Site refuses to improve rankings. Can someone else put a set of eyes on this for me and see what I am missing?
-
Hello!
We've been successful with over 40 clients and getting them to great results in our industry, insurance. We recently acquired a new client who had an existing website with prior SEO results a very spammy blog and many spammy links. We've removed many of the blog articles and links using the Google Disavow Tool
We've been monitoring this site in a campaign on Moz, but we're seeing zero improvement week to week. Can someone put another set of eyes on this and see if we're simply just missing something? Results for all 30 of our tracked keywords, zero are in the top 50!
I would guess this was an algorithm penalty, but it has been 3 months now since we've made the changes and nothing is changing... not even a little bit! Any help/suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thank you and enjoy Labor Day weekend!
-
Look at all these tips! Thanks for taking so much time to very clearly outline a plan of attack. Some items have been completed above like local listings and Facebook we updated weekly, but your other points are great. Like you said, time to roll up the sleeves! This is an ultra-competitive market. Thanks so much!
-
Thanks for taking the time to respond. We'll clean up the page URLs. Agree... could be a bit spammy looking! We'll also work on getting more better links. Million dollar question, any suggestions for quick link building strategies? We'll push out a couple press releases and have done many local directory listings...
-
Thank you so much for the response. You always take time to review my questions and it is very much appreciated. We were working on launching an entirely new site for him, so that's why we had the duplicate content... nice catch! We shut the other site down to see if this was possibly impacting the site.
-
Both Egol and Ricky have pointed out major some failings - duplicate content and lack of links.
But I ask other than cleansing links what else are you doing for them besides tracking them on MOZ?
Here are a few more things that shout to Google that this domain is a flash in the pan:- domain expires in six months
- reference to a favicon that doesn't load
- social is weak - last G+ post 4/22/2013, only 4 have them in a circle. last tweet 4/22, only 23 FB likes, no post since 4/22
- is there a XML sitemap?
- only local listing I could find was on <cite>www.placesforward.com</cite>
- no schema.org markup for address and location
- unclaimed on Yelp.com - claim them and get reviews (and on Google places)
Google maps returns 8,970 results for insurance near Las Vegas, NV - lots of competition here you need to get them to stand out
First solid link I would procure for them would be one from the LV chamber of commerce. then Henderson, and Boulder City and other local CCs.
Develop some good national link bait - a top ten list built around LV and insurance would be a good start - with some humor. Then top ten things that stay in Vegas that are insurable...
Time to roll up the sleeves and get to work...
-
#1 problem=Almost NO quality links pointing to your site. I know that content marketing is great, but I would reference Rand's recent whiteboard Friday regarding hitting the ground building links. Competitive link mining would be my number one go to here!
Also, I'd do some more research into your on-page grades, looks like you may be cluttering for too many keyword combinations on a few of the pages. I would also try to shorten your url's, they look a bit on the spammy side. Since you don't have much link equity built up, it shouldn't be a problem
Im having a similar problem with a client right now and it's killing me! Best of luck
-
A quick check seems to indicate that most of the articles on this site have been published on other websites. Just an example....
http://www.lasvegasbestinsurance.com/insurance/renters-insurance-las-vegas/
http://rusteration.com/insurance/renters-insurance-las-vegas/
I looked at several pages and the content of each was published verbatim on at least one other site, sometimes on may other sites.
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
-
Internal pages ranking over the homepage: How to optimise to rank better at Google?
