I know I've disappeared off the radar and QO does seem to have been without management for a while, but I'm now firmly back IN CHARGE and looking for ways to improve the site.

Is there anything I can do for you?

Any suggestions on improvements?

Give it to me straight.

x
m

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mel

A Beer page?
Sending me bottles for evaluation?

You could improve your optimisation to increase traffic, I looked at your source code and could see nothing in the meta tags referring to wine reviews, tasting notes or wine forum. This explains why the site doesn’t show in the natural listings for relevant keyword searches, definitely room for improvement there, easily done and should lead to increased traffic and forum activity.

If you're going to the effort of writing detailed tasting notes its worth getting joe public in to read them, at the moment you're / we're mostly preaching to the converted.

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Yep, Im still here.

Straight up:

Do you think you could convince your charming daughter to post and paste up your TNs in a timely manner again: Just asking ! And when she did it before, we heard about the good-uns 9 months earlier. She must be charming. I say so ! Not that we've met.......

Esprit de Chablis 2009 Chablis Premier Cru - I could have scored this full-on Chab for 67 and a bit, for a half case from Ocado earlier this year, and damn nearly did, even without guidance from our resident MW Chablis maestro.

Yeah - like minds for the spot on assessment of bargain Chablis .


Please - Ta very muchly

x
Dunc

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Duncan

That is good stuff GK - Smart. Looks like you need to email Mel to explain how optimisation can be done.

Beer ok, not just now though. Lets optimise Spain on here 1st, incredible quality for the money this year. I'm just about to open a 2004 Reserva for a fiver

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Duncan

Thanks boys.

I do get some beer offers and can certainly post them without too much effort, but it absolutely isn't my area. You'd need to post all the TNs.

Could have a Forum section for beer. Just let me know.

GK - any info about optimisation would be greatly appreciated. But you need to talk to me like a baby.

Point taken about getting the notes up earlier. It's easy to get the articles out almost the day of tasting, but individually putting them up on the Forum is slow and the daughter is now away at college. I think the way forward is to group them - ie Majestic Italian Reds - for each tasting and then the code which links the special offer with the tasting note applies to a handful of wines, but don't suppose anyone minds a bit of scrolling, if it means the TNs arrive on time.

Amelia has her moments, like most teenage girls. Definitely hot and cold.

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mel

Mel- unless you're writing the code yourself its best to stay out of it, speak to the person who built the site for you, they'll know exactly what to do.

Before you do, compile a small list of relevant keywords- words and phrases that people will use in searches that you would want the site listing for, such as..
wine forum
wine tasting notes
high street wine offers
wine talk
buying wine guide

etc, etc.

As an example, pop over to http://www.jancisrobinson.com/
If you are using Internet Explorer click on View / Source. If you are using Firefox click Tools / Web Developer / Page source.

Here you will see the work gone into the meta keywords.

For QO you get- quaffers offers bargain cost price wine red white sparkling supermarket off licence shopping help bottoms Up Co-op Co op Marks & Spencer Marks and Spencer M & S Morrisons Oddbins Sainsbury Somerfield Tesco Thresher Victoria Wine Waitrose Wine Rack Bin End

Lots of store names but nothing relating to the work you do, tasting notes and advice, or the forum.

For JR you get- fine wine, fine wines, vintage wine, Jancis Robinson, bordeaux, wine reviews, restaurant reviews, wine cellar,champagne, tasting notes, Oxford Companion to Wine, what wine should I buy, French wine, en primeur, wine futures,wine ratings, wine scores, buying wine, storing wine, burgundy....

Much better.

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Yep, Im still here.

That is right on, GK.

If I'm googling, or exploring and surfing the look-ups, the key words invariably take me to Jancis's site, Other look-ups like "wines of the week", take me to Tom Cannavan's or Jancis.

Articles - Mel's are jolly good, Current Article as a look-up will not pull you to QO.

Star Award - as a look-up. These are the kernels that need to be optimised, Optimising the character and ambience of the QO "Room" feel, as it once was, needs some clever and some lateral thinking.

