SEO Optimization is causing rankings to drop
-
The more I improve my site and the more links I try to get it seems that my site is just ranking worse and worse.
Any ideas? domain name: www.musillawfirm.com
Top Keywords wanting to rank for:
Melbourne FL DUI lawyer
Melbourne FL immigration lawyer
cocoa FL DUI lawyer
cocoa FL immigration lawyer
-
Oh - and one last suggestion - just above the two addresses in the bottom area of all pages, have a statement about how you serve Brevard and Collier counties. So something like "The Musil Law Firm has been serving Brevard and Collier counties since XXXX". And have a similar but unique statement to that on your home, About and Contact pages directly in the main content area of each.
-
Mario,
The first thing I would suggest is that every page on the site needs enough unique quality content to set it apart as a truly unique page. there's no hard and fast rule to how much content each page would need, but a general guideline I recommend to clients is between 400 and 1000 words.
As much as it would be ideal to be able to ensure you're found for every single area of practice for every single town you're targeting, it's best to start by optimizing your site for the larger geographic area, and for the two locations you have a physical presence in.
To that end, I would suggest shortening your page Titles to focus on two or at most three word keyword phrases, and including Brevard | Collier FL in each title which allows you to begin to be found for both counties. So for example, your main Criminal Defense page's Title might then be "Criminal Defense Attorneys Brevard | Collier FL".
Next, I'd suggest putting both location addresses in the footer of each page where those "spammy" type links had been. These should be in HTML so search engines can pick them up.
From there, I would encourage you to then get both office locations into Google Place pages as verified listings. A good article on how to do this can be found at http://themilwaukeeseo.com/2010/11/07/google-places-guide/ and another at http://www.sugarrae.com/seo-sphere/how-to-pimp-your-google-places-page-for-better-rankings/
After these are set up, get your listings into Yahoo Local, Bing Local, CitySearch, Yelp, YP.com, Superpages.com, and any relevant directory specific to each county - these would be smaller sites but highly refined because they're dedicated to your locations of choice.
That's a pretty strong start in the right direction.
-
Thank you for the suggestions -
How would you recommend that I target the different geographic locations in my area. My location consists of many small towns right next to each other and I can serve all of them, so I'm trying to figure out a way to target all of them. I was told by a local seo "expert" to setup the separate landing pages. Apparently that won't work.
-
Thank you for the suggestions -
How would you recommend that I target the different geographic locations in my area. My location consists of many small towns right next to each other and I can serve all of them, so I'm trying to figure out a way to target all of them. I was told by a local seo "expert" to setup the separate landing pages. Apparently that won't work.
-
After looking at your site, I have a couple of questions and suggestions about the site in general. Remember, it's not just rankings, it's also visitors and conversions and visitors trusting your site.
-
The latest Open Site Explorer crawl is showing only 13 different domains linking to you, and not all of those are relevant (such as the five-page skylifeguard.com site that links to STD tests, XBox 360 cheats, and a couple of dozen other sites including yours.
-
Remove that pop-up! When i try to view another page on your site (not trying to leave the site), I get a big window that asks me if I'm sure I want to leave the page. It's not helping your users have a positive experience.
-
Is the blog content unique? I'm seeing what looks like the same content on several other blogs. Also, the "223 comments" next to a blog post but the message of comments being closed and no comments being shown is confusing.
-
If you haven't yet, verify the site in Google Webmaster Tools to look there for any messages from Google regarding the site, and to see more information about the site.
-
There have duplicate content within the site. There are twenty pages that appear to be identical, except for the city being targeted.
-
-
Mario,
No offense, but you apparently don't understand SEO best practices.
Example 1: The links in the footer area pointing to each town? That box with all those links is an old-school method of driving SEO value. Nowadays, links in footer areas offer much less ranking weight. When they're all stuffed with the same words, that's even worse because it pretty much waves a red flag saying "spam over here".
Example 2: Links in the footer for various towns - there is so much duplication of content across these pages that they're all harming you, not helping. When a page has mostly the same content as another page, it's a problem. Multiply that by every town linked, it's a nightmare.
