I need your brains please - client site dropped significantly in search since hummingbird
-
I need your support. I've been doing "SEO" for several years - but sticking to sustainable methods.
- No junk links
- Decent content
- Decent site
- etc
The site is advisein.com and it was ranking well for several terms such as:
- best lsat prep
- best lsat preparation
- best lsat course
- etc.
Also there are some youtube videos (with the google thumbnail) that were doing extremely well in search and even those dropped in the rankings.
Can any of you tell if there are some glaring issues that I am missing that would make the website and youtube videos drop 30 - 40+ spots in SERP's over the past few months after dominating for the last 3 years?
Thank you in advance and I welcome additional questions and any ides....
-
That coming from you is just enough for the day
I don't know who you are or what you do, but reading your responses I never, and I mean NEVER have something to add. It's like reading from wikipedia... lol
-
Federico... I am starting to read more and more of your posts. Giving you lots of thumbs up!
I see your "historical moz points" line is getting steeper because lots of people are starting to read your posts and give you thumbs up.
http://moz.com/community/users/372560
Nice work!
-
If only I knew who you are Egol...
-
Looks like you have unique content. But I don't see much reason that this site should rank for those queries.
Here are some things that should help....
===================================================
If you want to rank for "best lsat prep" then you need a page with a razor sharp focus on that query. I did this search and did not find any pages that made you a competitor. Where is your page that kills that topic?
If this was my site I would create a page that is all about that topic and present it without trying to shill myself. Include a title tag that is provocative and elicits the click.... maybe... "What is the Best LSAT Prep for You?" (questions usually elicit more clicks than statements). I would have hard hitting video, full transcript plus links to supplemental documents that hit that topic hard. Maybe printable pdf check list... "Getting your best LSAT prep"... and other genuinely useful documents that continue to target this topic from different angles and are well optimized.
Well optimized pages have "best lsat prep" on the left side of the title tag and on-page elements that make the page relevant for that exact query. That includes H1, phrase in text, and substantive unique content.
Well optimized pages also contain images, media and links to supplemental documents that are all about "best lsat prep". I might embed a video that has "best lsat prep" in the title and speaks directly to that subject. Not a side-swipe. Directly.
==============================================
Your site is not as strong as the competition. Not as well optimized. Can you produce some content that would be fantastic resources that university department websites and law schools might link to? Right now your link profile is thin and low quality. How about some free guides on What is the Best LSAT Prep for You? These will deliver power to your site, and traffic who might seek your service if you impress them with what you do for free.
The pages on your site that focus the best on LSAT Preparation are marketing your business. If you want to build a powerful, highly trafficked site that demonstrates your expertise, attracts recommendations and visitors I would put the focus on being helpful first and marketing second.
The sites that I own that sell the most are the most helpful to potential customers in their business niche or the most helpful site that offers a product.
============================================
Another problem that your website has is inconsistent URLs.
If you do this search.... you will see several pages of your site listed with both the www (www.advisein.com) and non www (advisein.com) URL. Note the "Letter from our Founder" listing. It appears twice as does others.
This should be fixed with a 301 redirect to your non www URL. Perhaps your server allows htaccess files. Also, all of your internal links should be without the www. Most of them are from what I have seen.
Correcting this should increase the power of your site because you will not have all of those duplicate pages out there.
============================================
As you can see, most of my recommendations are things that should be done by the owner of this website and not by the SEO. The owner needs to get his expertise out there and make a site that attracts traffic because it has assets that attract visitors and recommendations.
Good luck.
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
-
Why have my rankings dropped?
I have a client who has just seen his average page rank creep up from around 39 to 34 over about two months, then it appears to have dropped back to position 40+ in the space of a week. I believe he's made a lot of changes to targeted keywords, so I'd like to think it's simply because his old targeted keywords are dropping and new keywords still have to build their rankings. But I'm also worried in case he has over-optimised and might get getting penalised. Any advice on where to start digging?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
