I need advice on search rankings!

[cc]

Our website has been up and running for a couple of months now and we are using two rental listing sites, one in German and one in English.
The results have been strange. In google, type in Costa del Sol holidays and we are nowhere and this is reflected in the lack of bookings via the UK site but type in the equivalent in German and our rental listing site is at the top and our site is on the front page. 90% of our bookings through the rental listing sites are via the German one.
Searching for our site directly, not via the rental listing sites is a waste of time, we are nowhere. I tried a few other word searches and notice that google uses the domain name too so I was wondering if it makes sense to purchase a few other domains and have them either automatically redirect to ours or just have a meaningful frontpage that has a link to ours on it for more information.
The aim would of course be to appear higher up the google search results but would this work and is it "allowed"?

[BobToovey]

Casa,

Creating further domains names could help. I take it you will be pointing these new domain names to the existing site? Some search engines penalise sites for using repeated content.

I notice you have your site in three languages.

What you could do is create subdomains for example

http://Deutschland.casacaleta.com/ (please check my spelling!)
http://espania.casacaleta.com/

and leave

http://www.casacaleta.com/

as a welcome page directing to the three possible languages.

Google currently treats subdomains as seperate sites as many other search engines do.

What might be happening (and why subdomains will help) is that the multiple languages may be 'diluting' the content and some how the German part is performing better. Splitting your content up may help the search engines understand it better and rank it better.

Also subdomains should not cost you any extra!

I hope this helps and if you want to chat further about it then let me know!

Bob

PS you need to sort out the title of the home page, it currently displays a meta tag.

Our website has been up and running for a couple of months now and we are using two rental listing sites, one in German and one in English.
The results have been strange. In google, type in Costa del Sol holidays and we are nowhere and this is reflected in the lack of bookings via the UK site but type in the equivalent in German and our rental listing site is at the top and our site is on the front page. 90% of our bookings through the rental listing sites are via the German one.
Searching for our site directly, not via the rental listing sites is a waste of time, we are nowhere. I tried a few other word searches and notice that google uses the domain name too so I was wondering if it makes sense to purchase a few other domains and have them either automatically redirect to ours or just have a meaningful frontpage that has a link to ours on it for more information.
The aim would of course be to appear higher up the google search results but would this work and is it "allowed"?

[paolo]

The results have been strange. In google, type in Costa del Sol holidays and we are nowhere and this is reflected in the lack of bookings via the UK site but type in the equivalent in German and our rental listing site is at the top and our site is on the front page. 90% of our bookings through the rental listing sites are via the German one.

Which aspect is strange? If a site is on page 1 of Google for a major search term, you would expect enquiries. If your English site is not on page one for any major search terms, you are advertising on the wrong site.

[cc]

Hi Bob
thanks for the reply, I think I'll try a combination of both subdomains and "re-routing" domains and see what happens.
Sorry to sound thick but I don't know what you mean by the title displaying a meta tag. Can you explain it and tell me what I need to do about it?
Thanks a lot,
Kim, Casa Caleta

[cc]

Paolo,
what is strange is that the german listing makes the front page of google in german and is through a not particularly well known rental listing site and the UK listing site that is supposed to be very successful for other people appears nowhere. Hence my questions aimed at getting my own site a higher listing on its own in google without using the rental listing sites.

[BobToovey]

Kim,

Take a look the top bar of the web browser you are using, the place where the title of the page goes. Currently it is displaying....

<meta name="keywords" content="Casa Caleta, Casa, Caleta, Mijas, Malaga, Spain, B&B, accommodation, Villa, Costa del Sol, Andalucia, yoga, tai chi ">

because it is wrapped up with...

<title<meta name="keywords" content="....

and ends with

...Andalucia, yoga, tai chi "><title>Casa Caleta</title>

so remove <title<meta etc and the way to the end where is says

..tai chi ">

to leave

<title>Casa Caleta</title>

In fact the title is a tad short and I would suggest you expand it with about 10 extra words. Helps with the search engines and all.

I hope this helps

bob

[cc]

Thanks for that Bob, I'll get on to it straight away.
As for adding more words in the title, should they be the key words that I wanted to be searched on or a more descriptive text such as "Casa Caleta - a B&B in Mijas, Costa del Sol with fantastic sea-views"

[BobToovey]

Kim,

yeah do try to use your keywords as it will help with the search engines. It is a balance of making a sensible description and using keywords. But dont forget it is not a a case of do it once and leave it. Change it around and see how your rankings go!

bob

[cc]

Great, thanks Bob.