It's not happening!

[Centre Stage Discos]

It's just not happening here.

I have constructed a website with good SEO - and I've done a fair bit of promotion on that. We have a presence on Google and Yell which is showing some results. I've put a Facebook business page together and even spent money promoting it, only to receive a single private message from a lady who simply said "Not interested!" Wow! Talk about kicking someone when they're down. (I am not expecting a lot from Facebook)

I knew this was going to take time and neither of us are expecting miracles, but we are asking ourselves if this is really going to happen.

Apart from one voluntary disco we're doing at Christmas for a group we know, there is nothing. Not a sausage! Not a single enquiry.

There's a good disco here, backed by years of experience, all charged up and ready to go, but it's not happening. I guess this is not the only disco in this situation. A good few of us are effectively starting again from scratch after the last 18 months. We're not done by a long way and we have more ideas up our sleeves, but what a disappointing start.

[DeckstarDeluxe]

Rome wasn't built in a day.

In regards to the website are you getting visitors and no click throughs? or not getting them at the first place?

[Centre Stage Discos]

Rome wasn't built in a day.

I'm sure you are right. We can't be the only ones in this situation.

In regards to the website are you getting visitors and no click throughs? or not getting them at the first place?

Yes - and at a good rate too. Everything appears to be working well.

I would spend more on online advertising but the funds just aren't there right now.

[Centre Stage Discos]

Hi Marc.

Thanks for the thorough feedback.

Searching on the internet gives different results for different people, but I take your point. It's funny because my other half can search for the exactly the same thing on her computer as I do on mine in the same office and we often get different results. It all works here though, Google and Yell.

The website is a single page site and there is indeed a second page for the downloading of the PLI and PAT information, which we won't be investing in until we actually have a gig to go to. That seems to make sense. Pointless buying these if we have no work. They *will* be in place before any gig of course and available for download, although we really need to get these organised soon as this in itself could put off potential customers. Again, limited funds situation.

I am done with SSL. Way to expensive for what it's worth. I'll put it on other people's websites but not my own. From my experience, it guarantees nothing. I won't stick my neck out and say it's a complete con, but My hosts now offer a £50 SSL certificate, which is an improvement over £200, but I will not be bullied into paying for this. Just a personal opinion which I know some will disagree with.

The reason for the one page site is purely to keep things simple. Everything is there in one scrollable page with a fixed menu bar. Easy! Yes, I probably need to stick a robots.txt file in for the PLI/PAT download page. SEO is an ever-changing being and one I never feel I should devote too much time to. In terms of SEO and the ability to get a site at the top of the rankings, it always seems to me that such sites who achieve this have been around for a long time. This probably links nicely into the fact that our internet presence is still very new and we may be expecting a lot too soon, so it's back to that "time will tell" situation once again.

[Marc J]

Searching on the internet gives different results for different people, but I take your point. It's funny because my other half can search for the exactly the same thing on her computer as I do on mine in the same office and we often get different results. It all works here though, Google and Yell.

I'm aware of that, and said so in my post. That's why I mentioned using incognito mode and / or a VPN. But the site: search will be the same no-matter who / where you are. Since you're aiming for a one-page site (2 if you include the PAT/PLI), I guess it's a non-issue that it finds 3 pages. Personally I'd make the PAT/PLI just PDF downloads (once you have them) to keep your single page, if that's what you want.

I am done with SSL. Way to expensive for what it's worth. I'll put it on other people's websites but not my own. From my experience, it guarantees nothing. I won't stick my neck out and say it's a complete con, but My hosts now offer a £50 SSL certificate, which is an improvement over £200, but I will not be bullied into paying for this. Just a personal opinion which I know some will disagree with.

See https://developers.google.com/search...ranking-signal (from 2014).

Most hosts should by now be offering free SSLs issued by Let's Encrypt. If yours doesn't, maybe it's time to move

[ppentertainments]

If it is any consolation the past few weeks have been really quiet on the enquiry front, apart from last minutes.

A good ranking website (although something you need) contrary to belief will not bring in a load of enquiries. Everyone knows you can spend a few hundred quid and have a great looking site, and DJ sites generally don’t bring much competition in rankings etc.

What you need to look at is how to get people to your site. No actual figures, but my 2 websites rank really well (often competing against each other), yet I would guess less than 20% of people do a google search, enquire then book. The initial search is normally as a result of other marketing.

I see you are still determined to go ahead with your freebie, despite many words of warning – this will just drag things down even more.

[Marc J]

I'll keep my reply limited to issues with your website only, after a quick look...

