I am confused/frustrated/surprised how bad my website is doing on google ranking
-
Hello,
I am confused/frustrated/surprised how bad my website (flyhy.co) is doing on google ranking and I have no clue why even though I have been doing my homework regarding SEO. Just a bit of background, I have created a new website about 6 months ago for the paragliding community, the primary goal is to provide a platform for people to publish their ads (osclass), but also to provide some interesting reviews and tools to help paragliders chose their wing.
We have been putting a lot of effort to provide a nice user experience and tio build the tools mentioned above. Our main channel to connect with the community is Facebook, and we have been quite active there.
I have looked at many SEO articles and I made sure the website provides a good UX, the URLs are SEO friendly, good meta data, etc. Also have been using the google search console and analytics to monitor all of this.
But here is the thing, all these does not seem to change anything in our ranking for important keywords such as "paraglider for sale", "paragliding equipment", etc. We seem to only rank (looking at Google’s keyword tool) for very specific wing model names that people have mentioned in their ads.
I have ran out of ideas on how to improve our SEO !!!!!!
I know the website is only 6 months old, but by now we should get some results.
As an example, I will mention one our main website competitors: www.paraglidingequipment.org. OK the URL is pretty obvious and this website ranks in page #1 for "paragliding equipment" (but also for "paraglider for sale" and other paragliding related key phrases). OK there is the URL (paraglidingequipment.org), but I thought nowadays google bots are smarter than just that. The website is 1 year old (so not really much older than us, and was ranking high anyway even 6 months ago). The website looks like it was clearly made by one person and then quickly just left it running, so no content has been added (except for people putting their ads), there is almost no activity on the Facebook account.
I have run some test such as "pagespeed insights" and we both rank the same. On "seositecheckup.com", we are clearly better with more 10 points.
Is there anyone out there who can tell me what is going on? Have I missed a very important aspect of SEO? Is our website somehow compromising the robots crawling (although I can see about 80 pages have been already indexed in google search console)? I know content is king, but in paraglidingequipment.org the only content I see are ads, and we have ads and other interesting (ie reviews and tools) for paragliders.
To conclude, I am basically completely clueless of what to do to rank at least on the first couple of pages of google for the key phrases above. I need help.
Hichem.
PS: in Moz bar our score is non existing (PA=1,DA=10), on paraglidingequipment.org (PA=23,DA=15). So it looks that essentially we are not apparent on the web!
PSS: We have also tried to build some backlinks on few important paragliding community websites.
-
Hi Massimiliano,
Thanks for your answer, we are actually working on increasing our back-links from authoritative websites. I did a SEO checkup of the site, it scores about 80% which is well above the average. So I think on that side we are OK. So far it looks like the problem might be in the back-links and may be weak content (2 things we are working on). But all that said, I still do not understand how we are completely not existing on google search whereas a website such as paraglidingequipment.org for example is ranking high even though they have 1 or 2 referring domains in total (and their content is no better than us). Mystery, Mystery .....
-
You have four referring domain in total. That's the point. I didn't went through your website much, so probably you are in need of onsite improvements too. But four (4) referring domain is not going to give you much juice.
-
Hello Grahame,
Thank you for your answers. Hope more people will give their inputs. I will also try in other forums as you have suggested. But, I am still stuck with this whole SEO thing. I am not totally clueless as you say (thank you), but I am still astonished how bad we rank on Google (while others, with almost no effort gets on page #1). Something I am doing is certainly wrong, I just hope someone here will find this out.
-
HI
SEO and SERPs can very frustrating indeed. 5 minutes looking at your stats leads me to the conclusion that you need more external links. Moz is only reporting links from one site. You say you are clueless but you are not. You are relatively new to this aspect of business life and are trying to achieve progress on a low budget I suspect. Others on here may be able to spend a little more time and you could get help on other forums such as the Google Webmaster Tools forum. You should install GWT and Bing Webmaster tools.
Lastly, you should approach an SEO company for help. They will usually give a flavour of how they can help you alongside a quote - so you get help for free. They usually have semi-automated tools to help them do this.
Grahame
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
-
Methods for estimating competitor website traffic from natural search
Hi all, I'm currently working on some competitor analysis and estimating website traffic based on rankings and estimated search volume for approximately 500 keywords. I'm then estimating based on click through rate from Webmaster tools. I think this will give me a relatively accurate estimation but was wondering how everyone else does this? Any other methods out there? Thanks, Elias
Competitive Research | | A_Q0 -
Google Keyword Tool Alternatives
Hey All, So ever since Google shut down the Keyword Tool we have used the keyword planner and a few other tools only to find they aren't quite the same, I was wondering what everyone is using now to get there keyword research and average traffic estimates ? We previous used keyword tool for phrase match and now not much offers phrase match or provides us with what seems as accurate results. We have tried Word Tracker after a numerous amount of research to find a alternative to the keyword tool, and found that the results are very different from the Google Keyword Planner, 1 noticeable result would be of "Web Design Melbourne", in Word Tracker it showed the average search of 9,900 (per month or year I'm not sure) and we compared that to the Google Keyword Planner and it showed 3,000. I have looked over a number of tools and found they weren't quite what we are looking for (Word Tracker, SEMRush, Google Keyword Planner) so I have turned to the MOZ Community. So my first question for everyone would be: A) what do you use for Keyword research and average search estimates now (any good tools with phrase match)? B) If you have used Word Tracker have you found accurate results in your keyword research? If you have found any tools that have proved beneficial and useful please let me know 🙂 (paid or free) Thank you
Competitive Research | | KBB_Digital
Jake Crone0 -
How does my competitor website jump from a natural ranking of 10 to 1 in a matter of days?
