What is my site missing for improved ranking - Pls Help
-
Hi
I would really appreciate any advice or guidance on what my site needs to move onto the 1st page as I am at a loss on what else is required?
On a search for chartered accountants swansea according to the SEOMOZ campaign ranking report the site www.harrisbassett.co.uk is down in 27 position for this keyphrase in Google.
However when looking over the ranking analysis my site has a stronger authority, more root domains, more domain authority and linking root domains than 4 out of the top 5 listings. Also the onpage analysis of some of the top 10 results is very poor, with no blogs, social features etc
I have been building links based from competitor analysis which should be more than what is shown in the ranking report, but is my site missing any kep ingredients that would propel it up onto the 1st page - as the keyword difficulty is only 25% so I am struggling to work out what key elements/improvements are required for this final push.
-
1. Please redirect all non-www traffic to it's www equivalent.
2. Please redirect the http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk/index.html page to the / page.
-
Ok thanks - what do I need to ask them to do so that the main page is http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk and not the other 3 variations you mention
-
The best solution by far is the .htaccess solution. The canonical tag still leaves you open to others using and linking to the wrong page.
As far as your host, if they are a "real" hosting company, they will have the knowledge to change the htaccess file and probably have done so for hundreds if not many thousands of sites. If they cannot make this change quickly and easily, I would consider changing hosts. Any quality host offers 24/7 telephone or at least ticket support. If I requested this change for any client of mine it would be made in 24 hours at worst, and often much faster.
-
or can it be done with the canonical tag? as my host is a local company and not sure if they would do that or at least not very quickly
If so how would you implement this to solve the 4 pages into 1 scenario I have.
Alternatively I have access to the FTP of the site so if any experts in the forum can help with a .htaccess file that will solve the problem I would be very grateful.
-
My preference would be to ask your host to make that change. Most small sites use managed hosting, and almost every web host is willing to make that change for their customers.
If you make the change yourself and the slightest mistake is made, your website can be taken offline, your SEO compromised or your web security compromised. Additionally, the order of statements within the .htaccess file can alter the results.
-
Ryan
Many thanks - I applied some of your great advice last time which helped so I am hoping this will also do that
With the multiple homepages is it possible you could supply the relevant .htaccess file required so the search engines know it should point to http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk and not any of the other 3 addresses you mention
Thanks once more for your time and excellent help
-
I completely agree with Ryan here.
When I started (@ the furniture market.co.uk) our home page was attempting to rank for loads of key words, I created sub pages.. long story short... Just yesterday in the Rank Tracker report I have guided a brand new sub page "glass-coffee-tables" to number 1 for that search term on Google.co.uk, against Argos, Amazon, John Lewis, M&S.. It can be done. (10 months later & all white hat)
Concentrate on 'On Page' basics before you go off page.
-
The feedback I previously shared in your prior Q&A still applies.
I see your site presently ranked as the 14th result in Google.co.uk for "chartered accountants swansea".
You have a small site with 17 pages. The recommended approach would be to have your home page rank for your brand name "Harris Bassett" and an internal page to be created which specifically targets the keyword you wish to rank for "Chartered Accountants Swansea".
The process would be as follows:
1. Create a page titled "Chartered Accountants Swansea"
2. Use a H1 tag on the page "Chartered Accountant Swansea"
3. The content on the page should be specifically designed to support the page's topic.
4. There should not be other pages on your site discussing this topic or, if they do, then use anchor text to link back to the main page for the topic.
5. Earn links from other sites to the page using anchor text.
Your site has a variety of issues which I believe I shared with you previously when you presented this same issue.
1. Your home page is presently available under at least 4 unique URLs
http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk/index.html
http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk/
http://harrisbassett.co.uk/index.html
You need to fix this problem for your site on your ranking will suffer. Choose one version of your URL you like and 301 redirect the other versions to the desired URL.
2. Presently your home page title is "Chartered Accountants Swansea | Harris Bassett Swansea". You also have another page on your site, http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk/accountant-swansea.html. The page title is "Harris Bassett | Swansea Accountant". While it is a different phrase, there are strong similarities, especially for such a small site.
The problem is raised because you use the term "chartered" on the latter page, and you do not use any link to refer back to your home page.
3. Your home page is also diluted by focusing multiple terms. The page is further diluted by discussing multiple topics not related to "Chartered Accountants Swansea" such as Taxation, Outsourcing, Financing and Grants.
