New site started doing well, now it's tanking
-
Im confused by activity from a site I opened less than a month ago. I ranked in the top ten for the local version of my primary phrase. Within two weeks I was up to number two. I created a few new pages without content in order to build age. I also paid for a pair of clearly marked classified ads at trusted sites thatprovide traffic from potential clients.
Next, I stated revamping my pages by revising and editing content.
my site has dropped like a brick. My content is the best it's been and improving daily.
Im not sure what to do. Should I start over? Do I keep improving my site and give it a few months? Would anyone be willing to review my site and provide a few tips? Fyi, I understand some of my pages need more content.
my formatting is a mess with iOS 7 on iPad.
-
1. Website - When developing your site, be sure to check how it looks in Internet Explorer, Safari, Google Chrome and Firefox. For mobile IPAD, Iphone and Android. If you have issues, it's probably with your CSS. Many websites use what they call responsive designs. They adapt to the type of device you are using. Even with responsive designs, they require tweaks here and there to get things looking right.
2. Website Tanking - Just to rule out a few items, take a look at your Google Webmaster Tools and see if there are any manual actions (messages) done on your site. Also check Webmaster Tools under section Google Index->Index Status to make sure all your pages are indexed.
3. Local Directories - At a minimum, make sure you are listed in these key directories: Axiom, Infogroup and Localeze. After that, claim/add your information in Citysearch/Citygrid, Local.com, Manta, Primeplace Nokia, Yellowbook, Yellowbot, Yellowee,Yellowpages,Insiderpages,Kudzu, Merchant Circle,Supermedia. There are more but this should keep you busy for a while.
4. Claim your Google Plus, Yahoo Local and Bing Listings
5. Know your competitors. How well does your website look against theirs? Does your site look trustworthy? Use <cite>www.opensiteexplorer.org/</cite> to check your backlinks against theirs.
Unfortunately, trying to rank isn't a set it and forget it operation. Keep updating your website, post to your Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, Website Blog with engaging content.
-
Hi Jovan,
Very nice that you started working on improving quality of your website. That's a good thing and you should do it with no restrictions in the future.
However, as a SEO it's very important to stop worrying about ranking results on short term. 1 month is certainly to low. Google wants you to focus most energy bringing quality stuff to the users. It discourages over-optimization and even has a patent filed in 2012 (if I'm not mistaken) which de-values websites that do a optimization changes for a wile, just to see how the owner of the website react to lower rankings. If the owner removes the last websites changes after seeing low ranking - google might be facing people who -> optimize for search engines, not for users. We don't actually know if this happens in reality or not, but It certainly encourage us to check for results less - and focus on quality stuff.
So create the best content you cant with all the guidelines in mind and if in 3-6 months you can't see any results, then start worrying and what went wrong.
-
New sites can rank very highly for a month or two due to the freshness factor. Once this wears off, refreshing content can help a little, but ultimately you will need to get backlinks \ social engagement.
If you haven't done any black hat \ paid backlinking, then your best bet is to keep at it, and work on your content, do some guest posts, circulate some content in the social media channels to get social engagement.
If you want more specific advice you will need to post your url, so we can check out what is going on.
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
-
What's the best way to go about making Duplicate Content Pages on my domain for affiliates?
Hello, I would like to make a bunch of duplicate pages of my site's Home Page, that way affiliates of mine can have a page of their own with links specialized to themselves littered throughout the page. What's the best practice going about this without jeopardizing domain authority from tons of duplicate content signals firing off?
Affiliate Marketing | | Benavest0 -
Stopping these scum sites from sending traffic.
What is the best way to deal with these: http://www.goldenclicking.com/ and www.payclicking.com They keep sending my site traffic, however I am not paying for it, and would prefer to stop these sites. The traffic never converts, and I can't see anywhere that I am paying for the traffic (they are not an affiliate, and can't see them on the GDN) - so I don't even know whats in it for them. Has anyone ever dealt with these types of sites previously, tips on getting them to stop. I was just considering black listing there domains so they can't even reach our site. Thanks in Advance. Andy
Affiliate Marketing | | Andy-Halliday0 -
What is the right way to link to your main site?
Hi, we have a system for tracking the leads that comes from a specific affiliate website. each affiliate has a unique tracking code. not only for affiliates that work with us but also for the SEO team has an affiliate tracking code so our bosses can track the leads and traffic that come from the activity of the SEO team. this means, links towards our website look like: www.mydomain.com/?t_src=campaign&t=AFF&t_cre=links&A=371 www.mydomain.com/?A=371 I have few questions about this: 1. This is the right way to link to my company site? How dose google crawl those link? It's can harm the link value? 2. What is my option to show my boss all the traffic / leads that our seo team brings to the site trough Google Analytics? Hope to get your support. Thanks in advance.
Affiliate Marketing | | JonsonSwartz0 -
Adroll vs Adsense: Pro's and Cons
Hey everyone, Do you prefer Adroll or Adsense and why? What are some pros and cons of each?
Affiliate Marketing | | jhinchcliffe0 -
Best way to start affiliate marketing a new mens magazine website?
I have just started up a new mens magazine website featuring articles, videos, sports news and photos to help drive traffic to the website. I write all the articles myself and do the social media updates in my spare time. I was wondering if anyone has any tips on the best way to start doing affiliate marketing for a new website? I was inspired to do this by successful internet marketers who make a passive income off their websites. So far I have added Amazon and William Hill as affiliate links as I think my target market will be looking for these types of product links. Also, for anyone who has experience in this, how long it taken for your blog to become successful and make money? Many thanks, Alex
Affiliate Marketing | | AlexBarnes0 -
How do the engines look at pages populated using content from an affiliate site?
We are building out a section of our site using an affiliate partnership in the travel space. How would you suggest organizing the content so we do not get penalized for duplicate content? Do you suggest not suing the content at all?
Affiliate Marketing | | TSDigital0 -
Google Panda & Effects On Affiliate Sites
Quick Question, We all have heard that outbound links for affiliate marketing will be filtered via Panda however how does this work when using the Google Affiliate Network URL's? Has anyone found different signals with using Google vs. Another Network?
Affiliate Marketing | | Ben-HPB0