Problem with getting a site to rank at all
-
We pushed this Word Press site live about a month ago www.primedraftarchitecture.com.
Since then we've been adding regular content, blog posts 3 times a week with social posts on facebook, twitter, G+ and LinkedIn. We also submitted via Moz Local about 3 weeks ago. Yext about two weeks ago and have been adding about 5 listings to small local directories a week.
Webmaster tools shows that the site map is valid and the pages of the site are getting indexed and it shows links from 7 sites, mostly directories.
I'm just not seeing the site ranking for anything. We're getting zero organic traffic.
I though we did a good job not over optimizing the pages. I'm just stymied trying to figure out what's wrong. Usually we push a site live and see at least some low rankings after just a couple of weeks.
Can anyone see anything that looks bad or where we've gone wrong?
-
Great follow-up Donald. Validates the advice given.
-
Just FYI for anyone who sees this post later on. We're getting a marked improvement in organic search traffic after fixing some of the page load speed issues.
Thanks for the help!
-
I doubt that it's Sandbox - if you look at the common signals for Sandbox (http://moz.com/blog/googles-sandbox-still-exists-exemplified-by-gradercom) your site would not be found for any keyword, not even your brand name, and have normal rankings in Bing.
I did a few very specific searches with phrases from your site both on Bing & Google:
"Everything that you are looking to achieve with your home addition or renovation project" => both have the same result (=your site)Search for brand name - rank 1 in Bing - rank 3 google - so doesn't look like a typical Sandbox situation.
Rgds,
Dirk
PS Noticed that the speed of your site improved dramatically - so hopefully you will see you site start to rank soon
-
Is there a way to tell for sure if you're in the sandbox?
-
While there are definitely some issues, the main problem here is simply time and links. Moz Local was a great idea but I'd also suggest claiming more social media profiles. Google has a sandbox for new sites where it is reluctant to rank them. A few months from now, with more local listings and social media listings and your site will show a lot better. Be sure to focus on some of your industry specific links as well.
-
Thanks Donna!
-
Makes sense! Two other quick things I noticed are: (1) you're parking your blog posts in the root directory versus the blog folder. That will dilute your SEO equity on main site pages. (2) You should no-index your author, category and tag pages for the same reason.
-
Thumbs up that Dirk's analysis of the site speed should probably be your largest concern. I've seen several new sites really struggle to initially rank if they're in the red on those scores. 21 / 25 are really bad. Do everything you can to quickly get those in the green and you should start to appear in the rankings. This, along with Google's stance on only indexing mobile sites that have high mobility scores are two trends that aren't going away.
-
Thanks for the response Donna,
In Webmaster tools I'm not seeing any queries and very few impressions.
I would expect the the site to be at least ranking for "nj architect", even at a very low ranking 50+, just based on the site's content. I'm not expecting first page rankings yet. I am just now seeing any at all. That's what concerns me, that there may some other problem with the way the site is set up.
-
Thanks for the help Dirk!
-
Looks like you're competing for terms with very low traffic and high competition.
I see you have Google Analytics installed, so your tracking is probably working as it should.
When you look at Google Webmaster Tools under Search Traffic > Search Queries, are you seeing any impressions? That would give you a sense of whether anyone's searching for the terms you've chosen to optimize and whether you're showing up in search results. Not always, but it's a sign.
I think you just have a lot of work ahead of you and you're not yet ranking. I used SEO Book's rank checker tool to do a quick check to see how you're ranking for "architect in new jersey", "nj architect", and "residential architect in nj". (I got those terms from title tags on the site.) It indicated you weren't ranking at all.
-
Donald,
There are some issues with your site which could be causing the problems:
1. The load time of the homepage is quite slow -http://www.webpagetest.org/result/150316_8R_Y5A/1/details/ - apart from the heavy images, you also load a huge number of css & js files. If you analyse the page with Google Pagespeed https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fprimedraftarchitecture.com%2F&tab=desktop you get very low scores - both for mobile & desktop. I would remove some of the fancy stuff on the page & focus on the essentials. Follow the recommendation of both tools to make your site faster. This would be the top priority if it was my site.
