Am I on the right track -- still not seeing results in rank, traffic, etc.
-
I am a complete novice, but I tend to learn quickly.
My site is one year old, and I have very low traffic. I also rank poorly. I have recently learned a ton, and made some changes:
1. Put in meta no follow, no index tags on certain pages
2. Found and fixed some horrid content -- I had forgotten to finish certain pages (!) and they had been left up for months -- a good example is /California-homeschool.html basically said "Washington homeschool, blah, blah, blah" for about 8 months before I fixed it (!)
3. Added new content, changed the look and navigation of the site, added social media links and have been working to build those up (FB, Twitter, etc)
4. Started blogging regularly.
Those are the main things I have done.
I plan to continue to add content, tweak the navigation, and blog regularly. From what I can tell, link building should happen organically.
My question is: Am I on the right track?
Here is a link to my site: http://www.i-school-at-home.com
Am I missing anything -- there seems to be so much info out there. Because there is a time lag between making changes and seeing results, I just would love to know if I am on the right track, before I devote more time to this strategy.
What I would like to do is be the #1 homeschool website (long term goal) and generate revenue (eventually) from affiliate marketing and creating my own curriculum and resources.
Thank you!!!!!!
-
Thank you for the encouragement, Rob. I am really glad I posted this question, and I think I just have to chalk it up to "this is odd"
I have checked my site out at Google webmaster tools, and also at Bing's webmaster tools - and with SEO quake -- I do read a lot.
I can get traffic -- I see my own searches show up. But most days it is zero, other than that -- yesterday there were three other search visits, and I am pretty sure at least one was in response to this question.
It seems as though it's just "bad luck" -- my content needs to be better -- it isn't that bad, I don't think : )
I thought to as this question mostly to see if there weren't some glaring thing I missed about SEO -- but I think, in the end, that I do need to keep plugging away...
Thank you!!
-
That is unusual Wendy - that you have recieved no traffic to date
Have you checked the robots.txt file to see the Search robots are coming through ?
You can check https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools for any problems with the site access.
You seem to have the basic grasp of Seo and you have the ambition to learn and ask questions, it should not be too long before your on track - wish you good fortune with it
Rob
-
Thank you so much -- I actually rephrased my question here:
http://www.seomoz.org/q/rephrasing-my-question-i-have-no-search-traffic-i-would-love-some-feedback
The thing is, I have read the beginner's guide -- and do think I know the basics (basics!)
My main concern, which I didn't put in this question, is that I receive no search traffic -- none. It's odd. I know I have recently done a few things to improve my site, and I know it takes time, but I guess my question is better phrased as "I would really like some feedback, specific to my site"
I so appreciate the responses, too -- I have read, and read, and read about SEO for awhile, and this forum and SeoMoz in general, is the best I have seen, by far.
I very much appreciate this community -- Thank you!!!
-
I would start here SEOmoz beginners guide It will give you a basic understanding of what you should be doing.
-
I do have a site map and submit it regularly.
I have a sub-question -- this is kind of weird. So, I get zero search engine traffic -- zero...and I get some from direct and referral traffic.
Traditionally, my bounce rate was hovering around 50% ,which was okay with me.
Recently, and today is especially bad, I have received 13 visitors so far (it is 12:00 noon) and 11 of them are direct traffic, with 100% bounce rate...and I checked, and all of them are from Lebanon. That just kind of seems weird.
Any ideas? What am I doing wrong? My site isn't the best in the world, but it is over 100 pages of (I think) not too bad content...what's up?
-
Of course. SEO is basically about 2 things:
1. On site optimization
2. Off site optimization (link building)once you have optimized your site with good content and a great site structure, you should start promoting and marketing your website. I don't know if you have done it or not but I would make an site map and robot.txt file for the webstie. Once you finish the onsite, move on the marketing it and thats when youll start to see ranking improvements. While good content will drive links being built it doesnt hurt (well it can) to give your website a kick start. If you are ready to move on to the off site optimization I would start learning about link building which is the hard part.
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 my website has problem in search result
hello everyone when i search "متیلن کلراید" on google sometimes my website is first page on google and sometime isn't on google. my website is https://nchemicalgroup.com/ help me please
Web Design | | sporting23231 -
Ranking of non-homepage leads to decrease in website ranking?
Hi all, Google picks up a non-homepage to rank for primary keyword where homepage is actually optimised to rank for same keyword. This means Google is ignoring the actual page and ranking other page. Does this scenario means that we are ranking lower as the homepage is not considered here? We may rank much better if homepage is preferred by Google? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Any second opinions as to why our organic search website traffic hasn't recovered from website rebrand (domain change, website redesign)?
