I'm new here and would like to ask for some help with SEO. I've been methodically reading through various forums, trying out tools, re-engineering some pretty old sites that I've developed and ensuring that the basics such as sitemaps etc. are covered and I am no wiser .
I have a practical example of two sites (one of which I developed) which are chasing the same sort of keywords.
Site A - which has lots of validation errors and some rather less than pretty rendering, is getting to #1 position for a whole range of keywords, the other simply does not appear in the first 100 results. Lynx viewer can render site B but not site A, and yet I understood that Lynx was an excellent representation of how a spider indexes a site. - you get the idea.
I've held off posting here for some time ( a year believe it or not) to be certain that I had allowed enough time for some organic growth and to give me time to apply some of the knowledge that I've gained in the past six to eight months of a learning curve that I've gone through (I actually used to think I could write tight code - but I'm feeling pretty humbled by the whole experience).
I have to assume I have done something devastatingly simple but wrong and have the wrong premise for what I am trying to do; no black hat, no gaming, just trying to give the client an honest position.
can anyone help me in trying to put together a scientific measurable strategy for improving a sites SERP position ? Has this been done before and I simply can't read ? Am I going crazy (likely) or is this whole SEO lark a chancers delight ?
I simply cannot understand why a site which seems to 'break the guidelines' can be so much more successful than a genuine site who's owner has been spending a lot of time diligently updating and sourcing back links.
I haven't published the two site urls that I've been using to try and develop a measurable effective methodology as I'm not sure if it would be appropriate to do so. I'd be happy to post the client's url (they're equally frustrated) and I'd be very grateful for any comment on this - as I'm aware that there's some seriously talented web people on this forum (thus the rather nervous post )
I have a practical example of two sites (one of which I developed) which are chasing the same sort of keywords.
Site A - which has lots of validation errors and some rather less than pretty rendering, is getting to #1 position for a whole range of keywords, the other simply does not appear in the first 100 results. Lynx viewer can render site B but not site A, and yet I understood that Lynx was an excellent representation of how a spider indexes a site. - you get the idea.
I've held off posting here for some time ( a year believe it or not) to be certain that I had allowed enough time for some organic growth and to give me time to apply some of the knowledge that I've gained in the past six to eight months of a learning curve that I've gone through (I actually used to think I could write tight code - but I'm feeling pretty humbled by the whole experience).
I have to assume I have done something devastatingly simple but wrong and have the wrong premise for what I am trying to do; no black hat, no gaming, just trying to give the client an honest position.
can anyone help me in trying to put together a scientific measurable strategy for improving a sites SERP position ? Has this been done before and I simply can't read ? Am I going crazy (likely) or is this whole SEO lark a chancers delight ?
I simply cannot understand why a site which seems to 'break the guidelines' can be so much more successful than a genuine site who's owner has been spending a lot of time diligently updating and sourcing back links.
I haven't published the two site urls that I've been using to try and develop a measurable effective methodology as I'm not sure if it would be appropriate to do so. I'd be happy to post the client's url (they're equally frustrated) and I'd be very grateful for any comment on this - as I'm aware that there's some seriously talented web people on this forum (thus the rather nervous post )