Problem with getting a site to rank at all
-
We pushed this Word Press site live about a month ago www.primedraftarchitecture.com.
Since then we've been adding regular content, blog posts 3 times a week with social posts on facebook, twitter, G+ and LinkedIn. We also submitted via Moz Local about 3 weeks ago. Yext about two weeks ago and have been adding about 5 listings to small local directories a week.
Webmaster tools shows that the site map is valid and the pages of the site are getting indexed and it shows links from 7 sites, mostly directories.
I'm just not seeing the site ranking for anything. We're getting zero organic traffic.
I though we did a good job not over optimizing the pages. I'm just stymied trying to figure out what's wrong. Usually we push a site live and see at least some low rankings after just a couple of weeks.
Can anyone see anything that looks bad or where we've gone wrong?
-
Great follow-up Donald. Validates the advice given.
-
Just FYI for anyone who sees this post later on. We're getting a marked improvement in organic search traffic after fixing some of the page load speed issues.
Thanks for the help!
-
I doubt that it's Sandbox - if you look at the common signals for Sandbox (http://moz.com/blog/googles-sandbox-still-exists-exemplified-by-gradercom) your site would not be found for any keyword, not even your brand name, and have normal rankings in Bing.
I did a few very specific searches with phrases from your site both on Bing & Google:
"Everything that you are looking to achieve with your home addition or renovation project" => both have the same result (=your site)Search for brand name - rank 1 in Bing - rank 3 google - so doesn't look like a typical Sandbox situation.
Rgds,
Dirk
PS Noticed that the speed of your site improved dramatically - so hopefully you will see you site start to rank soon
-
Is there a way to tell for sure if you're in the sandbox?
-
While there are definitely some issues, the main problem here is simply time and links. Moz Local was a great idea but I'd also suggest claiming more social media profiles. Google has a sandbox for new sites where it is reluctant to rank them. A few months from now, with more local listings and social media listings and your site will show a lot better. Be sure to focus on some of your industry specific links as well.
-
Thanks Donna!
-
Makes sense! Two other quick things I noticed are: (1) you're parking your blog posts in the root directory versus the blog folder. That will dilute your SEO equity on main site pages. (2) You should no-index your author, category and tag pages for the same reason.
-
Thumbs up that Dirk's analysis of the site speed should probably be your largest concern. I've seen several new sites really struggle to initially rank if they're in the red on those scores. 21 / 25 are really bad. Do everything you can to quickly get those in the green and you should start to appear in the rankings. This, along with Google's stance on only indexing mobile sites that have high mobility scores are two trends that aren't going away.
-
Thanks for the response Donna,
In Webmaster tools I'm not seeing any queries and very few impressions.
I would expect the the site to be at least ranking for "nj architect", even at a very low ranking 50+, just based on the site's content. I'm not expecting first page rankings yet. I am just now seeing any at all. That's what concerns me, that there may some other problem with the way the site is set up.
-
Thanks for the help Dirk!
-
Looks like you're competing for terms with very low traffic and high competition.
I see you have Google Analytics installed, so your tracking is probably working as it should.
When you look at Google Webmaster Tools under Search Traffic > Search Queries, are you seeing any impressions? That would give you a sense of whether anyone's searching for the terms you've chosen to optimize and whether you're showing up in search results. Not always, but it's a sign.
I think you just have a lot of work ahead of you and you're not yet ranking. I used SEO Book's rank checker tool to do a quick check to see how you're ranking for "architect in new jersey", "nj architect", and "residential architect in nj". (I got those terms from title tags on the site.) It indicated you weren't ranking at all.
-
Donald,
There are some issues with your site which could be causing the problems:
1. The load time of the homepage is quite slow -http://www.webpagetest.org/result/150316_8R_Y5A/1/details/ - apart from the heavy images, you also load a huge number of css & js files. If you analyse the page with Google Pagespeed https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fprimedraftarchitecture.com%2F&tab=desktop you get very low scores - both for mobile & desktop. I would remove some of the fancy stuff on the page & focus on the essentials. Follow the recommendation of both tools to make your site faster. This would be the top priority if it was my site.
2. There are some smaller on-page issues
- not all the pages have a H1 title
- http://primedraftarchitecture.com/architecture-consultation has a canonical url which doesn't exist
- http://primedraftarchitecture.com/author/mike-sweebe/ exist 2 times (duplicate: http://primedraftarchitecture.com/author/Mike-Sweebe/) - images are quite heavy (11 > 100kb)
3; Analytics
You seem to use both Universal & async tags on page (Universal on Contact / Async on the remainder) - on /blog you measure multiple 6 page views when only one should be measured. I would put everything on universal (and implement it in the head-tag
Hope this helps,
Dirk
- not all the pages have a H1 title
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
-
Does redoing a homepage impact search rankings?
