or not.

I would imagine that wix have got the ajax crawling thing already in the site builder??? Maybe not....I read the page, but will need a few weeks to start to understand it lol! It does have an ! after the # though
http://www.biketripcyprus.com/#!the-team/cquc


I increased the front page font size and removed the pic of the flag painted on commando hill. I have no interest in the divisive issues here, but i take your point , no point in stirring up ill feeling unwittingly.

I do have a facebook twitter feed which gets updated with stuff....I need to figure out how to get that feed show on my fron tpage maybe? I cant update that and this site all the time as there arnt enough hours in the day....so something automatic would be best this end... illtry to find an app that does that.

Thanks for taking timeto help

 

[BigonaBianchi]

would adding a blogger app linking my blog to the website affect the seo stuff? The blog has about 10K visits but they were all before linking it....im guessing it's irrelevant??

 

[shouldbeinbed]

I'm a mile out of my depth on the programmy stuff & have not researched or done the sort of trips to give you meaningful comparisons to similar sites, but just to pick up on @Octet image suggestions. Assuming photoshop: The file drop-down menu on the top bar, there is a 'save for web' (*) option to pretty well 1-click optimise your pics for internet display.

(*) newer Photoshop versions will call it 'save for web & devices'.

Internet bog standard images publish at 72ppi. Higher resolutions make for bigger, slower loading files & are aimed at different markets/requirements than 'normal' webpages.
Most cameras default shooting resolution is 300ppi, better to keep this or better and downscale in the computer than photograph in fax machine quality at the outset, that way you have your master copy archive of good quality images for your own enjoyment & should you require for physical display & advertising, magazine or brochure publishing etc, along with the lesser quality working copy web ones that will load fast and look good enough on your average punters computer screen.

Its a long time since I touched GIMP etc now but I would assume they all have a similar web optimisation save option.

You can do it manually too, or use this to assess the physical size and resolution of the pictures you're working with, Giving Photoshop as the guide again: Top menu bar: Image : Image Size & the info pops up in its own new window you can adjust and interact with until you're happy. Then 'save-as' & its options pop up, as you would do with any other sort of file to ensure you keep your original master intact & have your web optimised duplicate.

My apologies if this is teaching granny to suck eggs, but just picking up on the image format observations.

 

[BigonaBianchi]

I'm a mile out of my depth on the programmy stuff & have not researched or done the sort of trips to give you meaningful comparisons to similar sites, but just to pick up on @Octet image suggestions. Assuming photoshop: The file drop-down menu on the top bar, there is a 'save for web' (*) option to pretty well 1-click optimise your pics for internet display.

(*) newer Photoshop versions will call it 'save for web & devices'.

Internet bog standard images publish at 72ppi. Higher resolutions make for bigger, slower loading files & are aimed at different markets/requirements than 'normal' webpages.
Most cameras default shooting resolution is 300ppi, better to keep this or better and downscale in the computer than photograph in fax machine quality at the outset, that way you have your master copy archive of good quality images for your own enjoyment & should you require for physical display & advertising, magazine or brochure publishing etc, along with the lesser quality working copy web ones that will load fast and look good enough on your average punters computer screen.

Its a long time since I touched GIMP etc now but I would assume they all have a similar web optimisation save option.

You can do it manually too, or use this to assess the physical size and resolution of the pictures you're working with, Giving Photoshop as the guide again: Top menu bar: Image : Image Size & the info pops up in its own new window you can adjust and interact with until you're happy. Then 'save-as' & its options pop up, as you would do with any other sort of file to ensure you keep your original master intact & have your web optimised duplicate.

My apologies if this is teaching granny to suck eggs, but just picking up on the image format observations.

Thanks for this Im not totally sure I follow but in a nutshell my images on the site are at to high a resolution right?

 

[jhawk]

It's a nice idea, but I would prefer an early spring holiday to look forward to at the end of the winter, rather than have a lovely autumn holiday and then have to come home to the winter!

Try living in Canada mate, we don't get a Spring. Last year, we had Spring, it was a Thursday.

There is currently three feet of snow surrounding my house. We had a snowstorm last night and the night before. If someone would pay for my plane ticket back to England, I'd think about moving.

 

[Shaun]

If you haven't already, get yourself a free Google Webmaster Tools account: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ - and a Google Analytics account: https://www.google.com/analytics/

Webmaster Tools will show you how your site is being indexed, what sites are linking to yours, and what search terms people are using to find it (can take a few weeks to start showing useful data).