Hi, We have experienced a shift in SERP from internal pages ranking over website homepage for more than a year. Previously website homepages used to rank for the primary keyword like moz.com for "SEO". Now we can see that internal pages like moz.com/learn/seo/what-is-seo been ranking for the primary keyword "SEO". Google is picking up these "what is ABC" pages than the homepage. All our competitor sites are ranking with these internal pages which are about "what is (primary keyword)". We do have the same internal pages "what is....", but this pages is not ranking; only our homepage is ranking. Moreover we dropped more than 15 positions after this shift in SERP. How to diagnose this? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google Site Links question
Are Google site links only ever shown on the top website? Or is it possible for certain queries for the site in position #2 or #3 or something to have site links but the #1 position not have them? If there are any guides, tips or write ups regarding site links and their behavior and optimization please share! Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | IrvCo_Interactive0 -
Google Rankings Dropped in Past Few Weeks
Hi All, I work for an online appliance retailer and over the past weeks, we've seen a drop in our google SERPs. This time last year we were ranking in the top 3 for our top converting key terms, but now we are ranking towards the bottom of the first page or even on the top of the second page with the big box stores now dominating for our key terms. Needless to say traffic for these pages has dropped off considerably. We still have quite a bit of traffic coming in for other key terms, but they don't convert as well. Is anyone else seeing the same thing? If so what are you doing to combat this? Do you have any suggestions? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | airnwater0 -
MOZ.com Page Rank of 2?
I don't recall the page rank of SEOMoz.com prior to the company's change to MOZ.com. But did notice that MOZ.com currently has a Page Rank of 2 (which I find weird since it's such a strong, content rich, highly-regarded site). I'd be interested in hearing about findings from the MOZ.com team on why the low PR and how has it affected your site since the change? (...and perhaps a look at the future through a crystal ball 🙂 I recall reading the MOZ domain changing article titled "Domain Migrations: Surviving the "Perfect Storm" of Site Changes" which had great info and addresses some reasons for PR loss in the 'Traffic and Ranking Loss' section: http://moz.com/blog/domain-migration-lessons
Algorithm Updates | | Prospector-Plastics0 -
How useful is a mobile version of your site (for SEO sake)?
We're investigating a mobile version of our e-commerce site. Is it worth the investment regarding search engine optimization, or is this something that wouldn't have a big effect?
Algorithm Updates | | 9Studios0 -
How To Rank High In Google Places?
Hello SEOmoz, This question has been hounding me for a long time and I've never seen a single reliable information from the web that answers it. Anyway here's my question; Supposing that there are three Google places for three different websites having the same categories and almost same keywords and same district/city/IP how does Google rank one high from the other? Or simply put if you own one of those websites and you would want to rank higher over your competitors in Google places Search results how does one do it? A number of theories were brought up by some of my colleagues: 1. The age of the listing 2. The number of links pointing to the listing (supposing that one can build links to ones listing) 3. The name/url of the listing, tags, description, etc. 4. The address of the listing. 5. Authority of the domain (linked website) You see some listings have either no description, and only one category and yet they rank number one for a specific term/keyword whereas others have complete categories, descriptions etc. If you could please give me a definite answer I will surely appreciate it. Thank you very much and more power!
Algorithm Updates | | LeeAnn300 -
Are the latest Ranking Reports counting the new large format site links as positions?
Received my weekly ranking report this morning and noticed a specific keyword that I've been ranking in the 3rd or 4th spot has dropped a significant amount of positions. I tested the results myself and it appears the site links of the manufacturer are being counted as positions? My keyword has me in the 3rd position (although it is much lower on the physical page now because of the new format). I'm really wondering how this will affect organic listings going forward - this new format could be a game changer.
Algorithm Updates | | longbeachjamie2 -
Ranking Tracking Tool Not Accurate?
Is google still updating the algo on a daily basis or for the most part are you other mozzers seeing your rankings stick? I ask because the rank tracking software I use locally on my laptop shows me inaccurate rankings, as well as the SEOMOZ tool (which was just updates yesterday). I am not sure why this is happening, but as of yesterday I lost four page one rankings, which I didn't deserve anyway, and was apparently a fluke until they did the PR update. So I dont mind, but I am curious if they are still tweaking on a daily basis or if its safe to continue link building. I dont want them to make another change and have it affect my rankings in a negative way.
Algorithm Updates | | getbigyadig0