One step foward three steps back - seo you're killing me

It seems the more I try to improve Rainbow Designs search engine (google) ranking the worse our ranking gets. How and why does this happen?? It is so frustrating and disheartening. When ever I make any changes or write new blurbs I always do it with my customers in mind but also try and ensure it is what the search engines, mainly google, want because if I don't get indexed and listed in google I won't be found and my customers won't read the new blurbs. It's so hard.

About a month or so ago I did a huge amount of housekeeping on the website both behind the scenes and in front where people actually see and read and then hopefully buy. I changed some of the gift hampers names or slightly amended tweaked them so they read easier and I hoped would be found easier. I also fixed all of the gift descriptions and details so they are all uniformed and read the same hoping that it will make it easier for people to read, understand and purchase from us. I changed the font for the gifts to something super neat and clean (well I think so) and made sure they were all the same. The descriptions were all broken down into areas to make it easier to see what is in each hamper, what is included and how it benefits the customer. I am hoping this is making it clearer for everyone to make their purchasing of gifts less stressful and to make sure they know what they are buying and when it will be sent and delivered.

I changed or amended a lot of the <header> details as well as the behind the scenes <descriptions> - these are the descriptions that the search engines are meant to read and then index and will eventually show in their listings. One of the major side effects or downfalls has been that a couple of the categories that use to rank ok (around page 3 or 4) now are nowhere to be seen, bugger! I have my fingers crossed it's just a reindexing thing and they will jump back up to, again fingers crossed, end up on the first few pages. Most people only look on the first couple of pages when doing a search so that's where I need to be.

My wish and dream is that Rainbow Designs will be one the first page for Gift Hampers and similar key words/sentences including the addition of celebrations such as birthday, Easter, Christmas etc but want I really want is that whenever anyone is searching for a gift for them to buy online and have it delivered in Australia Rainbow Designs will be in amongst it all and at least be there for them to have a look and decide if what we have is what they want. At the moment they're not even given the chance to see what we have to offer as we're on no mans land in our rankings. Please mr google if you would be so kind as to lift our rankings in your wonderful search engine we would be ever so grateful.

Patience is something I know you need whenever you make changes to your website and want to improve your listings, sometimes it can take 3-4 months, but I don't think Rainbow Designs will be around for much longer if these changes don't happen soon. I know I have a great business and gorgeous gift hampers I just don't know how to let everyone else know?

Do you? Any tips and hints you'd like to pass on?

Jacqui ~ Rainbow Designs boss(y) lady and seo failure (it would seem atm)