I've had a good read through a lot of threads - there's so much info I *think* I've got some ideas.
But I thought I'd have a thread with my strategy for my site. This will hopefully serve two purposes:
1. To see if what I'm doing is the right kind of thing, and the best use of my time - obviously would really welcome any advice and be grateful for any tips/corrections/ watchouts etc.
2. It will be a bit of discipline and focus, just by updating the thread I will be thinking about the strategy. Hopefully I will try and update when I see progress for the site. Sorry if this is boring for everyone else. I'm afraid I can't give much advice at this stage (as a beginner) but I can write what progress is made and when. It might make good reading for someone else new.
It's an e-commerce site (hand-made cushions), and I'm simply (!) just looking to rank 1. I've got great products and have put a lot of effort into making these right, so it's just right for me to now do the same with the website. I prefer to do most of the website work myself - it means that I understand what is going on at this stage.
What's done so far
[*]Built website on Big Cartel (seemed nicely customisable, easy to use and had all the functionality I need at decent value). Added Google analytics, optimised the site myself (still work to do here)
[*]Added to index Google, Yahoo, Yell, Hotfrog. I don't think I rank anywhere yet.
[*]Setup Twitter account and started tweeting and adding interesting folk. I love Twitter it keeps me updated with latest interior design, fashion etc, also can talk directly with customers.
[*]Setup Tumblr blog and got it on the site - (although this may need to change to a separate blog site after reading through the forum)
[*]Researched keywords - the keywords that seem to be most logical are "cushions" "cushion" "cushion UK" "cushions online"
[*]Ran the website through websitegrader.com - it scored 59. No properly indexed pages, no links, lack of blog posts.
[*]Investigated the competition at rank 1 for "cushion" in the UK - their websitegrade was 93. Ran their site through yahoo site explorer:
Inlinks: 24, broken down as follows...3 Yell, 11 from their own blog, 4 paid directories, 3 press articles, 2 foreign directories, Twitter
They have many more products and their site has been online for about a year. But seems beatable in my opinion??

Next things to do next week:
[*] Set up my own blog site, start writing some interior related articles with link. Wordpress, own domain with related url.
[*]Write a press release and add it to ezine etc
[*] Find more free directories, add link to these in my free time.
[*]Go through website, amend descriptions to be different for each product page.
Seems sensible next things to do?
Regards,