I know you are looking at your site and comparing it to some other sites with the feeling you should rank better. You are right, you should rank better but that wont happen until you fix the issues with your site. The rankings as they stand seem perfectly valid to me. Yes, you mentioned a few of the 200+ factors which determine a page's rankings where your site performs better, but the above items should be addressed so you can cash in on those metrics.
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
-
Rankings Dropped After New Backlinks.
I have a low-traffic website (under 100 unique visitors per day) and I've encountered a strange issue started yesterday morning. I acquired three back-links, one of these back-links is contextual and the other two are site-wide. The site-wide back-links are from PA 40+ blogs. It looks like the back-links are already indexed by Google. Despite these new back-links, my rankings across multiple keywords have dropped several positions. I'm new to SEO, but I would assume new back-links would improve my rankings. None of these back-links are low quality links, they are from real established blogs with high domain and page authority values. Could anyone give me insights into why my rankings may have dropped with new back-links?
Link Building | | poke11 -
Should I work with current site or start a new site with more keywords?
I have been working with my site for some time. Sadly, I am moving lower and lower in ranking. I am wondering if I should just transfer my site to a new URL (this time including keywords). I don't understand the whole disavow link thing. I hired someone about 2 years ago, when I lost my ranking due to malicious software. Well, it turns out that, she submitted my link to weird sites that I don't even know what they are. It is like sites with thousands of websites just listed. Things have never been half of what they were and I am really just growing frustrated. I understand that having an a URL for awhile is helpful, but I appear to have lost many of my good linking sites. Any thoughts?
Link Building | | tiffany11030 -
Improving ranking
I would like to rank for Diani beach, unfortunately very unsuccessful over one year:-(. I have on the main menu Diani beach page. Most of my articles is consisting the keyword, would it be smart to link from all that articles to that Diani beach page? Any advice on this would be realy great.
Link Building | | Rebeca10 -
Is my SEO Strategy is good to rank ?
I just planned my SEO Strategy for low competition keywords 1. Submit articles to top 30+ web 2.0 sites 2. Submit bookmark to top 50 sites 3. Submit Article directories to top 10 sites 4. Link them all with Wiki and blog comments Kindly let me know your suggestions
Link Building | | chandubaba0 -
Not getting ranks for long tail keywords
Hi I started white hat linkbuilding for this site - http://www.capsulekratom.com/ since 2-3 months, but I havent got any ranks for my keywords. Whereas I started few other new sites along with this on same niche and they are growing both in terms of traffic and ranks. Not sure, why I am not getting ranks for this website. Any help wud be appreciated. Thanks Mark
Link Building | | seoss50 -
Interesting link to a competitors site
I recently found a very interesting link to two of my competitors sites. The companies are number 2 and 3 in Google for my targeted keywords (for some reason Wikipedia is number 1) and are both linked from the home page of this site. I don't want to leave a link for linkers site because I don't want them to be able to see that I'm snooping on them but, here is the scenerio: The site that they are linked from is a .org site. It is basically our targeted keywords in a .org. Something like bluewidgets.org. At the very bottom of the home page are some tabs, you click the first tab and it opens about 20 new tabs, when you click any of those 20 tabs it displays some text at the bottom of the page. This text is of no value to visitors, it is obvious to me what is happening here. Both companies are linked with targeted keywords in the anchor and title text. I'm wondering if I should also pursue a link from this page. I know there is value in a .org link but this site seems to be built to link to those two sites. Anybody else ever run into anything like I'm describing. Should I post a link to this site?
Link Building | | TRICORSystems0 -
Ranking for competitor brand terms
My client sells security software online. Our keyword research shows massive traffic for competitor brands relative to the non-branded terms and my guess is that this traffic converts well. I'd like to figure out a way to get some of that traffic for my client without crossing any ethical boundaries. The only thing I can think of is having a comparison page with good onsite optimization. Does anyone else have any tips on how to rank for these terms?
Link Building | | Riona0 -
Links from .edu sites
I have a band website and was thinking of making some link bait pages specifically designed to get links from high page rank music colleges and then funnel that page rank to my landing pages on my band site. I am planning on finding out what these colleges link to and create great information on pages on my site that the high page rank college websites will link to thereby boosting my trust and authority. How much will the trust and authority boost my site in the search engines? Because the colleges will be music colleges they should be relevant to my band site. Does this sound like a good strategy? Take care, Ron
Link Building | | Ron100