Google Analytics will show you how many times your pages are requested, where from (in the world), how people came to land on your pages (search engines, links from other sites, etc.), what pages get the most hits, and what channels are feeding you the most traffic - direct visits, site links, search engines, social media, etc.

You can use this info to help you develop more content and to tweak and improve existing content.

 

[ayceejay]

I open the first page with a heading and under it a vast area of black 0 should there be a picture in there?
Another small detail, is it North Cyprus or Northern Cyprus - you use both.

 

[MontyVeda]

Cheers Guys!

The site is hosted on wix.com and ive been using the seo editor in there...but to be honest I still dont understand it properly. Ive got keywords where it told me to put key words...thats about as seo savvy as I am right now. I do need to get it higher in google rankings for sure. Alos its not been hosted for long, dunno if thats relevant or not.

I would imagine that wix have got the ajax crawling thing already in the site builder??? Maybe not....I read the page, but will need a few weeks to start to understand it lol! It does have an ! after the # though
http://www.biketripcyprus.com/#!the-team/cquc


I increased the front page font size and removed the pic of the flag painted on commando hill. I have no interest in the divisive issues here, but i take your point , no point in stirring up ill feeling unwittingly.

I do have a facebook twitter feed which gets updated with stuff....I need to figure out how to get that feed show on my fron tpage maybe? I cant update that and this site all the time as there arnt enough hours in the day....so something automatic would be best this end... illtry to find an app that does that.

Thanks for taking timeto help

I don't want to sound like a twunt but i think the font's too big now I think it was around 12 or 14 px, now it's 30px... try 16px or 18px (a tad bigger).

I think you need more text content on the home page (say 150-300 words) and you need to put your main keywords/phrases in too. So 'bike trips cyprus', 'cycle tours' 'cycling tours', 'cycling holiday', 'cycling holidays' and so on could all do with being mentioned.

When people search they either type something short like 'cycle trip cyprus' or 'cycle tours med', or something longer like 'looking for family cycling holiday with en suite apartment in cyprus'. When deciding what to write, think about all the different keywords and phrases your potential customers might use when searching for the service you offer. Ideally you want to rank for the short keywords (bike trip cyprus), but it's also worth trying to get the 'long tail' searches in too (looking for family cycling holiday with en suite apartment in cyprus). Little changes such as (on your home page) changing "...as well as the most amazing road Cycling on the island" to "...as well as the most amazing road Cycling in Cyprus", and (on your apartments page) changing "Quality Apartments are available throughout the year..." to "Quality Apartments in Cyprus are available throughout the year.."

It's all about telling google (essentially a robot) what you offer, so 'on the island' means nothing to it but 'in Cyprus' is the sort of specific its looking for. If someone searches for 'cycling in cyprus', Google is going to return a load of results which it knows offer 'cycling in cyprus' and websites that offer 'cycling on the island' are going to further down the results. Whatever you write, try to write it naturally rather than as a string of keywords and phrases, because humans read it too.

One easy way to discover related search terms, keywords and phrases is to Google your main keyword, eg Cycling in Cypus, and at the foot of the first page are related terms...

you could build an entire page around 'cyprus cycling routes', and not just the ones you use. Link to the info they might be looking for, or better still put it on your website so they don't have a reason to leave if they're thinking that rural route looks great but what about cycling in the city?

content is king, but inbound links are the lord and master, the emperor.... people link to great content and great photos and you've got the photos nailed, so my advice is work on the content.

 

[MontyVeda]

would adding a blogger app linking my blog to the website affect the seo stuff? The blog has about 10K visits but they were all before linking it....im guessing it's irrelevant??

if your blog has 10K visits and you want traffic to your website, then by all means try to get some of the traffic from your blog to your website.

 

[accountantpete]

Your site isn't showing up on the first few pages for several common search phrases such as Cycling In Cyprus - you need to up your SEO or consider Google Ads (there are Google Ads specialists who can advise at a cost).

 

[BigonaBianchi]

I open the first page with a heading and under it a vast area of black 0 should there be a picture in there?
Another small detail, is it North Cyprus or Northern Cyprus - you use both.

oops...is this an issue for anybody else? Im not seeing it......yes there should be a box with a slide show and another with a video....blank black page = not good...

 

[ayceejay]

I just tried again and I get nothing, does this mean you are working on it?