Ranking problems in top 3 need some advice from the PROs
-
HI there,
im new to this forum but im doing SEO quite a while. I lost touch with the whole SEO community while building my business's so I said i better get back in touch before I lose my most valued skill.
I set up a gift website 3 months before xmas. We decided to focus on the following keywords starting out, gifts, gift ideas, gifts for him, gifts for her and christmas gifts.
We have managed to rank No.1 for gift ideas, No.2 for gifts.
For "christmas gifts" we could not get it onto the first page, it was hanging around the 12 and 13 spot for weeks, so we decided to stop linking to the page with anchor text "christmas gifts" and use related keywords, the result, we shot to NO.1 within 2 weeks.
I now have the same problem with "gifts for him" and "gifts for her" except, i have tried everything but we are still hanging around 4-6 spot on page one, I cant get them into the top 3 and cant understand it. Ive done the following to try give it a boost.
- Increase the variation of the anchor text
- Decrease the amount of keywords in title tag
- Link to it from high PR pages
Im really lost and its really bugging me the fact all the other keywords are ranking so well. The only thing I can think of from my research and perhaps someone might be able to give me some advice on this (Backed up by past results) is we have not once linked to this page with the actual URL, 100% of the links are varied anchor text. Would perhaps linking with the plain old URL help it, its really bugging me as we did so well with everything else using 90% white hat, 10% grey hat seo. Please help. Thanks
Also, we have not done any social media linking to it.
-
Just to clarify the tool I'm talking about in my response, I'm thinking of something like this:
Having a hard time choosing a gift for that special someone? Enter some details to find great gift ideas now!
[input 1 + interests] = card games, mountain biking, skiing, scrapbooking
[input 2 + marital status] = married, has kids
[input 3 + sex] = female
[input 4 + age] = 35
[input 5 + location] = dallas, tx
[output 1] = winter scarf, coat, word teaser origins, etc. (top 10 list maybe?)
We're talking about a lot of work, of course. Although most of it could be outsourced on the cheap to data entry people. This is just something off the top of my head, so you might refine it a bit. Just thinking of an idea to increase time on site, upsell, and create something useful above and beyond simply promoting products. To cut down on development time, I'd make visitors choose interests rather than letting them enter them in a field. Simply start a tag system matching certain combinations to gifts algorithmically. It doesn't have to be all-inclusive at first, as long as it functions. You can always add new interests and gifts as time goes on, and can see if it even works for you before going all-in.
Mike
-
Hey dean1986,
Just like EGOL said, well done on your success so far! You've really done some great things for your client.
I'm a bit confused about your question though. Just looking at the links you have, you're getting a ton of links with your domain (or variations) as your anchor text as it is -- far more than I see with specific anchor text you mentioned. I think it's important to remember that you can't point everything at your home page - with a site like this, I usually choose a few powerful pages to optimize for single keyword phrases, then make sure the inner-linking points to the home page using the anchor text as well.
I'm kind of shocked that you haven't implemented some form of a social media presence, although I see you have developed an app. I think the strategy that will put you over the top is viral content outreach and distribution (like infographics and buyer's guides). Social media signals are only becoming more of a significant metric in SEO, so that should be a priority this year.
The only competitor you have that concerns me is gifts.com, which may be impossible to beat, like EGOL suggests. Their authority and exact match domain is going to be a very tough beat for "gifts." I'd go as far as to say that the investment required to compete with gifts.com isn't even worth it at this point.
I'm 100% on-board with your idea to reduce keywords in the title tags to give your site a boost, by the way.
I've been in your position before, although in slightly different industries. The strategies we always used to get past the keyword plateau have been to focus on the other metrics that are going to build your authority. Think of ways to improve time visitors spend on your site, reduce bounce rate, and increase pages per visit.
Maybe some sort of tool that helps keep people on your site - like a tool that helps them choose gifts for friends and family based on specific character traits. Maybe add some surveys about the "weirdest gift you've ever bought for someone." This might be a way to fit some relevancy for gifts for him and gifts for her, within the tool. I would suspect that a well done tool like that would draw some lovely organic links.
On a final note, consider adding some more content to the site - not just on the blog. I like your Top 10 section, but it's too small. Adding some dense content can give people something more to link to. Right now you get a ton of links from other ecommerce sites and promotional content from blogs, but you don't get all that many referential links that help build your site's authority (I like to call these "citation links" -- ex. According to this site on [unique gift ideas], gifts are awesome.
You're doing well in social media already, but treat any further campaigns as a way to get people excited about your site. I have a feeling that spending some time catering to the real people rather than the robots that visit your site is what you need to meet your next goals.
Hope this is helpful.
