Trouble Ranking 1st
-
We are having trouble ranking. We seem to do well for lower competitive words but we are really want to rank for "web design" in our local area. Which is Tyler, Texas. Can anyone advise on what we need to differently?
We use Moz Local, have a reviews and are using Yoast SEO. The only thing I can think of is on page optimization. Any advice?
-
Hi Matthew!
My pleasure, and I'm so glad you found my answer helpful. It sounds like you have a game plan for some work ahead. Yes, it's possible that by not being #1, you may be missing some traffic, but it might not be as much as you think, given that you are in the top 3. In your shoes, I'd be counseling myself to focus a little less on rankings and a little more on broadening my company's visibility for secondary terms in the local-organic results. The size of your city (population about 100,000) convinces me that you could really cover the waterfront of things people in Tyler need with the right content strategy and harness some highly targeted/highly converting traffic.
Rand, in particular, has done some amazing Whiteboard Fridays over the past year or so about content, keywords, etc. I hope you'll take full advantage of this section of the Moz Blog:
https://moz.com/blog/category/whiteboard-friday
Good luck!
-
I guess that is one way to link build?
-
Thank you both for the thorough answers.
1) You need to perform a thorough competitive analysis of the 2 companies outranking you. Are they older? What's their authority like? Their link profile? How many Google-based reviews have they earned compared to you? How strong is their content? What is their geographic position on the map, relative to the 'centroid' of Tyler and relative to you? Etc., etc.
They are both older than our company. We are very new, our main competitor has been in business since the beginning of the internet...they claim 30 years. The other has about 3 years on us. However in a year we have gotten into the top 3.
2) You mention you are using Moz Local, so this should mean that your core citations are either in great shape or are on their way to being so. Have you fully filled out your Moz Local listing with images, photos, social links, etc? Images, in particular, impact conversions.
I'd like to think so. We have a 94% right now in Moz Local. We just changed our main phone number for our headquarters and we have two other locations on Google Business that are in cities close by. 30-70 miles away. We only have additional Google Businesses set up for them, all other citations are our headquarters location.
3) How is your review game beyond Google? Narrow and thin or diverse and broad?
We have 20 or more reviews on Google (4.9, one 4 star). Our top competitor has 3 reviews, a 5.0 (I just checked, they now have 5. That is 0 to 5 in the last 4 weeks) and they outrank us (DA of 51, ours is 14). Our second competitor has less than ten reviews. We have 15 on Facebook, all 5 stars (I think). Competitors have nothing. But other than that, we have one review on BBB and one or two on Yelp. Competitors have nothing there. Overall, I'd say we win but it isn't playing out that way.
We will start focusing on content and links. This was something we focused on in the beginning but have lost focus on. As for our conversion rates, we do pretty well with leads. We also close most of those leads...so I'm pretty happy with that. That said, once we get an inquiry we usually get a client. I just feel we are missing out on traffic/leads by not being number 1. It's also hard for us to say we will get clients ranking when we can't rank ourselves. It is hard for us to settle for top 3.
I do thank you both for the very informative posts. We still have a lot to learn so I welcome any additional insight.
-
Hi Matthew,
I agree with Igor that this is a competitive keyword, but I'm assuming that you are talking about local pack rankings, rather than organic (Igor cites competing with Wikipedia and others, which would not be a wise use of time/resources). I think what you are asking about is how to compete with the businesses coming up in the local pack for the search 'web design tyler tx' or for people in Tyler searching for 'web design' alone?
So, first of all, I would start with a small adjustment of your thinking. If you can rank in the top 3 in a free (non-paid) local pack, you are more or less equal with the folks ranking 1 and 2. In my own search for 'web design tyler tx', you are coming up 3rd in the pack and in the local finder view (reached via the more places link at the bottom of the pack).
I'm not sure where you see your own business ranking when you do this search from your office and from locations around your city (it may be quite different from what I see), but going on the premise that you've achieved a #3 ranking (well done!), here's what you'd have to do to try to move up:
-
You need to perform a thorough competitive analysis of the 2 companies outranking you. Are they older? What's their authority like? Their link profile? How many Google-based reviews have they earned compared to you? How strong is their content? What is their geographic position on the map, relative to the 'centroid' of Tyler and relative to you? Etc., etc.
-
You mention you are using Moz Local, so this should mean that your core citations are either in great shape or are on their way to being so. Have you fully filled out your Moz Local listing with images, photos, social links, etc? Images, in particular, impact conversions.
-
How is your review game beyond Google? Narrow and thin or diverse and broad?
-
If, at the end of your competitive analysis, you find that your metrics are quite similar to the two companies outranking you, then my best advice would be to:
-
Focus on content development that bests your competitors' efforts
-
Earn some really solid mentions from the main publications in your city, preferably with links, but w/o them can be valuable simply as authority citations
-
Analyze new linkbuilding opportunities
-
And, finally, consider whether what you really need is higher rankings or a better conversion rate. There may not be that much difference between the number of clickthroughs you are getting from the local pack vs your 2 competitors. Let's say you are getting 3 leads a week through the #3 ranking you've earned and the guys at #1 are getting 4 leads. What really matters is whether your website and your sales people are converting 3/3 leads, or 0/3 per week. That's where the money is. If it turns out that what you really need is better conversions, then you must analyze the website for this specific goal, and also, analyze how your sales people are handling calls that come to you through the local pack and other avenues. It can make a big different to your bottom line if you get to where you are converting even 2/3 leads per week instead of 1 or 0/3.
Hope this helps!
-
-
Competition on "web design" is waaaay to high. It displays 7 ads in SERP in Tyler TX, which is A LOT. With top websites in organic search being Wikipedia, Behance and even Google. Beating these will require way more effort then you should waste on it.