Example 3: when I go to one of those and click into the DUI & Criminal Defense link, it doesn't go to a unique services details page with several paragraphs of unique text. Instead, it goes to a page with a small amount of text followed by several links. So pages at this level are nothing more than link pages, and thus offer little value to the overall SEO.
Example 4: http://www.musillawfirm.com/criminal-defense/criminal-mischief/ Look at that page. There's almost no unique content dedicated to that page's topic. What little text is there that's unique is overwhelmed by the duplicate content that exists in the header, sidebar and footer area). Why would search engines consider this page important to someone doing a search?
So before you do any more "optimization", I would highly encourage you to learn what real SEO in 2011 means.
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
-
SEO question about lots of outbound links
I'm considering adding a directory page to one of my websites that lists local groups from all around the world. I haven't kept up with SEO in a long time, but I recall (many) years ago that having a lot of outgoing links and very few (if any) inbound connections was a terrible thing. Is this still the case, or have search engine algorithms figured out that this can be beneficial to site visitors? What effect will adding a page like this have on my SEO?
Link Building | | jordanchris0 -
Do article submissions work for SEO?
Im wondering if article submissions with backlink work for seo? How google handle with these submissons? Thanks
Link Building | | joeko0 -
Ebay listing SEO
Hi, I am wondering if there is any point building backlinks etc.. to ebay listings? How do I improve them in terms of SEO apart from the listing titles?
Link Building | | Mediaowl0 -
Facebook Notes for SEO Purposes ?
I just two minutes ago learned what a Facebook note is. I discovered this while doing a search of one of my keywords and i noticed one of the results was a Facebook note talking about the keyword with links in it to a competitors Amazon page. Is anyone here familiar with using Facebook Notes as an SEO tool? It obviously works if they are appearing in my search results. Does anyone know basic guidelines in terms of how many links, anchor text, etc... ? Thanks a lot...
Link Building | | Prime851 -
Redirecting a previously expired domain - any SEO benefits?
Is there any SEO benefits from registering a previously expired domain name that is still linked to form an authorative source and 301 redirecting it to another site on a similar subject? Obviously first benefit is giving users who are clicking on the link to be sent to a site on a similar subject that just to a dead link.
Link Building | | Wardy0 -
Question to SEO experts about backlink tracking
Hi, could you recommend the best tool that you use to keep track of all the backlinks you have. I'd imaging there is a good software or website which lists all your backlinks with all relevant info for each link (PR of the linking site, authority level etc) thanks in advance for sharing.
Link Building | | limens0 -
Backlinks Calculation & Ranking Effects
Hi, I have some small questions about backlink calculations. For example, we are doing seo every day right, i like to know, we are submiting every day our websites to strong directories, publishin press releases, writing comments, writing for otherblogs, and all those websites crawl google-daily. How much take the google system to calculate my backlinks and change the ranking position..? Thanks.
Link Building | | leadsprofi0 -
Need help interpreting Ranking Factors.
Trying to see DA vs. mozrank and why things don't match the definitions given by seomoz. I'm comparing my site www.taxproblem.org w/ www.unclefed.com I have more root sites linking to me and more links. I can see that the mozrank for me is 4.96 which is higher. But their mozrank is higher. How are they more popular based on how the domains, rather than the pages link to each other. That is real confusing? Please help me understand what this means, and yes i know that right now they have better quality links, but that's not what the definition says. I'm I not understanding the definition? mozRank of the page www.unclefed.com/ mozRank shows how popular a page is on the web. The more links to a page, the more popular it becomes. Links from important pages increase your popularity, and your mozRank, even more. 4.64 out of 10 4.64 Links to the page www.unclefed.com/ The total number of links to this page, counting links from www.unclefed.com and links that don’t increase the mozRank. 606 links 2 Root domains linking to the page www.unclefed.com/ The number of different websites with links to this page. When compared to the number of links to this page, it can reveal how the links might be distributed across the web. 279 domains 5 mozRank of the subdomain www.unclefed.com Domain mozRank is a link popularity score based on how the domains, rather than just pages, link to each other. It is an indicator of a how popular www.unclefed.com is among domains 5.12 out of 10 5.12
Link Building | | joemas990