Why are we not ranking? We have done all we can think of. Can you help?
-
We have an old domain that we have had for years now. And recently. December, we completely redesigned the site, I mean a complete overhaul, design, architecture, asp to php for example. Resubmitted to google via webmaster with a new site map etc.
Our website for reference is www.completeoffice.co.uk.
We are trying to rank in UK google, www.google.co.uk, for the term office refurbishment kent (we are on page 2) and office refurbishment (we are on page 17).
This is confusing me, because thats 7 pages lower than we were originally, before the site design, its better seo wise, duplicate content is none, title tage meta tags all correct, domain authority has doubled from 12 to 24 in a few months all in an effort to rank better. our homepage and office refurb pages both got an A on the on page SEOmoz tool test. So we dont understand why we are not ranking highly. It seems sites, much uglier and less seo friendly than our with same or lower domain authority are ranking at least 10 pages higher than us.
Why is this? Can anyone help or give us a few suggestions.
All help greatly appreciated. SEOmozzers.
-
Thanks, but even though I mentioned links for that page, Gareth really helps with his comment regarding anchor text. That was a miss for me.
This is out of order: As to site map I would resubmit just to make sure, but if you have internal links to the page it will get indexed either way.
Removing the .php gives you a clean url. here is a good source and I have cut and pasted as well. To remove the .php from StuntCoders
Just use following snippet in order to remove “.php” extension from URL.
| | ```
1 RewriteEngine on
2 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
3 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
4 RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/$ $1.phpBest of luck. ``` |
-
I would do the following things, not related to the site revamp :
1- create a page with the title office-refurbishment-kent.
2- Add more copy. Your office refurbishment page is short...
3- Your image on said page, is named or1.png. Rename it to office-refurbishment.png. Make a link from that image to another relevant page. Same for whyus.jpg etc. Each image is an opportunity to add a relevant keyword.
4- I'd create a blog about office refurbishment in kent, and I would write copy for that blog. Benefits, etc. At least a dozen 800 words posts, one per day. Each linked to your site and page...
-
I think I have sorted the 301s now. I agree I should really do that before launch. all a learning process.
-
Yer thats a good idea. When you mean search engine friendly content, can you expand on that please?
-
Good point, I really need to do some of that. I was thinking about that Ontolo tool. Any others you can think of?
-
Wow, thanks for a great answer. You should write a YouMoz post on what to do with a complete site overhaul.
Moving on, I have done some of the things you suggested, I have done the non-www to www redirect. I have also set my preferred domain in webmaster tools. And also I redirected /index.php to my domain address.
When you mention clean up the php, do you mean clean the code up a bit or something else? I was going to give the Ontolo tool a go to see if that could help with link building prospects.
I will aim to clean up URLS this week, which will mean resubmitting a new sitemap. Btw, every time I add a new page to my website, does that mean I have to resubmit a sitemap to Webmaster Tools.
One of the best tips I have heard on Q&A btw. Thanks for the help.
-
Most likely because of the url changes. I have a site that I have updated the design on several times in the matter of months with no loss to rank. Before you even launched it, you should have been working on it locally, making sure all on page elements were done, that 301's were ready to be implemented, and much more.
-
Complete
I think the first thing you should do is understand you are likely a bit impatient. Typically for us, when we build or redo sites, the rankings are all over the place - schizophrenic. This can last for a month or more. You can also see yourself on page one number 4 for example, pat yourself on the back, and two weeks later you can't find yourself.
For office refurbishment Kent, you are actually doing fairly well given the redesign and, likely due to some degree on your Google Places ranking so highly for that term. (you are number five).
On the SERPs main page, you have two urls that are ranking: ** www.completeoffice.co.uk/Services/office_refurbishment.php **ranks 2nd on page 2 and your home page ranks third on page two.
Now, as it is you have no page authority for /office_refurbishment so that is affecting you. I would first suggest cleaning up your urls as throughout the site you have some-with-dashes and some_with_underscores. This url as noted has underscores and they are not a best practice. So get some links to this page.
I don't believe you have done the "canonical redirect" to clear up the www and non www as OSE still shows two with no redirect and when I use either, either resolves. If you haven't, you need to do a 301 in the .htaccess file of the non www to the www and set the www as preferred domain in Google Webmaster Tools (GWMT). Otherwise you are showing as two sites.
