How is this possible? #2 ranking with NO on-page keywords, no backlinks, no sitemap...

[Laughingbird]

Hi everybody.

I have a question ... I'm totally stumped.

This question is being asked today (November 16th, 2015) just after Google updated something in their algorithm. Nobody seems to know what they did. and it has something to do with the new "Rank Brain" system they're now using.

My niche is Logo Design Software (https://www.thelogocreator.com).

I had the keywords "logo creator" on the page roughly 7 times. After Google updated, I lost about 10 spots and as of this writing, I've dropped to #15. So, maybe I over optimized. fine.

Noticing that for the keyword "logo creator" ... NONE of the top 14 spots actually have "logo creator" in their page title and NONE of them have more that 2 instances (if any) of the keyword "logo creator" on the actual page.

So I removed ALL instances of my keyword "logo creator" from my home page - used the Webmaster's Fetch Tool and moved up a few spots instantly.

So what the heck?

And the #2 spot for that keyword is www.logomakr.com - they have NO words at all on their pages, no blog, no sitemap and far fewer links than anybody in the top 10.

Can anybody reading this shed some light?

Marc

Marc Sylvester
Laughingbird Software

[erickcalderon]

Hi Marc,

No worries! I hope it helps. Let us know in the thread what you do and if certain things help more than others.

I am currently running some tests on articles getting ranked and how to outrank competitors for specific keywords and then seeing if those keywords actually bring revenue. Also some reputation management stuff.

If you have any questions on any of that stuff feel free to message or email me. erick.at.brandsavvi.dot.com

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Erick

[Laughingbird]

Wow!

hi there different Erick!  

Awesome feedback.
Truly, I very much appreciated the time. I hope it also helps others with the ideas you've put down.

I'm going to go over your bullet points and work on my site with those suggestions.
I think you and the other Eric have really it the nail on the head. I used to be #3 for that keyword and it's super frustrating not being on top anymore  

Thanks again!
Your detail was much appreciated (and I'm going over it all two and three times!)

Marc

[erickcalderon]

Hi Marc,

Especially if these changes are due to a recent update like you mentioned, it's just guessing but hopefully educated guesses will help for later.

I took a look at your competitors site and I think even though they have no text in the html, they do have:

1. Meta description with synonyms for logo creating
2. Title tag with synonyms for logo creation
3. They are using SKetch, which tells google it's some sort of a design tool
4. Maybe google is also looking at engagement time with the page through their analytics code, I know they say they don't use it, but maybe they do now.
5. Links out to Creative Commons Licensing page, lets them know it is related to something being created and shared and it is a good authority link out.
6. CSS classes are named like: logomaker-crop, logomaker-search ...
7.  They actually have a good amount of links as well with 1400+ in MOZ and over 8,000 in AHREFS (look at the root domain: http://logomakr.com/ their www subdomain shows lower amount of links only 30 and 175 respectively)
8. Really high DA nofollow links, could show relationship and authority (You should try to model what they've done to get these no follows).
9. Attribution links from sites (example:http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/pages/the-dorothy-hewett-award-for-an-unpublished-manuscript)  that have used their tool: EMK="Logo Maker" URL: http://logomakr.com/
10. 44% of the anchor text linking to this site is: logomakr: free logo design tools and the rest is split between exact match and variations of their URL.

As I'm typing this your at 19 for that keyword.
Suggestions:
1. Try to raise your DA your at 36 in comparison to 46 for your competitor.
2. Looks like you have a lot of your backlinks coming from Russia, if thats SAPE see what you can do, could be negatively affecting things, maybe disavow some or clean it up. In comparison your competitor has a diverse profile and his links come in higher proportion from UK, Germany, Canada, and Australia. 
3. It looks like recently your referring pages doubled... Could be a flag if those new links are all from #2
4. For your anchor terms, 44% are just: "logo" see if you can change that up especially if you control any of those links.
5. Take advantage of optimized youtube video pointed to your root domain in the description. Make a good video with proper optimization and good content so the engagement time is good. maybe a demo of your tool. Dailymotion.com is also high domain video site that can help you rank. You can also try to rank a video quickly with live youtube streaming  https://www.youtube.com/live_dashboard_splash

I think the biggest difference for you is that your tool is downloadable and theirs is in-browser. So their engagement will always be much higher. Lower bounce rate. etc... If you can create a tool like theirs with your features that is in-browser it would be a more apples to apples comparison.

Check also if they include links in their tools output to increase their links. So if you use their tool will it have some link to them in the output file, does it automatically link to them on the pages that implement their tool? You should also look at doing that yourself. A lot of tools build links this way and it's a great way to get good leads.

Hope that helps and I apologize if I got too detailed, I like doing research. Hit me up if you have any questions.

Cheers
Erick (different Eric)

[Laughingbird]

Hi there Eric.
Nice to meet you  

Interesting. And thanks for the tips. Forgot about looking at the bottom of a Google search for the 'searches related to' idea.  Excellent and I'll do that.

Your points above are all valid, except for my question about the #2 spot
(search for "logo creator" and take a look at #2: logomakr.com)

There seems to be no reason why it would jump to the #2 spot for a very competitive keyword. it was at #30 a week or so ago.

There is nothing for Google to read... No page text (can't even see much when viewing the page source html).

I'm still looking into this.

I mean, Google is 100% correct ... www.logomakr.com IS a "logo creator" and its just what somebody would probably want.

But how does Google know this?

Marc

[Eric_Rohrback]

Couple of thoughts...

You might have been over-optimized on that one keyword, which would make the jump up after removing seem right. Clean that up to focus on more synonymous terms, so you're not over-optimized on one keyword. That also might explain why the sites ranking ahead of you are doing well despite not having that specific term in the title tag/page copy. If you look at "Searches related to..." at the bottom of the search you'll see many of those keywords appearing in the sites ranking ahead of you. Google doesn't just focus on that one keyword, but also uses synonyms/related terms to help determine what the page is about. Using terms like "logo design software" or "logo design company" may also give users a better idea what the page is about, so they're more likely to click through to that page and trust they're going to get what they wanted. Look at the backlink profiles to see what their anchor text is like. That would also help you determine what kind of keywords other people are using to reference your competitors.

There's a ton of factors at play, but I think the main point is that you'll need to diversify the targets a little more moving forward.