Site stuck on 2nd page on Google - how can it improve?
-
Hi
I am working on a site http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk that for search terms such as 'Chartered Accountants Swansea' appears near the top of the 2nd page of Google.
When looking at what is listed on the 1st page for 'Chartered Accountants Swansea' I would appreciate any advice/guidance on what else could be done to give the site a final push to get on the 1st page of search results.
Over the past 2 weeks I have been building inbound links from local citation sites yelp, qype etc along with sites from competitor analysis via opensiteexplorer.
Looking at the sites that are on the 1st page I cant understand why many of them are ranking higher than me?
Any insight and plan of attack would be most appreciated from any search experts on the forum.
Many Thanks
-
Hi Dan
Ran the report and its as I thought
My site has better rankings across the board than 6 of the top 10 results?
- For example on page optimisation analysis is graded A and there is only one other A grade in the top 10
- FB shares - we have none but only 3 of the top 10 have 1 FB share each, while we are the only one with a Google Buzz share.
- We have the 4th best domain authority and mozrank, 3rd best moztrust
- Linking c and root domains we are 5th best and 4th best page authority
We have been building links the past 2 weeks but these dont seem to be showing in the report as on exact anchor text links we have 0 when we should have several. BTW out of the top 10 8 out of the 10 have 0 for this metric
Does it take time for the links we have built to show in this report?
-
Correct.
I hate to offer any "wait" type of answer, but that is the next step. The first opportunity for a change is when Google crawls your page again. Your Google page cache is from October 8th. Since this issue is from your home page which is crawled more frequently, I estimate it will be updated this week.
Please check your site and ensure there are no other similar issues on other pages with respect to black hat technique usage. If a site is penalized, it can be the entire site regardless or which page the issue is discovered upon. Sometimes it is only the page, depending on the issue.
The rankings could be resolved right away. Your site may have also been given a "time out" form of penalty where it can take 30 days for the rankings to improve. To be sure, I would wait 30 days after the cache has been updated. I suggest marking the date on your calendar as a reminder.
-
Thanks
Is it best to canonicalise the URL via webmaster tools to point to the www version of the site.
I have added some content on the site before they was very little - how much content is enough - looking at some of the top 10 sites in the SERPS their content leaves a lot to be desired.
I am using ALT tags on images on the homepage already for the target search phrase - have I missed any opportunities?
Good idea with google map and images I can see where you are coming from- thanks
-
Hi
I have removed the hidden h1 behind the graphic on the homepage and included the targetted search phrase on the body copy of the homepage which I have also made bold. So time will tell if it makes a difference to the ranking?
-
canonicalise your urls
more content on the homepage
Get rid of crappy stock photography, makes you look spammy. Have large, quality images
Id add an image with keyword relevant alt attribs
Add a google map with your location
-
Hi
Use the Keyword Difficulty and SERP Analysis tool - run a full report. It will give you all the ranking factor metrics of the top 10 results (plus an 11th site you can add). The major things I always check first are;
- Linking root domains
- Linking C Blocks (there should not be a giant difference between root domains and C blocks)
- Exact and Partial match anchor text
- Facebook Shares
- On Page Optimization Grade
Chances are you may need to beat some people in the top 10 in any of these metrics.
-Dan
-
The resources it takes to improve your site are relatively low. Your site is not an e-commerce site. You don't accept online payments. It is a relatively simple site. With the proper knowledge, you can build it yourself. Alternatively, you can hire someone else to build the site for you.
Many companies offer to create basic word press sites for $500+. Personally, I don't like the quality of those sites at all. For between $1000 -$2000 you can build a very high quality, professional WP site including any extensions you need, a graphics layout, and everything you need to succeed from a SEO perspective. There are major corporations who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to build their website. A small business should be able to afford a simple site as described.
With respect to the time, I noticed from your About page your company has at least 3 employees: Nick, David and Sharon. Is it possible each employee could write one helpful article each month? They could talk about a current situation they face, or a current hot topic in the industry. If one outstanding article can be written per month by each employee, your content will steadily grow over time. Additionally, you content may draw in new clients. The content will certainly offer new opportunities to rank for additional keywords.
Would the creation of a twitter account and feed on the homepage help with SEO to get us on the 1st page?
The creation of a twitter account in and of itself will not offer any tangible benefit. You need to actually use the account for it to have value. Tips, links to articles, helpful reminders, etc. can all make great tweets.
if you look at the other sites in the top 10 list they are very weak, I cant understand how my site has not overtaken them already.
As I shared, your site has at least two major problems with respect to ranking for the key term. You are using a black hat technique which alone can knock you off the first page. Additionally, you do not use the target phrase a single time in content. Both of these points are major SEO issues. At the very least, fix these two issues today.
-
With proper SEO I take it you mean build inbound links as there is not much more SEO or technical side SEO left to do?
What I was trying to achieve with the accountant-swansea page was to capture the traffic and ranking for this search phrase - which way would you recommend that I achieve this with supporting internal links?
