Webmasters Forums

I run an online shop which I get some traffic to, but nowhere near as much as it should. I've been reading up on SEO over the last few months and doing everything I can to improve rankings, but I still have a PageRank of 0!

I'm listed in Dmoz, got quite a few backlinks (still working on it), use H1/H2 tags, have good keyword density, but nothing works!

My site operates in the UK, but has a .com domain. Will it help at all if I make the .co.uk domain the main one, and redirect the .com to that? Will that mess anything up with the search engines (I have a few thousand pages indexed, some backlinks)?

Also, does anyone have any other effective SEO tips and things that I can do myself?

Thanks so much!

First of all does your co.uk and .com sites both have identical content? If they do have duplicate content you have a problem that requires some work making them unique.

If not there is still no need to perform redirects. A .com address as standard means your domain will do better in the google.com index, however you can change this simply by signing up or loging into your google webmaster account.

Choose settings and select you geogrpahic targeting zone. Go here to set up your account if you don't have one. http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

Once this is changed it will let Google know your preferred targeting is in the UK.

With regards to your PageRank there a lot of factors to determine. Remember if your site is still new it can take up to 9 months to be awarded PR. You need to build as many oneway links as possible and optimise your pages accordingly. Keyword Prominence is more important than keyword density. You should read a quality SEO blog like http://www.seowizz.net/

I hope this helps

Google indexes about every 3-6months - I reckon the next one will be around march-april. Only when Google do this will your PR number change.

DMOZ is a excellent way to get good ranking - lucky u!

Get on Facebook/Myspace and create a group and get your friends to join it. Create a few blogs and update them reguarly to keep search engines interested. Amazon also allow you to create a listing for your shop

Just in case you dont know - having lots of backlinks isnt good if they are not related to your website. Also, all pictures and no content will not get you high positioning in search engines

I think I would stick with the .com address as its already indexed with Google and has the backlinks.

I'm no expert but thats what I would do.

Chris
www.teech.org - uk registered charity