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Thread: It's not happening!

  1. #1

    Join Date
    May 2021
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    Default It's not happening!

    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.

  2. #2
    Disco Dude! DeckstarDeluxe's Avatar
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    Default

    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?
    The Cheltenham Wedding DJ
    www.cheltenhamweddingdj.co.uk

    DDWES Event Hire

    www.ddwes.co.uk

  3. #3
    Web Guru Marc J's Avatar
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    Default

    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.
    Last edited by Marc J; 26-07-2021 at 11:27 AM.

  4. #4

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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by DeckstarDeluxe View Post
    Rome wasn't built in a day.
    I'm sure you are right. We can't be the only ones in this situation.


    Quote Originally Posted by DeckstarDeluxe View Post
    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.

  5. #5

    Join Date
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    Default

    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.

  6. #6
    Web Guru Marc J's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Centre Stage Discos View Post
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Centre Stage Discos View Post
    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

  7. #7

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    Default

    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.
    Semi-Retired Multi Award Winning DJ

    www.ultimateweddingdj.co.uk

  8. #8
    Imagine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ppentertainments View Post
    If it is any consolation the past few weeks have been really quiet on the enquiry front, apart from last minutes.
    ^^^ This ^^^

    OK, I've been busy for the past few weeks, but after this weekend's kids party, I've nothing again until 14th August, then nothing to September.
    What? A wedding DJ with only one wedding in the peak month of August? Yup! September and October....I'm gonna be shattered and ALL of those are reschedules from last Summer.

    We're still in strange times. My site is busy with visitors, but enquiries at the moment are way down on where I'd expect them to be normally. I did have a little booking frenzy for stuff for next year a few weeks ago, but not a lot since. Speaking to other suppliers at Saturday's wedding, they're in exactly the same position.

    Regardless of the marketing and website, there's a reluctance at the moment for people to commit to things. There's still a lot of murmurs about potentially reintroducing some restrictions amongst the general public, and a lot of people still aren't overly comfortable mixing in a crowd yet.

    It's going to take time!

    I desperately want to go back to full time at this. I'm having to bide my time for now though because (and I'll be called Cassandra again no doubt ), I can't see this year being a sudden mass of bookings, late or otherwise.

  9. #9
    Web Guru Marc J's Avatar
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    Default

    Just to add to my comments re your site and SEO, the description meta tag is: -

    "Professional, established mobile disco for weddings, parties and corporate events in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Rutland & Leicestershire."

    But few of these words actually appear in the text copy of your page... especially "mobile" and none of the counties / locations listed. That is not good SEO. In fact it's quite bad SEO - you'd be better with no meta description (letting Google show a snippet relevant to the search performed) than what Google may see as a "misleading" one.
    Last edited by Marc J; 26-07-2021 at 12:53 PM.

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by Centre Stage Discos View Post
    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.

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