How can I get my Google ranking back?

Question

I own a chocolate fountain rental business and have had a really busy year thanks to Google and a very high page ranking.
If you typed in....chocolate fountain, we were on the second page. Not bad for a fairly new business, we thought. Especially considering how many companies are in the UK.
However, the website had to be moved at the end of the summer to a new server and we immediately lost our page ranking overnight. This has been quite disastrous for our business, as most people will just use that particular phrase when searching.
If you type in....chocolate fountain hire (a phrase not used by many people) into Google we are on the first page, half way down and described as..The UK's most competitive chocolate fountain hire service.
My webmaster altered a couple of things to try to improve our position, but no luck as yet.
My question is...is it worth paying out to a company to help with SEO?
Been quoted from £2000 upwards, but they apparantely can't gaurantee anything.

Answer 1

How long was your site down when changing hosts or servers?

I would recommend to your webmaster start evaluating the words used in your Meta Data description and keywords. I would also recommend using a sitemap (links 1, 2, 3 below) and placing that in the root directory or highest level within your website and resubmit your site to Google, Yahoo, MSN, and DMOZ (link 4 below).

Is your webmaster using any anyatical (tracking) tool (link 5 and 6) for your website to see of the search engines are able to crawl it or the tool provided by the hosting company?

Answer 2

If your site is fairly new, and I've heard of that happening... it is noraml. Also, it takes a while for search engines to "trust" your site. because the general rule is that usually it's the spam sites that do not last online very much for whatever reasons. so as the older your domain name is, the better.

I wouldn't invest too much in costly SEO products... there are many things you can do to make your website SEO friendly without spending so much money. Search engines like Google love fresh content... gotta have lots of unique content. like articles, recipes etc. a Search engine loves to index with fresh content.

Have you thought of adding a forum. to bring in a sense of community? phpbb.com is one of the best ones out there and it's free.

Another thing you can do is make sure Google and Yahoo search engines sipder your site, is to submit them to directories. DMOZ is one of the biggest one out there.
Just make sure to stay away from link farms. partner up with other websites or communities that are similar to yours.

Good luck!

Answer 3

ok im confused.

if i wanted to hire a chocolate fountain and i was looking on google for companys

i WOULD type in chocolate fountain hire

is a not a good thing that you are now on the first page?

Answer 4

It is not worth the money you have to think of more ways than the web to get business go to all the reception places and offer good ways they can get a bit out of your efforts also children places etc ~~