Website optimization problems - Page 2

I'm not directly debating any member's 2 cents, but I base my online strategy on these few articles:

 

http://support.godaddy.com/help/article/6622/what-is-search-engine-optimization-and-why-should-i-care-about-it

 

http://support.godaddy.com/help/article/5171/what-are-keywords-and-why-do-i-need-them

 

http://support.godaddy.com/help/article/5150/should-my-tags-match-the-content-i-have-on-my-web-site

 

Go Daddy actually has a ton of articles that explain this stuff pretty well.  I go off what the Number 1 hosting provider says about SEO.

 

As for descriptions, yes you need a new description on every page.  Back to the photo I posted with my website listing on Google, each page on my site has a title tag (Menu, Gallery, Pre-designed etc)  and under each title is a unique description for that page.  It's very important to be descriptive and unique.  

 

This is really only the tip of the iceberg - there is so much you need to make sure you have in your website!  I actually highly recommend just purchasing Go Daddy's SEO tool to help you fix broken stuff, make sure you pictures load OK, make sure all your tags and descriptions are good and so on.

You have to be very careful when reading articles about a particular service hosted by someone who is trying to sell you said service. For example, some of GoDaddy's information about meta keywords is definitely inaccurate, but if they admitted that no one uses them for ranking anymore they wouldn't be able to tout the "keyword generator" tool in their paid SEO service. Google does not use meta keywords for ranking (except for news-related sites in their Google News tool), and Bing only uses meta keywords to catch spammers.

If you want to do research into SEO I strongly recommend looking at an independent source like searchenginewatch.com.

Positioning your business to target budget brides is a tough place to be in...if budget is the primary concern and Walmart offers a product that's "good enough" for a fraction of your price you will lose that sale every time, since the money just isn't there to buy a higher quality product.

If word of mouth is your biggest referral source (and you're not already super busy) that's an issue. Word of mouth can work, but luck plays a big factor, so you may get your big break next week, next year, or never if you don't step up the advertising. But first it sounds like you need to figure out who you will be targeting, so you may want to go back to your business plan and do some more market research. You're probably right when you say you'll have to raise prices.

It's fine to keep your risk low by refusing debt, just remember that risk and reward are usually directly proportional.

How long has it been since you put in your meta data? It takes a while, before I was on page 20 something for cakes in my area, a few months later it was up to 9, now i'm page 1,2,3 depending on what exactly is being searched for. I don't know how many link backs I have but getting featured on blogs will probably help as well. In the end, content is king for SEO.
 

That's pretty normal for Yelp, if someone who reviews your business has no other reviews it is more likely to be hidden until they participate more on the site.

In my opinion the more data the better even if search engines supposedly aren't looking at meta keywords currently.  All meta data and titles for each page need to be unique and relevant to that page.  As mentioned by others on here content is king.