I totally understand what you mean but the no1 site are a large firm and have the resources to do this - many small businesses do not have the time to run a blog or write financial articles - if you look at the other sites in the top 10 list they are very weak, I cant understand how my site has not overtaken them already.
Would the creation of a twitter account and feed on the homepage help with SEO to get us on the 1st page?
-
None of the results on the first page are particularly strong. With proper SEO, you should be able to not only reach the first page but climb to the top over time.
The next most important item is to clarify within your site which page should rank for each term. I have a concern because your site is so small and you are trying to rank your home page for "Chartered Accountants Swansea" yet you have another page which targets "Accountants Swansea": http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk/accountant-swansea.html
You can certainly provide two separate pages on your site which target similar phrases. It should be done in a very careful manner with supporting internal links.
Additionally, while your site appears professional, it is a very basic html site. Notice the #1 rank site has a "search" function which is generally part of a CMS. It also offers social engagement, blog, rss feed, etc. If this site belonged to my client, I would recommend moving to a WordPress or Joomla CMS and increasing their web presence.
-
Great thanks - will make those changes - anything else that I should be looking at?
-
First and foremost, ensure you are not using any blackhat techniques on your site's home page. I found a problem within 2 minutes on your site. It is highly likely Google noticed as well.
Your home page's header tag is not visible on the page. It is hidden behind the graphics at the top of your page.
<h1 class="HomeTitle">Chartered Accountants Swansea | Harris Bassett h1>
I would also suggest using your target phrase at least once on your page in content. You do use the words on the page, but not together as a single phrase.
Once making these changes, it may take a full month to see the changes in search results.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
My website Moz Page Authority
My website is Best Comedy Tickets. The current homepage has a Page Authority is 41, mR : 4:53 and Domain Authority is 31. However all my sub pages are basically non existent. All the other pages on the site are a Page Authority of 1, mR : 0.00. Why is this and how do I increase this ? Are there any tips or tricks to increase subpages ? I appreciate all the feed back and am grateful for any tips or helpful advice.
Link Building | | JosephSantiagoNYC0 -
Directory sites in 2013
Are there any directory sites or article/press relies sites that are worth getting links on in the post panda/penguin worked of 2013?
Link Building | | mark_baird0 -
Google Penalty
Hi all, I've been having some trouble with Google lately. Awhile back I came across a quality site that had a "Useful Links" directory. I searched the site and finally found an email. I emailed the webmaster and requested a link. They obliged but wanted a link back, so I wrote a nice blog post that included a link to their site. This brings me to question number one: 1. Would Google see this as a link exchange? Problem number two with the link from this site. My site is fairly new with not much of a link profile. What I discovered was that they displayed random links from the "Useful Links" directory in the sidebar and in the footer. So all of a sudden we have a ton of links from one website. This site has hundreds maybe even thousands of pages. 2. Would Google see all of these links and think that they were paid or spam? We've had a nice steady increase in traffic from Google then all of a sudden it dropped to nothing for two days and has come back a little. Here is my data from open site explorer: 1/15/2013 PA=27/100 DA=14/100 LRD=5 Total Links=42 2/12/2013 PA=31/100 DA=19/100 LRD=9 Total Links=137 3/19/2013 PA=28/100 DA=18/100 LRD=5 Total Links=212 We experienced the drop in Google traffic on 2/4/2013. So according to open site explorer everything is ok. But is this big jump in links a problem? Thanks to anybody that reads this long post. 🙂
Link Building | | brandzz0 -
Off page SEO
Our off-page SEO efforts include the following minimum on a monthly basis. Can anyone help with the relative merits of these, which are useful, which aren't and whether for instance you would substitute more of one for less of another? On a per month basis 7 social bookmarks 30 Website directory submissions 4 guest blog posts 3 press releases 8 blog posts (on 2 dedicated wordpress blogs) 4 articles published in high ranking article directories 3 social profile with links/blog comments on .edu/.gov with links/classified ad links 1 slideshare presentation with links Many thanks in advance.
Link Building | | TheKewlShop0 -
Does it hurt your site to syndicate content on other sites?
Does publishing an article from your site on other sites hurt your site if you require a link back to your site? If website B, C, and D publish an article found site A, but they link back to site A, does that hurt or help site A?
Link Building | | nicole.healthline0 -
Which parameter does google value more: number of incoming links or on-page optimizations (meta data and keywords)?
I am just starting with the SEO and I have a client in the travel industry whose website is not ranked well on the search engines. After doing the seo audit we see that the website's on-page optimization (meta titles, meta description, meta keywords and h1, h2, etc tags) is bad. At the same time there are very few incoming links into the website. These are the key 2 issues we found. In order to proceed most effectively, what do you think would be more effective to focus on first? Doing the on-site optimization or focusing more on the link building? Do the search engines, in particular, google - weight more either of these parameters? thanks so much for all your advice! all the best egle
Link Building | | queenz0 -
How to improve domain analysis
Right now our site has a score of 0 for domain link analysis and i dont know how to fix this. Please let me know. Thanks!
Link Building | | AppNeta0