Need some help with Search Engine Optimisation

[AquaticNocturne]

Hi there,

I am a psychologist and in the process of building up my own practice. I've put a website together, which, although homemade looks pretty professional and just what I need at the moment.

BUT...it doesn't come up on any searches (e.g. private psychologist Manchester )I know a couple of other people who run practices and who get much of their business in this way, so it would really help if I could sort my SEO issues out.

Can anyone advise me on this, or, even better recommend someone who could do a bit of work to sort it out? I can't afford to spend much but if someone is willing to spend a day sorting this out, I'm happy to pay the going rate!

Have you submitted your site to google?

Er, no.... what does that mean exactly?

It's what tells google that you exist. Often if you've got a good hosting package they'll do it for you but sometimes you have to do it yourself.

Basics from google

Congrats on setting up.

A quick way to get on the front page if Google is Google ads or Pay Per Click (PPC).

If you have a niche they can work well. I pay less than £10 a month for mine and receive leads through it (I am not in your field).

Somebody manages mine for me I can send you his details, he is very reasonable.

I find Google + very good for getting website pages indexed, could you start a Google plus page for your business and share some of your pages on there? It's particularly good if you have a blog as part of your website to share fresh content.

Nowadays it's harder and harder to fool Google with the tradiutional SEO tricks. As long as you have the fundamentals right in the way the site was built it boils down to having lots of fresh, original content on the site that refers to the kind of terms that your users search for and links from other reputable sites. So this means writing useful content as an expert in your field, which also happens to be good for social engagement too. Google does rank sites higher which have business pages on Google + however.

Google can take up to 90 days to 'discover' a new site and very rarely give good positions to newly registered addresses. It's likely that you're in there somewhere and not being noticed yet.

While SEO (in my opinion) is one of those things that remind us all "You get what you pay for" there is always a fair amount you could try yourself. Before embarking on the ideas above I'd get on to Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics if possible, they're always my first stop. Social networking is also another HUGE resource, free, popular, what more could you ask!?

Tell me about your website, what did you build it in?

One of the most powerful ways to get good SEO is by using the "Yoast" plugin on wordpress and simply following its "rules".

You absolutely do not need to be paying anyone to do your SEO, in fact, should you actually keep up with Matt Cutts (Google), you will know that traditional SEO "gaming" is all but dead - quality each and every time and let's face it - your average SEO team doesn't give a flying fuck about quality content - or, more realistically, doesn't know how to create quality content regarding psychology.

Check out www.google.co.uk/trends, you can put in search terms for your site and see the search volumes for those words. Then you can make sure that you have them covered off in your webpage copy - don't overdo it though!

Google will take a while to find you, it's taken 9 weeks for my site to get from page 12 to page 2 on a couple of my key search terms.

What is your site built on? Wordpress? Blogger? Do you use something like Yoast to help you write in a more SEO positive way?

What's the link to your site? If you post it here, some of us will give you some SEO tips. Or you can send me the link to it at liz at westoncomms.com and I'll send you some ideas on it?

PS. No business agenda with you, but want you to make progress as you don't need to pay someone uber money to get ahead.