It's not really the keyword you want to focus on too unless your website is a competitor to Wikipedia. This keyword is too broad and converts terribly if at all.
If you do web design, focus on k
keywords that your potential clients use, they probably search for things like "make a website" and etc, forget about trying to rank for Web Design, do some keyword research, find out what your clients search for and target those keywords.
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
-
GMB Account Fallen Off Rankings in past 24 hours
My map pack presence has fallen off the face of the earth over the last 24 hours. My location The Escape Game Chicago was top 3 yesterday for 'escape room chicago' and now they only show up when searching for the exact brand name. What's weirder is I still rank #1 organically for that keyword.I have looked through the account, nothing seems to be totally amiss. Google has not notified me of any issues or penalties. I have no clue what happened.Can anyone point me in the right direction or provide some insight as to how I can recover my ranking?
Local Listings | | danieldaher0 -
Local Ranking Factors?
For Google, has anyone got a finger on how much of a factor the address type "service customers only at their location" versus "service customers at my business location AND customers location is" is as far as local search ranking especially for 3-pack results? (The former they hide the address the latter they show the street address) It seems to me the primary factors are obviously (a) proximity of user's location or location intent to the business location, then (b) natural organic ranking (age of business, domain authority, inbound links, quality content, relevance to the actual keywords searched for). But where does the address type rank amongst all the "secondary factors" like is business currently open, number of reviews and average rating, etc. etc. My guess would be reviews and average rating along with is business currently open would be third, and then address type would factor in - but for all I know the address type could be given much more importance than I am guessing?
Local Listings | | MrSem0 -
Google Local Result- Competitor Ranks without an Address. Why is this happening?
My client is in a fairly competitive local market and there is a competitor who has ranked locally for around 2 years, but they have no actual address on their Google business listing. Just city and state. The listing is always top three and it does have their website listed, but directions aren't even available as there is actual no address. The listing is extremely keyword dense (basically spam but they actually created a business with the spam name). Citation Example: Keyword dense business name, phone number, city and state only Have you seen this? Can you explain why this is happening? Is this against the rules/anything I can do? Thanks!
Local Listings | | mgordon0 -
How to Rank in Places Across Range Keywords
Having some success in Google Places but would like to rank across the range of phrases that we work with. To give you an example where LOCATIOn is the city we are based in: office partitions LOCATION
Local Listings | | GrouchyKids
Position 1 Local Results office refurbishment LOCATION
Position 29 Local Results office fit out LOCATION
Not present office partitioning LOCATION
Position 3 Local Results suspended ceilings LOCATION
NA What can I do to achieve results across the range of phrases? Am I missing something fundamental like not including something in Google Places? Justin How to Rank in Places Across Range Keywords LOCATION0 -
SEO issues with Physician and Practice not ranking for their own names
I've inherited an SEO client who's got all kinds of ranking problems. Currently his name Dr. Laddis shows up for his old practice, Saratoga Cardiology Associates (http://saratogacardiology.com/) instead of his current one Cardiology Specialty Services (http://cardiologyspecialtyservices.org/ ) He's also showing up with a G+ for the old practice that's listed as closed. The 2nd listing is for his bio on the hospital page.(<cite class="_Rm">https://saratogahospital.org/doctor/theodoros-laddis-md-facc/ )</cite> Then come the usual Dr directories. His YouTube channel shows up. But his actual website isn't until the middle of the 2nd page. I'm also having similar issues getting the practice to show up in search (http://cardiologyspecialtyservices.org/ ). As I was coming on board, they also had a name change from Saratoga Cardiology Specialty Services to Cardiology Specialty Services. Their G+ local business page has the custom URL for Saratoga Cardiology Specialty Services but the name on the page is Cardiology Specialty Services. Their website is actually part of the hospital multisite with a URL redirect. While the site shows up for "cardiologist Saratoga" their G+ page doesn't show up.(https://plus.google.com/+Saratogacardiologyspecialtyservices/about ). I've also done on-page SEO and am still in the process of submitting to directories. Any thoughts on what the hangup is or what I can do to clear up this mess would be appreciated.
Local Listings | | IT-dmd0 -
Correlation between ranking on Google organic result page and ranking on the local listing
Hi Moz fans, A quick question: any correlation between ranking on Google organic result page and ranking on the local listing or vise versa? Thnx Saab
Local Listings | | S.Saab0 -
How To Rank Individual Pages Locally?
Hello, A fellow business owner recommend that I signup for Moz to ask questions about local SEO. I just have a few questions, but please excuse my ignorance since SEO isn't something I'm very familiar with. My company has locations in 3 different cities in the state of Arkansas. I've noticed that when I type in certain keywords on Google such as "web design", I see a lot of organic listings from web design companies in my local area - but if I were to search from another city, different listings show up that are related to that city. I have 3 different pages on my company's website for each of our locations that gives a little bit of information about them - such as the general manager, storefront photos, and the employee of the month. What can I do to get each of the pages to rank higher on Google in their respective cities? I've heard a lot of different things mentioned such as having the name, address, and phone number listed. Including Google Maps on the page with our location. And some other stuff such as including stuff such as a "KML file" and a "schema markup". If anyone can give me a list of definitive suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated.
Local Listings | | CyberAlien1 -
Google vs. Google+ Local Rankings - How do they relate
I have a client who ranks #7 in Google+ Local for search term dentist Oxnard CA & Oxnard CA Dentist but for regular Google search results, they are not in the top 50. How is this possible? No penalties in Webmaster tools. I've been working on this client for over a year. All of the other pages on the website are ranking very well but the all elusive dentist Oxnard CA position is 0 How does regular Google search results relate to Google+ Local?
Local Listings | | Czubmeister0