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Duncan

Any of these you'd ditch? Or add?



wine offers, bargain, cost, wine price, red wine, white wine, sparkling wine, supermarket wine, off licence, Co-op, Marks & Spencer, M & S, Morrisons, Sainsbury, Tesco, Waitrose, Bin End, wine reviews, wine cellar, champagne, tasting note, what wine goes with, fruity wine, wine ratings, wine scores, buying wine, Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, mel jones, master of wine, MW

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mel

Quote GK,

I looked at your source code and could see nothing in the meta tags referring to wine reviews, tasting notes or wine forum.
Sorry GK, I think a bit more guidance from you is required on this thread. In order for those meta tags to get to the core of what QO does and the forum contributions that are made.

I dont know how these tags, particularly in Google for one's preferences actually work. However, perhaps one doesn't need to understand that per se'.

"If you're going to the effort of writing detailed tasting notes its worth getting joe public in to read them, at the moment you're / we're mostly preaching to the converted"

At the risk of repeating myself......It is the meta tags that will direct web traffic to the specific things that QO does. Web page marketing folk will know how the search engines "Do the Business". I don't know this stuff.

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Duncan

Yes, I've spoken to the man who built it and he needs to insert the list of meta tags. I'd love to do it all myself, but sometimes you just have to pay someone to know better than you.

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mel

That list looks fine to me Mel, I'd drop 'bargain' unless its used with 'bargain wine', otherwise you'll probably attract a hoard of Quidco zombies screaming for discount codes.

Also, if you are naming a store use the word wine too, M&S Wine, Waitrose Wine, etc., just naming the store is pointless unless you plan to post TN's for beans and coffee.

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Yep, Im still here.

Gosh, gets more complicated by the minute.

Wine deals, wine offers, cheap wine etc.

_________________
Four wheels move the body - 2 wheels move the soul.

Have spoken to the website developer this morning and he says Keywords are no longer of any use because the system was abused and so Google, et al, don't use them any more.

Discuss...

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mel

I was hoping we wouldn’t have to get into this, yes Meta keywords do not directly affect how Google ranks a website anymore, but it can have a positive indirect affect and shouldn’t be ignored. Link popularity and page content are also important.

There’s a reason JR's site shows when you type in 'wine reviews' and doesn’t show when you type in 'tree surgeon'. I’m not disagreeing with your web guy, he's probably forgotten more about this stuff than I know, but the value of keywords should not be underestimated.



However it should be done, its not being done for QO as the site is difficult to find in the natural listings under most wine related searches- Although I do occasionally find the site when searching for a particular wine brand which is good to see.

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Yep, Im still here.

I'm with GK on this, This is my experience of how priority is sorted by the search engines

If I go to the M&S Sale and look at deck shoes. Deck shoes appear on all the extraneous listings for the next 3 days. In-private filtering and pop up blockers only stop the images from appearing (dancing around stupidly) on the right hand side of the screen. The natural listing still comes up with shoes or deck, even when I'm looking for a yacht fitting that is normally bolted to the deck, or when looking at shoes, the order of priority in the listing will be aimed specifically at deck shoes. no other type of shoe.

Therefore "MSB" a term which has come into being at QO, should be high on your meta keyword list (GK will have to suffer the endless debate of the style ) Oh no - apologies to all.

Sugary tat
Indifferent claret
Died out and dead
No nonsense opinion
Yeasty on the lees
Barrel fermented
Over confected
Blossom dreary
Star wine Award
QO Award
QO Good value £
QO yuk !
Top wine beauties this week
Hot stones Rhone


How you "tailor the flavour" of QO for the wine lover's searches needs some serous thought - IMHO. To be humourous, authorative and informative with these key words is very tricky. Otherwise the site attracts no one. or *pamming jerks, *rolls and nutters

The birds with bottle video library does not appear to be obviously linked with Mel Jones and QO. Therefore Mel Jones, Master of Wine, Quaffers' Offers are very important keywords.

The Wine Vault is a stronger pull to Youtube, than Birds with bottle.

Women In Love with wine would probably get far more hits - would they be the right hits though ?

Back to the drawing board - I think.

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Duncan