So, there are some basic cleanup items (cleaning up the .php would be nice too) to do and some link building (this is how you get found page by page by the bots) for pages and you should do well given where you are and the work you are doing. Understand that we all wonder why a given site is ranked below another regularly, you cannot focus on that and must focus on your site and making sure you have done all you can.
I hope this gives you some help and that you rank one on one soon!
Best
-
Hi,
When a new site goes live, your rankings will drop. Especially if you have changed the content, metas and URL's. I would recommend adding some more 'Google friendly' content to the homepage and maybe to the office refurbishment page too. Agreeing with Gareth, backlinks are important too. Maybe getting some backlinks using different permutations of the words Office Refurbishment.
Good Luck with your SEO and rankings.
-
You need to build some anchor text links with 'office refurbishment' in, OSE is not showing any.
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
-
Help with best seo strategy
Hello all, I am a little bit confused about the "content suggestion'' feature in Moz. If I understood well, this feature suggests Anchor texts we can use in other page to link to the page we are trying to Optimize. So far, I've been using page keyword as Anchor Text in other articles. For example, I have a page about the best places to visit in Morocco, where the keyword is 'places to visit in Morocco'. I am using this same keyword as Anchor text in other pages to link to that page. While Moz suggests '10 best places' as Anchor text. What does it mean ? Is '10 best places' anchor text better ? Or should I use both ? Thanks in advance for your enlightenment.
Moz Pro | | sportygirl0 -
Is there a tool that can rank multiple results for a single keyword?
Hi all, I have searched the web for a tool that can tell me if more than 1 landing page is ranking for a single keyword. I have noticed sometimes that a single keyword query can trigger up to 3 landing pages within the 1st SERP. I found an old bookmarklet from Lunametrics that might do the trick using Search Console data, but the link is no longer working. Any other pointers, or can Moz do this as well? Thanks!
Moz Pro | | rodelmo40 -
How can I limit the impact of Google's mobile friendly updates on keyword rankings?
Hi everyone, I have a client on a monthly SEO package that is taking a hard hit in the rankings as their website is not mobile friendly. We are currently building a new website for them that will be fully responsive, but face the predicament of how to keep the current site performing relatively well in the rankings in the meantime. The site is generally well optimised and we always follow SEO best practices, so we've hit a bit of a stumbling block as to how to limit any negative impact the mobile friendly updates have on the site. Does anyone have any suggestions for damage limitation? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Moz Pro | | keyzo0 -
What is the best way to track our rank vs competitors?
I have 181 keywords that I have been asked to track rank on. So first I will track against our url then our competitors. With a 250 word limit will that count for every url I want to track? Is there any other way to do this than using rank tracker?
Moz Pro | | Sika220 -
Accurate Google Keyword Ranking for a domain
Hi Folks, SEO N00b here, in a new job so please go easy on me if i ask stupid questions. I'm looking for some clarification on Google Keyword rankings. I am looking for accurate Google Keywords rankings as when I log into Google Webmaster Tools I am given values like (6-10) for a ranking? When I used SEOMoz (Research Tools -> Keyword & Ranking -> Rank Tracker) it gives me an even less accurate range by simply saying >#50?Why is SEOMoz giving a completely useless metric? Why is its actual rank not shown? I know rankings are becoming less useful as a metric with Google moving toward personalized search but I still have reports to deliver to clients so the conversation of what metrics are going in the report is to be had another day. Right now I just want to get accurate rankings, from what I've found online Google Webmaster tools is recommended as the de-facto ranking tool but it doesn't provide accurate results so how can that be (yes I know it averages out the ranking but 6-10 is a range of values not a single value that represents an average) Dave
Moz Pro | | icanseeu0 -
SEOMOZ stopped counting local results as a rank?
I had a terrifying experience today upon receiving my weekly rankings report that stated I had dropped out of google for the majority of my keywords! However upon further inspection it would appear the report is not including local results in the ranking (my page shows up #1 but is a local result). This didn't happen before, did something change that I didn't know about?
Moz Pro | | r1200gsa0 -
Where can I find a list of all Page Authority Metrics?
Where can I find a list of all Page Authority Metrics? I'm looking for an exhaustive list of all link metrics that calculate Page Authority? Thanks
Moz Pro | | poolguy0 -
Can anyone edit their comments?
I've been unable to edit my comments here for about a week 😕 Just me or is it like this for everyone? Tried FF 4, Chrome, IE 9, Safari and iPhone Safari. Just get the loading icon. If it's just me I'll submit a bug report.
Moz Pro | | StalkerB0