Ranking problems in top 3 need some advice from the PROs
-
HI there,
im new to this forum but im doing SEO quite a while. I lost touch with the whole SEO community while building my business's so I said i better get back in touch before I lose my most valued skill.
I set up a gift website 3 months before xmas. We decided to focus on the following keywords starting out, gifts, gift ideas, gifts for him, gifts for her and christmas gifts.
We have managed to rank No.1 for gift ideas, No.2 for gifts.
For "christmas gifts" we could not get it onto the first page, it was hanging around the 12 and 13 spot for weeks, so we decided to stop linking to the page with anchor text "christmas gifts" and use related keywords, the result, we shot to NO.1 within 2 weeks.
I now have the same problem with "gifts for him" and "gifts for her" except, i have tried everything but we are still hanging around 4-6 spot on page one, I cant get them into the top 3 and cant understand it. Ive done the following to try give it a boost.
- Increase the variation of the anchor text
- Decrease the amount of keywords in title tag
- Link to it from high PR pages
Im really lost and its really bugging me the fact all the other keywords are ranking so well. The only thing I can think of from my research and perhaps someone might be able to give me some advice on this (Backed up by past results) is we have not once linked to this page with the actual URL, 100% of the links are varied anchor text. Would perhaps linking with the plain old URL help it, its really bugging me as we did so well with everything else using 90% white hat, 10% grey hat seo. Please help. Thanks
Also, we have not done any social media linking to it.
-
Just to clarify the tool I'm talking about in my response, I'm thinking of something like this:
Having a hard time choosing a gift for that special someone? Enter some details to find great gift ideas now!
[input 1 + interests] = card games, mountain biking, skiing, scrapbooking
[input 2 + marital status] = married, has kids
[input 3 + sex] = female
[input 4 + age] = 35
[input 5 + location] = dallas, tx
[output 1] = winter scarf, coat, word teaser origins, etc. (top 10 list maybe?)
We're talking about a lot of work, of course. Although most of it could be outsourced on the cheap to data entry people. This is just something off the top of my head, so you might refine it a bit. Just thinking of an idea to increase time on site, upsell, and create something useful above and beyond simply promoting products. To cut down on development time, I'd make visitors choose interests rather than letting them enter them in a field. Simply start a tag system matching certain combinations to gifts algorithmically. It doesn't have to be all-inclusive at first, as long as it functions. You can always add new interests and gifts as time goes on, and can see if it even works for you before going all-in.
Mike
-
Hey dean1986,
Just like EGOL said, well done on your success so far! You've really done some great things for your client.
I'm a bit confused about your question though. Just looking at the links you have, you're getting a ton of links with your domain (or variations) as your anchor text as it is -- far more than I see with specific anchor text you mentioned. I think it's important to remember that you can't point everything at your home page - with a site like this, I usually choose a few powerful pages to optimize for single keyword phrases, then make sure the inner-linking points to the home page using the anchor text as well.
I'm kind of shocked that you haven't implemented some form of a social media presence, although I see you have developed an app. I think the strategy that will put you over the top is viral content outreach and distribution (like infographics and buyer's guides). Social media signals are only becoming more of a significant metric in SEO, so that should be a priority this year.
The only competitor you have that concerns me is gifts.com, which may be impossible to beat, like EGOL suggests. Their authority and exact match domain is going to be a very tough beat for "gifts." I'd go as far as to say that the investment required to compete with gifts.com isn't even worth it at this point.
I'm 100% on-board with your idea to reduce keywords in the title tags to give your site a boost, by the way.
I've been in your position before, although in slightly different industries. The strategies we always used to get past the keyword plateau have been to focus on the other metrics that are going to build your authority. Think of ways to improve time visitors spend on your site, reduce bounce rate, and increase pages per visit.
Maybe some sort of tool that helps keep people on your site - like a tool that helps them choose gifts for friends and family based on specific character traits. Maybe add some surveys about the "weirdest gift you've ever bought for someone." This might be a way to fit some relevancy for gifts for him and gifts for her, within the tool. I would suspect that a well done tool like that would draw some lovely organic links.
On a final note, consider adding some more content to the site - not just on the blog. I like your Top 10 section, but it's too small. Adding some dense content can give people something more to link to. Right now you get a ton of links from other ecommerce sites and promotional content from blogs, but you don't get all that many referential links that help build your site's authority (I like to call these "citation links" -- ex. According to this site on [unique gift ideas], gifts are awesome.
You're doing well in social media already, but treat any further campaigns as a way to get people excited about your site. I have a feeling that spending some time catering to the real people rather than the robots that visit your site is what you need to meet your next goals.
Hope this is helpful.
Mike
-
Point taken, but.... ive made no.1 & 2 with the others that are more competitive, thats the annoying part, Thanks though
-
I need some inspiration too... I hold a #2 where I will probably never get #1... and a #3 that I have been working to move up for a couple years - but I am workin' every day. I'll get them eventually.
-
There are only 3 main competitors and there SEO campign is next to none, they are there because they started a website a few years back and google had to rank something.
Dont get me wrong, they have done a great job developing their business but they simple do not do any SEO marketing what so ever. If i was able to push them down the page in the keywords that are harder to rank for why cant i do it to the less competitive ones.
I now there is a flaw in my campaign/thinking and i am just looking for some inspiration here.
-
I set up a gift website 3 months before xmas.
I cant get them into the top 3 and cant understand it. Ive done the following to try give it a boost.
Consider two things.
-
You started a few months ago but your competitors have been fortifying their positions for several years - or more.
