www.iamotter.co.uk

So i'm not really a web/flash designer but I try my best so please bear that in mind when you look at my site (i've done it all myself including the games)

www.iamotter.co.uk

My main thing is illustration (as you will see from the site)
but this makes it all the more important i get some advice from people who know what they are talking about in regards to how i've designed things.

I'm particuarly interested in any SEO advice. I've read 2 whole books on the damn thing now and i still rank page 6 or 7 for the term otter.... ( i have got loads of imbound links from otter pages too !

anyway, any advice on anything would be wonderful !!!

thanks in advance

Sam
(and otter)

Hi Sam,

I love your design - it's very quirky and fun and suits your subject matter perfectly. The only change I'd suggest is to the header which seems at odds with the rest of your site. I'd probably do something more illustrative and use a different font for the site name. The menu seems to have slight inconsistencies in the capitalisation too. But other than that, all good - I love love love the footer

Maybe "otter" isn't a targetted enough term. A 2 word keyphrase is more specific and easier to rank for. Something like "otter cartoons" or "otter illustrations" might be better. Have a play around with the keyword tools to see if there's anything more specific that you could target.

By the way I can't see your site in the top 10 even on google.co.uk with pages from the UK checked, so you might want to check you're not logged in when you check your rankings.

Cat

--
http://web.soothed.com.au/
Web design for natural therapists

Hey Sam,

I really like your illustrations! I also love the way you've made the gallery interactive and clickable. Really nice. The "dress the otter" game is also great.

I agree with pretty much everything Cat says - a more suitable header font (and also less plain menu buttons) would lift the overall design I think.

Couple of minor things:

1) There's some horizontal scrolling at 1024x768. I'd recommend shaving 50 pixels off your overall content box width.

2) The bouncing otter on the homepage is cute, but it I found it distracting after a while. Maybe she could bounce a few times then stop? (Or only bounce when clicked/mouseovered?)

SEO can be a slow process, and as Cat says it can help to target specific keyphrases. It helps to think about the kind of audience you're trying to attract. Are you looking to attract otter lovers? People looking to hire an illustrator? etc.

(BTW Cat, Sam said "page 6 or 7" not "position 6 or 7! )

Anyway, really nice site and illustrations.

Cheers,
Matt

--
Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

hi cat and matt, thanks so much for taking the time to look at the site, I really like your ideas, and i'm going to look at doing these thinngs.

many people say the header is bad, and I am inclined to agree ! thats first on the list.

i know what your saying about targeting keywords a bit more but this is where i get a little confused

see i want to really target people who like otters, coming from the viewpoint that most people who have a soft spot for otters would enjoy my site.
and also the fact that not many ppeople are going to be searching for otter cartoons or otter illustrations.

i always hoped there would not be too much competition for a keyword such as otters ( mainly because there are not many people as mad as me that would make a website like mine, and the legit otter websites are generally coded my ... well amateur web designers.

the real thing i just can't get is as far as i'm concerned seo wise i've done everything right, i get very good scores on all the "rate my site" type programs.
and this has all been done about 6 months ago now.

how come if you search for otter you get websites like this one
http://www.drysuits.co.uk/ (they rank number 2 on the search ( 5 pages higher than me!)
they have no "otter " in the url
hardly any keywords "otter" on the page,
and finally hardly any inbound links form sites with anything to do with otters?

they are not the only ones either, seems most people that rank above me have not gone to any lengths to optimize for the keyword otter

i can understand the number one position being held by www.otter.org ( the otter trust)
that makes perfect sense! but well ... for most of the other results i'm baffled

i'm kinda considering an seo company now, but i'm not really sure what they could do that i haven't already tried

anywayyyyyyyyy thanks so much for advice anyway , and i'm very glad you like my illustrations, you've both been an inspiration

anyway time to go to bed and have nightmares about seo

i forgot to mention, i also have inbound links from www.otter.org ( who rank no.1) and numberous other specialist otter sites like cuteotters.com, otterjoy.com

haha right ... now i really will shut up and go to sleep

Hi Sam,

I don't think otter in the domain name counts for much - apart from when people link to you using your url as the link text.

Looking at the drysuits website - they have Otter first in the title and 33% density within the title. They also have otter in lots of their internal link text. As their company name is otter watersports I don't think it's unreasonable them being number 2 for otter.

A lot of the other high ranking sites also seem to have otter somewhere in their company name, hence they're probably going to have a lot of inbound links with the word otter in them.

I'm not a huge expert, but I believe inbound link text counts for a lot. If your on-page SEO isn't working too well despite all your efforts, you might want to look more at the off-page factors.

Cat

[Edited by cat on 23-Oct-09 09:04]

--
http://web.soothed.com.au/
Web design for natural therapists