

Ask HN: Can we improve our SEO at all? - TomGullen

We've released a redesign of our website at http://www.scirra.com, I've done a fair bit of reading on SEO so think I have applied it well, although I am pretty new to it and would like some critique.<p>We get some visitors but we have always struggled a little with ideas to bring in more visitors, and have struggled to get much attention in the industry in general.  Is SEO a valid strategy to attract more visitors or should we be spending our efforts elsewhere?<p>All comments are appreciated, thanks for your time!
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ahsanhilal
This is totally not related to your question, and I am sorry for that, but I
really think your tool is something very interesting. The concept is really
cool, however, I think the writing and the imagery need to be worked on a bit;
not from the perspective of SEO but from the perspective of getting the
message across. Right now, in my opinion, the message is a bit wayward and not
getting across to the reader clearly. Case in point:

"Create: A powerful new game maker. Build your games in the world's best
editor. No prior experience in programming is necessary to use our event
system. Be up and running in minutes."

It seems like you are trying to use words which signify something, but when
they are put together they do not form a coherent sentence.

I actually stumbled on your last HN posting a couple of days ago, while
searching for sources on html5 on hnsearch, and was really surprised that your
last post did not get any comments.

Additionally, if you want any help, I would be more than happy to help you out
with these issues (free of charge of course; I do not think I am good enough
to charge :) )

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TomGullen
Hi ahsanhilal!

Thanks for the vote of confidence and your message :) You are right, one
criticism we keep receiving is we are describing the product in too much of an
abstract way. It definitely needs work!

If you have any suggestions I welcome them fully! Please do drop me an email
or post them here!

Also we are a bit disappointed we can't seem to get much notice on HN, it's a
shame we really think we have something great, maybe this is a good
illustration of our product not being described optimally.

Tom

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jgmmo
Do better keyword research. What are the most common 2-word, 3-word, and
4-word phrases that folks searching for your product would use? Who are your
competitors and what terms are they optimized for?

I see that you 'have' SEO, but it's not good SEO. You really need to do
keyword research, get in the mind of the person 'googling' this stuff, and
figure out what the hell a potential customer is calling your software before
they see your website and learn that YOU call it 'construct 2' and 'creation
tools' (which are terrible google search terms).

If you provide some of this info I may be able to provide more feedback, but
seriously, you can do it yourself it's not rocket-surgery.
<https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal>

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TomGullen
There are the big keywords I found like "make games" and "game creator" but
they seem a bit overwhelming, we've tried to attack them but progress is slow.
Most search traffic comes at the moment from people searching for our
company/product name (this is good because it shows increasing brand
awareness) but it's ultimately not targeting new audiences who wouldn't of
found us anyway.

I'm wondering if it's better to identify far less popular searches and use
that as a foundation when we get good rankings on that

~~~
jgmmo
Tom you should absolutely start with the niche keywords that you can dominate.
Then from there I would move onto broader keywords but not too quickly. "make
games" and "game creator" are way too broad. What kind of games? For what
platforms? These phrases are sending out unfocused traffic. You want people
who are already looking something like your product and thus will have better
conversion rates from being more focused.

It looks like a rough SEO situation currently, with terms like 'make html5
games' only getting 590 searches a month. I definitely think using headers
like this " visual HTML5 game development tool" which I found on your website
- is a great start. This is specific, and explains the tech/platform and
should actually get you a few longtail searches.

What I really learned a lot from recently is hearing a rumor that 50% of
google searches are unique. That is mind-blowing because it means longtails
have that much more importance. Even though it might not be trending right
now, phrases like ' visual HTML5 game development tool' are going to be good
for longtails.

Sorry, wish I could talk more but gotta run.

BTW, love the site.

~~~
TomGullen
Hey thanks for the detailed reply I really appreciate it! I think the strategy
of attacking niches is a lot better than a general broad strategy, I will look
into it!

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sunspeck
Games are eminently sharable, and I suspect there is a large overlap between
people who would like to play games made with your platform and people who
would like to make games with your platform.

Have you considered publishing an arcade of really playable games? Or how
about a hosting platform for your user's creations? Then users would do the
work of propagating your URL. A cross-Scirra high score system could also add
a lot of appeal and virality.

In other words, I think there are some really promising ways for you to show
off your product entirely apart from SEO.

~~~
TomGullen
Yes good idea! A games arcade is on the tabs but it's a difficult thing to
develop. Hopefully coming soon :)

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chintan
Content is king in SEO. you seem to have lot of activity in /forums. But it
doesnt seem to be great quality content.

Your blog (<http://www.scirra.com/blog/archive>) has very small number of
posts. I would recommend writing keyword targetted content in your blogs (use
the free Google Keyword tool to get an idea abt high demand keywords in your
domain).