Hello, all! Does anyone know if redesigning a website's homepage affects search rankings? I'm considering redoing my website's homepage - including rewriting the copy, and perhaps in Leadpages - but I don't want to compromise search. I gather that SEO is a bit of a black box, but am curious to hear others' perspectives before moving ahead. Thanks in advance for sharing your time and thoughts!
On-Page Optimization | | lightsfilmschool0 -
Sitelinks problem
Hello, I have a problem with the sitelinks on my website. Google keeps adding pages that don't belong in the sitelinks, but need to be indexed. Is there a way in which I can specify to the bot which section of the website, not to add in the sitelinks.
On-Page Optimization | | Silviu0 -
On Site Errors
HI Folks I'm monitoring a small Australian site bluetea.com.au . Currently I have a SEO specialist who does month onsite maintenance work for this site. However each month I continue to see errors in webmaster tools... as an example, currently webmaster tools suggest we have 21 short meta dic and 26 duplicate title tags..... Examples given are Short Meta Discp /cleaning-products-and-our-health/toxic-cleaners/ /colour-consultant/fushia-door/ /portfolio/parisian-apartment-black-kitchen/parisian-apartment-black-kitchen/ Duplicate title tags <a id="zip_0-anchor" class="zippedsection_title"></a>concrete-kitchen | Blue Tea Kitchen Designs /kitchen-trends-and-material-innovation/concrete-kitchen-2//kitchen-trends-for-2013/concrete-kitchen/<a id="zip_1-anchor" class="zippedsection_title"></a>Potts Point Kitchen | Blue Tea Kitchen Designs/portfolio/potts-point-kitchen//portfolio/potts-point-kitchen/pott-point-kitchen/My SEO tells me that he has solved all these issues but after one or two months they still remain in webmaster tools... can anybody help me understand why?Thank you
On-Page Optimization | | PHD0 -
Acquired Old, Bad Content Site That Ranks Great. Redirect to Content on My Site?
Hello. my company acquired another website. This website is very old, the content within is decent at best, but still manages to rank very well for valuable phrases. Currently, we're leaving the entire site active on its own for its brand, but i'd like to at least redirect some of the content back to our main website. I can't justify spending the time to create improved content on that site and not our main site though. What would be the best practice here? 1. Cross-domain canonical - and build the new content on our main website? 2. 301 Redirect Old Article to New Location containing better article 3. Leave the content where it is - you won't be able to transfer the ranking across domain. Thanks for your input.
On-Page Optimization | | Blenny0 -
New jobboard: Can redirecting folder (site.com/jobboard) to subdomain (jobboard.site.com) hurt SEO?
Hi there, I'm planning to implement a jobboard on my website which needs to be installed on a subdomain (jobboard.site.com) but I'd really like to use site.com/jobboard for promoting this jobboard (jobboard collects external industry jobs). Are there any possible disadvantages when I set up a 301 redirect from jobboard.site.com to site.com/jobboard? Also: What if I want to move this jobboard to a unique domain one day (e.g. jobboard-industry-xy.com), Would that be tricky (as I'd basically have to redirect the folder-to-subdomain redirect to an external domain and therefore get a folder-to-subdomain-to-external-domain redirect...)? Cheers, Thomas
On-Page Optimization | | stl990 -
301 Problem
Hi Guys, Just have a small problem with a htaccess 301 redirect. I would like to 301: www.old-domain.com & old-domain.com to www.new-domain.com. The site is exactly the same with the same directory structure so i would also like all the subpages to work. Eg: www.old-domain.com/folder/page & old-domain.com/folder/page to www.new-domain.com/folder/page Many thanks
On-Page Optimization | | MSSTORAGE0 -
Keyword distribution in the whole site
I've been taught during a SEO course that the whole site has to contain the chosen keywords with a fixed proportion of optimized pages, that should be like this: 50% of pages optimized on the most relevant keyword (just one keyword) 25% of pages optimized on secondary kewords (depending on the size of the site, could be a few pages for each secondary keywords) 25% of pages on long tail keywords. the teachers was a very respected SEO professional, but I've never seen this strategy anywhere in other articles or SEO guides. what do you think about it?
On-Page Optimization | | DavideM
It's true that it brings visibility for the top keyword?
does it lead to cannibalization?
what others strategy do you use?0 -
Advice needed about site
I would like to get advice about the site http://www.wb-3d.com regarding what we should do to get it highly on Google. This seems to be a tough one as there is not enough content on the site. I would immensly appeciate any suggestion to improve the rankings. Specifically, what we should tweet and update on facebook. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | seoug_20050