-
Moving up the rankings from position 6, to position 5, to position 4, to position 3, to position 2, to position 1.... is not an exercise like picking petals from a daisy. The guy who currently holds each of those position has teh ability to fight back.
My two cents on your story is that you have done a great job so far... congratulations! But you have not earned the remaining positions that you desire yet.... and maybe you never will depending upon who currently has them or who is going to appear out of the blue tomorrow. The most dangerous competitor is the one who has yet to arrive.
-
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
How Many Backlinks does I need to rank?
A keyword Olehana private label cosmetic company that also my competitor have 4k ref domain for this keyword. So Do I need more than 4k ref domain with anchortext "olehana" Please help me. Thanks.
Link Building | | arainbadami0 -
Why have I lost 1/3 of my backlinks (about 5,000) in 3 months?
In August, my client's site (I work at a marketing agency) had about 15,000 backlinks. Now they suddenly have about 10,000 backlinks. And their Domain Authority has dropped from 48 to 40! Can someone please help me understand what could've happened? At first I assumed this had something to do with the latest Penguin update, since I knew my client's site had some extremely spammy backlinks they hadn't cleaned up yet. (The site was hacked at some point and hidden pages were created as part of some kind of link-building scheme, and there were lots of links from sketchy sites to those pages. The hidden pages have been taken down and the URLs now redirect to my client's home page.) But that would only explain a sudden drop in Domain Authority, right? How could Penguin suddenly cause my client to lose 5,000 backlinks? And if it's not Penguin, what could it be? Thanks in advance for any insight that anyone can share!
Link Building | | matt-145670 -
Title Tag Targeting 3 or 4 keywords: Downsides to link building?
Hello, I've got a client who's title tags for an internal page are like (just for example) Running Shoes | Runner's Shoe | Performance Shoe | Cross-trainer That are doing fabulous in the search engines, dominating for most of the terms and dominating for word combinations off of these 4 terms. Sometimes there's no other category to split these up into two keywords a piece, to optimize for less would reduce traffic and conversions. My question is, is this going to look bad when we go to do outreach and guest posting? What are the downsides of leaving a few of the pages like this in the link building arena?
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
Question about ranking and links
Hi, Some back ground info first: My DA/PA is 42, the competitors who show up in the search engines for the term I am after have DA/PA 55/60. I have been creating anchor text links which target the term im after through guest blogging usually blogs with DA/PA 40+, I did this consistently with a guest post every 3 days for about a month so that's around 10 guest posts. And I also did some brand name blog comments, but these were no-follow and added sig to some forums. This moved me from page 5 to page 1, position 4. I then stopped and over the last 3 weeks it slipped to position 6 then to position 8. The competition doesn't look to actively target this term looking at the data from opensite explorer there main anchor text is there brand names. Why would I be slipping through the results? Not moaning just want to understand why so I can counter it. I was thinking about going for social signals through a blog to help.
Link Building | | activitysuper0 -
How can a not so passionate subject get links? Need ideas?
Our client owns a very big pest control site. They are competing with pestmall, orkin, terminex to name a few. Almost all of there competitors are spamming like crazy. For some of their competitors it is working. They get natural links very slowly. Maybe 1 natural link every week. How can a not so passionate subject get links? Here was my ideas. Offer a tool to pest control sites for a link in return. The flaw is most pest control company owners are not tech savy and if they are they have hired it out. I just really need some ideas. Thank you.
Link Building | | OxzenMedia0 -
Root domain or subdomain when submitting to directories, also pr 3 and lower, is it bad to list to these directories?
Hello all, Should I use my root domain or sub domain when adding my site to local directories? I'm very new to this, so I just want to be sure, sub domains start with the www, right? I know all my listings should have the same NAP, and it makes sense to have the same root or sub domain listed as well, but I was wondering if I should try and help one type of domain if it starts to get a bad ratio of follow & no follow links. Also, do directories with a page rank of 3 or lower, or directories with a no follow link, bad for my sites rankings?
Link Building | | allstatetransmission0 -
What Are the Best Practices for Ranking for Synonyms?
This topic has me entirely confused, and unsure if we should keep a website focused on one keyword group, and using synonym contextual links to rank it for other keyword synonyms. We simply have not seen enough data or run enough tests to find our answer, and wanted to reach out to the community to see if anyone has. I have seen Google rank a synonym to my search query on the first page, and is why we are confused. Let's use an example: We'll use "Industry" as the main keyword for our page. "Company" or "Companies" is viewed as a synonym by Google of this keyword. When we query "Industry", "Company" and "Companies" are also found in bold. 1.) Is it best practice to also create a unique page targeting synonyms? Our thinking is that it would be best to try and target exactly what the user is looking for rather than having a synonym to their search for better conversions, but as mentioned above we feel it's best to hit exactly what they query because that's their way of thinking. That they're looking for that exact match. 2.) Have the page "Industry", but do some link building using contextual links "Company" or "Companies" pointing back at our "Industry" page. Would this help rank our "Industry" page for "Company" or "Companies" even though the main page is "Industry"? Just not sure we want to do this as the reasoning explained in #1. Thanks for your help!
Link Building | | cyberlicious0 -
Keywords Ranking Secret?
When I searched "long dresses" in Google.com, and found the following page is ranked on top 10 http://www.shopstyle.com/browse?fts=long+summer+dresses But there is no back link pointing to this page, so why does this company manage to rank high for such a competitive keyword without link building? Any opinions?
Link Building | | Milanoocom0