OK this has really got me baffled, and I really hope the MOZ community can give me the answers I am seeking.... My statements and queries below are my own opinions and thoughts. I am not an experienced SEOer and I am learning all the time, so if I have written something incorrectly, please feel free to correct me 🙂 I have been told that natural rankings take time, and I have read with the recent algorithm changes from Google, that purchased links do not have an effect like they used to. I have also read somewhere that google has clamped down on bogus article writing (MOZ please clarify) But what I am seeking some clarification on is, how does my competitors website, that has had a natural rank of #1 in the past, suddenly drop off; for a lengthy period of time, then suddenly re-appear at #10 on page #1, then some three/four days later, hit #1? I have read that natural rankings are purely natural. I.e. a domain owner cannot pay google to boost their natural ranking. But is this really true? Why is it when I speak to a close colleague of mine in the same industry, he mentions that his maps listing has dropped off, and after making a couple of phone calls to his SEO guys in India, maybe a day or two later, magically his maps re-appear? I really am starting to question is a "natural ranking" really "natural?" I have heard that some of these SEO agencies do have some tools that dramatically effect the natural ranking of a domain. What are these tools?
Competitive Research | | Giorgio680 -
My (properly optimised) webpage outscores page#1 ranked competitors on page/domain authority ... but I'm only on page#2\. Huh?
I'm puzzled. I've optimised a particular page for a particular search term, and the SEOMoz tool gives me an A for on-page optimisation. So no problem there. I can understand why my webpage/site is being outranked by pages from (for example) the Guardian and Oxford University, but there are several sites that Google is ranking on page #1 though their page and domain scores are well below ours. Specifically: my page/domain authority scores are 46/52, compared with 22/46 for the competitor that Google is ranking #5 - yet we only rank a lowly #12. And it's not as though the particular page in question isn't an obvious and appropriate part of our site. We work with new writers and the page in question offers a selection of creative writing courses. It's not like we're a writing-related site that suddenly has a page advertising fake rolexes. It's not a timing issue either, as most of our links have been in place for a couple of years at least. So I'm puzzled. And concerned. This page of ours was a reliable revenue generator for us and it's dying out there on the page#2 wilderness. If anyone can help, I'd be massively grateful. I don't know if this is helpful, but the page in question is http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/Creative-Writing-Courses.html and the search term is ... well, heck, you take a wild guess. We're a British firm, so the only search engine that really matters to us is google.co.uk
Competitive Research | | harrybingham0 -
Google Listings EMD Bias
I've been looking at 60+ location based searches for the base two months and noticed a big issue I can't explain. I know EMD was hit hard in the general SERPs but it obviously has not effected the location SERPs. The main way I'm finding these situations is by seeing the 7 pack and it shows a site with only a quarter amount of the citations the other sites have and jumps to the top very quickly. It appears to be working because of the EMD bias in the Local SERPs algorithm. From what I understand you are not suppose to add a TLD domain into a G+ listing and then 301 redirect it to your real domain but Google doesn't seem to mind at this point. I'm wondering if this tactic is a valid Local tactic at this time or if, from what I understand, it is a shady tactic that will end up hurting brand and have a strong chance of penalizing the real domain. 2012-12-13_10-45-39.png
Competitive Research | | BenRWoodard0 -
Competitor's Ranking's Reports are Showing Blank Values for Rankings
When selecting competitors to see how they rank for specific terms in the ranking's report page here, it loads the page normally, but without any actual rankings. Where values should be, it lists all values as our competition not ranking whatsoever (for all competitors). I'm not sure if there is something we're doing wrong, or perhaps we just need to wait for a refresh, but if anybody could help out, that would be wonderful!
Competitive Research | | ACLens0 -
My average visit duration is UP by 110% from 2 minutes to 4 minutes... and my visits (rankings) are down by 6 %.... I would have thought to see more positive ranking affects from that..
Latttteee last night I asked this question Just like the question says, I would have thought that Google would reward a site with more traffic that clearly has a growing level of user engagement. I can't imagine that there are other sites in my niche that are having a longer rate of user engagement... Well, since I can't guarentee that, let's not debate what we don't know.. But shouldn't SOME benefits be seen for a 110% increase? I mean shit, if I could replicate those results with sales, I would really be able to afford higher rankings... Maybe that's how they feel? If I get longer duration, I should get more sales, which means I should be able to afford to pay a professional more to get me to rank higher....? A nice guy Marcus Miller(http://www.seomoz.org/users/profile/78416) answered by saying Hey Tyler Google analytics data is not used in anyway in the search ranking algorithm. It's a great thing that your user engagement is up, but it will not benefit you with a better rank on the back of that. That said, if people are enjoying your site more, it should be easier to generate more links and sharing to get more traffic and hopefully boost your standing in search. This is worth a watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg... Hope this helps. Marcus I was still a little unsure though, so I said Solid answer man, I really appriciate the youtube link too, gotta love when an answer is chizzled in stone. I was thinking though.. Google does track data for bouncing back to search for similar queries, and some types of time on site, etc, right? Do you, or does anyone else know the specifics about the data that Google tracks, in relation to how a user interacts with your site?
Competitive Research | | TylerAbernethy0