3 Wordpress sites 1 Tumblr site coming under 1domain(4subdomains) WPMU: Proper Redirect?
Hey Guys, witnessSF.org (WP), witnessLA.org(Tumblr), witnessTO.com(WP), witnessHK.com(WP), and witnessSEOUL.com(new site no redirects needed) are being moved over to sf.ourwitness.com, la.ourwitness.com and so forth. All under on large Wordpress MU instance. Some have hundreds of articles/links others a bit less. What is the best method to take, I understand there are easy redirects, and the complete fully manual one link at a time approach. Even the WP to WP the permalinks are changing from domain.com/date/post-name to domain.com/post-name? Here are some options: Just redirect all previous witinessla.org/* to la.ourwitness.org/ (automatic direct all pages to home page deal) (easiest not the best)2) Download Google Analytics top redirected domains about 50 urls have significant ranking and traffic (in LA's sample) and just redirect those to custom links. (most bang for the buck for the articles that rank manually set up to the correct place) 3) Best of the both worlds may be possible? Automated perhaps?I prefer working with .htaccess vs a redirect plugin for speed issues. Please advise. Thanks guys!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vmialik0 -
Site revamp for neglected site - modifying site structure, URLs and content - is there an optimal approach?
A site I'm involved with, www.organicguide.com, was at one stage (long ago) performing reasonably well in the search engines. It was ranking highly for several keywords. The site has been neglected for some considerable period of time. A new group of people are interested in revamping the site, updating content, removing some of the existing content, and generally refreshing the site entirely. In order to go forward with the site, significant changes need to be made. This will likely involve moving the entire site across to wordpress. The directory software (edirectory.com) currently being used has not been designed with SEO in mind and as a result numerous similar pages of directory listings (all with similar titles and descriptions) are in google's results, albeit with very weak PA. After reading many of the articles/blog posts here I realize that a significant revamp and some serious SEO work is needed. So, I've joined this community to learn from those more experienced. Apart from doing 301 redirects for pages that we need to retain, is there any optimal way of removing/repairing the current URL structure as the site gets updated? Also, is it better to make changes all at once or is an iterative approach preferred? Many thanks in advance for any responses/advice offered. Cheers MacRobbo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | macrobbo0 -
Can Someone Provide an Example of a Site that Indexes Search Results Successfully?
So, I know indexing search results is a big no-no, but I recently started working with a site that sees 50% of its traffic from search result pages. The user engagement on these pages is very high, and these pages rank well too. Unfortunately, they've been hit by Panda. They already moved the section of the site with search results to a subdomain, and saw temporary success. There must be a way to preserve their traffic from these search result pages and get out from under Panda.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Affiliate Links Added and Site Dropped in only Google
My site was dropshipping a product and we switched to an affiliate offer. We had three 4 links to different affiliate products. Our site dropped the next day. I have been number 1 for 6 months, has a pr 6 and is 2 years old. It has been 2 weeks and the site hasn't jumped back. Any suggestions on how to handle this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dkash0 -
Local Searches done from outside of local area better than searches from within local area
Here's a strange one: I am working on a site for a local business and targeting local searches. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. Various keyword position tools show the site ranking very well for searches like "Anytown Widget Store". Doing the same Google search from a browser in Anytown, the site shows up much lower. So I tried changing the location in Google to other cities, using a variety of browsers and it comes up much higher out of town than in town. I have seen plenty of geographic discrepancies before, but usually they went the other way - searches from the actual local area did slightly better than the same searches done elsewhere, which would make sense. Any thoughts on why this would happen?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nick_Ker0 -
On-Site Optimization Tips for Job site?
I am working on a job site that only ranks well for the homepage with very low ranking internal pages. My job pages do not rank what so ever and are database driven and often times turn to 404 pages after the job has been filled. The job pages have to no content either. Anybody have any technical on-site recommendations for a job site I am working on especially regarding my internal pages? (Cross Country Allied.com)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0 -
Migrating a site
Hello, I have what a I think it's a noob question.. I have a medium size website and need to put it into maintenance for the next 2 months, and afterwards activate a completly new site. My client asked me to do this, cause the same people whoe run the constant flow of information on the site, are the ones who are going to develop the new site, so he wants to just close it out So... what are the steps for doing this with minimum impact on any SEO advances made this past months?.. How do I tell the search engines, Hey, just under maintenance for a while....then... i'm back in the game but this is my new structure. and the old one should go here
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daniel.alvarez0