I am hoping to see if anyone in the Moz community would be able to help troubleshoot or lend any advice on a major organic search traffic issue we've been experiencing over the last 8 months. In a nutshell, we decided our ~4.5-year-old business needed to undergo a rebrand in October 2015. After changing domains & redesigning our website (more below), our search-driven sessions have dropped 20% in 2016 v.s. 2015. We made quite a few on-site modifications (with some success) post-redesign but are still deep in a rut and not sure what more we can do to recover. I've listed my theories below as to why we're still suffering this hit. If anyone could weigh in on these and/or share any other troubleshooting ideas, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it (and owe you a lunch/beverage of your choice the next time I'm in your city!). ****Backlinks - despite our efforts to 301 all links, I sense we have lost many backlinks. According to Open Site Explorer, our old domain has 1,172 backlinks (some from some very authoritative pages domains), 1,068 of which are passing link equity. In contrast, our new domain has 367 backlinks, 321 are passing link equity, and very few overlap with our old domain. Domain Age - we may have lost much of our reputation with Google as our new domain is much younger than our old domain (1-year-old v.s. 5.5 years old). Domain Name - although I thought to have common keywords in one's domain was a myth, I am now questioning that belief. Our old domain contained a popular, topical keyword and our new domain is derived from a term that is topical, but very uncommon. New URLs - our developer has insisted all links were moved to the new domain, but I have a hunch they were not. When conducting a "site search" (i.e. "site:websitename.com"), the new domain returns 7,740 results. Prior to our switch, a site search with the old domain yielded 30,000+ results. 404s - we found and fixed 100-200 404'd links after the domain switch. We still see a few pop-up today and I'm wondering if this is a red flag in Google's eyes. For a little more background too, here are the nitty gritty details with a rough timeline: Pre-October 12, 2015 - registered new domain and designed the new website on Wordpress, while researching a range of articles and resources for a successful site migration (e.g. this and this Moz guide). October 12, 2015 - flipped the switch on the website design, domain, minor content reorganization, and social handles. We announced the change to our audience via an article, newsletter, and social; informed Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) of the new address, 301'd all links from the old to the new domain, and submitted new sitemap in GWT. October 12 - 16, 2015 - traffic is normal, everything seems to be okay. October 17, 2015 - search traffic drops by 54% v.s. the same day of week pre-rebrand. October 26, 2015 - search traffic rises, so now only down by 30% v.s. the same day of week pre-rebrand. November/December 2015 - re-added numerous elements from the old website such as category, tag, and page pagination and a few sidebar modules that linked to other important pages and tags. Search traffic rises slightly in November (down 27% year-on-year), dips again in December (down 31% year-on-year). January 2016 - today (June 17, 2016) - we published more content on a daily basis and search traffic fluctuates around the 20% versus the same period in 2015. January 2016 - down 23% year-on-year February 2016 - down 17% year-on-year March 2016 - down 20% year-on-year April 2016 - down 21% year-on-year May 2016 - down 21% year-on-year June 2016 (until the 17th) - down 23% year-on-year Thank you all in advance for your time and help, please let me know if you have any questions!
Web Design | | nick490 -
Website Redesign and Migration to Squarespace killed my Ranking
My old website was dated, ugly, impossible to update and a mess between hard-coded pages and WP, but we were ranking #1 in the organic searches for our key words. I just redesigned my website using Squarespace. I kept most of the same text on the pages (for key words) and kept the same Meta-Tags and Title Tags for each page as much as possible. Once I was satisfied that I had done as much on-page optimization as I could, I changed the IP in our Domain Name Registry so that it would point to our new website on the Squarespace host. And our new website was live! ...Then I watched in dismay as our ranking fell into oblivion. I think this might have something to do with not doing any 301 redirects from the old website and losing all of my link juice. Is this the case? And, if so, how do I fix it? Our website url is www.kanataskinclinic.ca Thanks
Web Design | | StillLearning1 -
Traffic Dropping To Website
Hi In Google Analytics:
Web Design | | SEOguy1
I have noticed up to 50% of traffic coming to the website drops off at the home page point,
and drops further from other pages on the site. I realise some may possibly say that this could be down to various factors such as server issues, poor web design, or the wrong traffic reaching the site I have did corrected the following: There was an issue with there being www.domain.com and www.domain.com/home, Screaming Frog and Moz showed that these both had duplicate meta tagging issues. Initially I had created a separate page called 'home' to include in the main nav bar under the slider, but yesterday I replaced this page with a request in the functions.php to place 'home' in the nav bar as a redirect back to the home www.domain.com page. This works great. So I now have the following 301 permanent redirects: non-www to www resolve in the htaccess file, plus 2 permanent 301 redirects in the nav bar. I wonder if this is acceptable protocol re the nav bar redirects, and I wonder if you could possibly advise if the actions that I have taken will have any negative impact on the web seo, link structure, crawlability or indexing. Thanks.0 -
Does interlinking on mobile site helps in seo & improvement in rankings
Hi, Does interlinking on mobile site helps in seo & improvement in rankings. Our desktop site & mobile site has same urls. Regards
Web Design | | vivekrathore0 -
Website design chnage and massive traffic drop?
I changed my Drupal theme to "Bootstrap 3" and now my traffic is down 50% gradually in past 5 days, can this be theme related? Answers to checks below : 1). There were no redirects involved, I just flipped a switch and changed theme for my Drupal blog. 2). No issues reported by Google WMT except the fact that impressions fell, see stat images for comparison at - http://imgur.com/a/5PssH#0. 3). site:mysiteurl.com shows healthy "About 201,000 results". 4). Checked slow loading times and browser issue, nothing there. 5). It's not a seasonal drop. Pls. suggest what else should I focus upon to find the reason. @Prateek_Chandra where can I share my analytic report with you privately. I can also enable guest access to my account for you to have a look.
Web Design | | techdna11 -
Site Ranks on Page 1 - Would launching new site hurt that
Hello, I currently have a website ranking in the top 7 for my main keyword. The website was built in 2004 and is definitely outdated, yet still ranks very high and brings in business. If i launched a new site on this domain, what would happen to my rankings? Would they drop? would they rise? If i don't launch the new site, will this site eventually drop due to being old and outdated? Any advice would be helpful...
Web Design | | Prime850