1) I searched for "Centre Stage Discos Lincolnshire" and, although I got your "Google My Business" result couldn't see you anywhere in the results page. OK, so I'm in Edinburgh and search results are localised, and I can't be bothered to try in incognito or using VPN right now, but you should have been there since I added Lincolnshire to the search.

2) So, I searched for "site:www.centrestagediscos.co.uk" to see what Google has indexed for you, and there are 3 pages, with not much to them... your home page, then 2 pages which don't seem to be linked to on your actual site any more (as you've gone for a one page site). These two pages are PLI/PAT and your contact form, with no meta description meaning Google has to wing it from what's on the page, and the contact form has the default "PHP Contact Form Script With Validation - reusable form" title. So not good.

3) Your site has no SSL cert (for https://www.centrestagediscos.co.uk) which is a no-no these days. There's really no excuse. Visitors will get a warning, especially when trying to submit your form.

4) I can't see any sign of any analytics in your code, so it's going to be hard for you to tell how well it's doing and what any visitors are up to.

5) How long ago did you push it to live? Give it time.

6) Re the one page site, I wouldn't have gone with that but that's just me. And you need to sort out the phantom pages that Google is crawling and indexing because they're not great to have there. If keeping the one page site then 301 them to the home page.

7) You've obviously done it yourself and know your stuff, so I'd fix the https issue, the 301 redirects for pages that shouldn't be indexed, switch to a multi-page site with good SEO, add Analytics and give it some time. You should also be using Google Search Console if you aren't already, for some insights on any potential indexing issues.

EDIT: Getting a lot of errors when checking for speed etc. (using Lighthouse in Chrome Developer Tools), you've got some issues there.

[rth_discos]

I have constructed a website with good SEO

What do you consider to be 'good SEO'?

Ultimately, it's a one page website, which is very hard to rank on its own again other, more established websites with greater content.

In addition, I also can't see any significant links to your website.

[Jim - Scotland's Party DJ]

I'm not an SEO wizz by any stretch of the imagination so I won't go down that route but I will give feedback. Heads up this isn't meant to squash you when you've clearly put a lot of time and effort into it, I'm purely coming from a point of view of trying to help someone who is clearly passionate about getting themselves up and running on the right foot. You can make of that what you will.

One thing that's always stood me well with the business is to approach EVERYTHING I do in the mindset of the client.


To that end, I don't think it's a very good website on various counts.

- stock pictures are usually a red flag and these ones aren't particularly good quality at that. I know it's difficult if you're not out and able to get real life shots but blurry dark photos don't sell professional. I'd do something about them as a matter of urgency even if it's investing a little in some quality stock photos. I do my own photos because I'm decent with a camera but I know other guys who use paid for stock photos and they're night and day compared to what you've got there. They instantly make your website look old and amateurish when even the dafties out there can knock together reasonably pro looking websites these days.

- On that note, there's nothing there to differentiate it from other disco website in any way at all. If anything the only thing different is that yours has hardly anything on it which isn't good. The scrolling long page with headings is the design du jour just now for a lot of people and if you're going down that route you need to be doing something to stand out otherwise you're just another scrolly website in amongst the half a dozen other scrolly websites they've looked at.

- The lack of pages / links - again it's a tricky one but even linking the venue links to a blog, venue info or something is better than no links at all. To a client they see either a DJ without any experience or a site that doesn't work... DJs want to see photos of rig set ups, clients don't.

- No testimonials. Now I'm in no way suggesting you make some up but if I'm weighing up Centre Stage discos with 0 testimonials and Left Stage discos who has a similar site and price plus a bunch of feedback, I know who I'm going to be booking...

- The fonts could be more cohesive. I'll go on record and say that one thing I've had criticism on my website is about the number of fonts but there's 3 or 4 across the whole site and they largely fall into the same type / family so it's not too jarring to most eyes. You've got a standard texty font for your logo, block fonts for the headings and then scribbly fonts throughout the page, it doesn't knit together very well from a design point of view. It might seem minor but people don't notice what they notice and this is a prime example of something they might not put their finger on but will put them off the site.

- The writing is quite clunky too. I can't put my finger on it and I'm sure it's because it's geared towards SEO but it doesn't read very well and after the first few sentences I was losing interest.


That's the constructive suggestions I can see from a quick glance at it.

[Excalibur]

I'll host it for you for whatever you're currently paying. If you're in contract I'll host it free until the term is out. I'll give you a free SSL (issued by Let's Encrypt). I'll also be able to iron out the little issues you're having, get it loading fast and maybe even working as a PWA

I haven't understood a word of what's been typed in this thread. The only thing I do know is take him up on this before he remembers he's Scottish. You won't get a better offer or service anywhere.