2. There are some smaller on-page issues
- not all the pages have a H1 title
- http://primedraftarchitecture.com/architecture-consultation has a canonical url which doesn't exist
- http://primedraftarchitecture.com/author/mike-sweebe/ exist 2 times (duplicate: http://primedraftarchitecture.com/author/Mike-Sweebe/) - images are quite heavy (11 > 100kb)
3; Analytics
You seem to use both Universal & async tags on page (Universal on Contact / Async on the remainder) - on /blog you measure multiple 6 page views when only one should be measured. I would put everything on universal (and implement it in the head-tag
Hope this helps,
Dirk
- not all the pages have a H1 title
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
-
Responsive site.com vs m.site.com
Hi All, My client's website have two urls like: site.com/a.html and **m.site.com/a.html. ** Will it hurt google rankings for this website because there are version of a website? Please help!
On-Page Optimization | | binhlai1 -
Optimising for multi sites selling same products
Hi Everyone I work for a company that sell aluminium joinery under 3 brands which are, ostensibly, competitors. With regards to optimising the websites, for keywords, should I be trying to optimise them for the same keywords, or should I use different keyword variations of each?
On-Page Optimization | | APLNZ110 -
Can I robots.txt an entire site to get rid of Duplicate content?
I am in the process of implementing Zendesk and will have two separate Zendesk sites with the same content to serve two separate user groups (for the same product-- B2B and B2C). Zendesk does not allow me the option to changed canonicals (nor meta tags). If I robots.txt one of the Zendesk sites, will that cover me for duplicate content with Google? Is that a good option? Is there a better option. I will also have to change some of the canonicals on my site (mysite.com) to use the zendesk canonicals (zendesk.mysite.com) to avoid duplicate content. Will I lose ranking by changing the established page canonicals on my site go to the new subdomain (only option offered through Zendesk)? Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | RoxBrock0 -
Google Search - One page having problems
this issue is concerning my site - cruvoir.com we retail designer clothing online, and currently have 17 'designer' pages - one for each manufacturer brand name. We target these brand names for our campaign and track the progress with Moz and try to focus them in Google search. Of many of the designer names, we rank pretty well in Google search (usually under #15 when searching for the specific brand. All brands are doing well, except one brand : "Lost And Found" - a designer label we carry. This is the page for this brand name : https://cruvoir.com/5-lost-and-found we cannot figure it out. It happens to be our most important label we carry. when we search for this brand name or include it in any other search terms, we never are in the google search results. I expect it is a crawl issue, but we have covered all our ground in optimizing this brand page. It seems this page is also indexed with Google. But we cannot figure out why it does not rank us in search.
On-Page Optimization | | cruvoir0 -
Why is my site not ranking?
Could you please help me understand what is wrong with this site: www.award-certificates.com It simply isn't ranking after about 3 years and I am not so sure what I can do to improve it.
On-Page Optimization | | nicolebd0 -
How do i get my on-page grade reports?
I've been signed up for a week now and still nothing in there? Do I need to set something up? thanks in advance! Fraser
On-Page Optimization | | vipgambler0 -
On-Site Optimization and Repeat Customers
Hello, One of my clients has repeat customers. All of his surface level categories are optimized. None of his 2nd or 3rd level categories are optimized at all. Is there any harm in optimizing these 2nd or 3rd level categories. Is there any way it could cause a problem with repeat customers? I didn't think so but I want to make sure. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Site wide internal links in footer
What is your take on site wide inernal links in the footer, e.g. for the most competitive keywords? Do you think those links are still useful or are those links of little value from your experience? It is an old school tactic but I still see many sites doing it.
On-Page Optimization | | Florakel0