Mike
-
Point taken, but.... ive made no.1 & 2 with the others that are more competitive, thats the annoying part, Thanks though
-
I need some inspiration too... I hold a #2 where I will probably never get #1... and a #3 that I have been working to move up for a couple years - but I am workin' every day. I'll get them eventually.
-
There are only 3 main competitors and there SEO campign is next to none, they are there because they started a website a few years back and google had to rank something.
Dont get me wrong, they have done a great job developing their business but they simple do not do any SEO marketing what so ever. If i was able to push them down the page in the keywords that are harder to rank for why cant i do it to the less competitive ones.
I now there is a flaw in my campaign/thinking and i am just looking for some inspiration here.
-
I set up a gift website 3 months before xmas.
I cant get them into the top 3 and cant understand it. Ive done the following to try give it a boost.
Consider two things.
-
You started a few months ago but your competitors have been fortifying their positions for several years - or more.
-
Moving up the rankings from position 6, to position 5, to position 4, to position 3, to position 2, to position 1.... is not an exercise like picking petals from a daisy. The guy who currently holds each of those position has teh ability to fight back.
My two cents on your story is that you have done a great job so far... congratulations! But you have not earned the remaining positions that you desire yet.... and maybe you never will depending upon who currently has them or who is going to appear out of the blue tomorrow. The most dangerous competitor is the one who has yet to arrive.
-
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
-
We're looking at providing SEO for a website that has the majority of its incoming links from websites created solely to provide links. Few have bad spam rankings. How worried should I be about those links?
The majority of incoming links to a prospect's website are from website pages apparently created solely to provide links to the website. Few have high spam scores. The sites linking to the main site have versions of blogs with linked text. They seem to be providing positive SEO value now, but I'm concerned they might get noticed and hurt the main site in the future.
Link Building | | PKI_Niles1 -
Rankings Dropped After New Backlinks.
I have a low-traffic website (under 100 unique visitors per day) and I've encountered a strange issue started yesterday morning. I acquired three back-links, one of these back-links is contextual and the other two are site-wide. The site-wide back-links are from PA 40+ blogs. It looks like the back-links are already indexed by Google. Despite these new back-links, my rankings across multiple keywords have dropped several positions. I'm new to SEO, but I would assume new back-links would improve my rankings. None of these back-links are low quality links, they are from real established blogs with high domain and page authority values. Could anyone give me insights into why my rankings may have dropped with new back-links?
Link Building | | poke11 -
How to Improve my Website Rankings
Hi, One of our client named Exclusive Limousine has been ranking in second page for a while in Google Australia for the keyword "Limo Hire Melbourne". Earlier, this website is handled by other SEO company who created more spammy links from irrelevant sites. I have used google disavow option to remove the urls. But, the ranking still remains the same. Though, we tried different approach nothing works. what steps can i take to improve the rankings. Please assist me in fixing this issue.
Link Building | | jkovalan0 -
Is it possible to get high page rank without backlinks?
Today while looking for expired domains i found many high pr domains, checked for fake pr found they are valid but there were zero backlinks pointing to them.Is this possible?
Link Building | | IndiaFPS1 -
Blacklist IP on Barracuda hurt your Rankings?
Hey Everyone, I was wondering, I ran a website IP address on http://mxtoolbox.com/ and the website was on the blacklist on only one place that is on BARRACUDA. **Also the website other than that the site is clean. ** Domain clean by Google Safe Browsing: Domain clean by Norton Safe Web: Domain clean on Phish tank: Domain clean on the Opera browser: Domain clean by SiteAdvisor: Domain clean by the Sucuri Malware Labs blacklist: Domain clean on Yandex (via Sophos): Domain clean by ESET: So I have 2 questions. The site in question is a Classifieds Ad Website
Link Building | | EVERWORLD.ENTERTAIMENT
1. Does your ranking get affected if you are associated with a website who is linked to you and is on the blacklist for spam only on Barracuda?
**2. If a website has a bad rating on WOT or WEBUTATION. Does that also hurt your ranking? ** Your help is appreciated. Thanks.0 -
Penguin 2.0 Loss of rankings
Hi all, My website http://www.tomlondonmagic.com has been hit hard by penguin. I was rank 1 for magician london, magician in london, magicians in london and now am ranking around 3-4 😞 I need to recover fast, anyone have any idea how to do this, what strategy to employ. It would be much appreciated as I have never been hit by an update so not sure on how to recover from one. Thanks!
Link Building | | TomLondon1 -
Build links to home page or internal to rank internal pages?
I understand that naturally people link to the home page and internal pages - probably the home page more often than not. In order to build a natural looking link profile I also understand that I need a variety of anchor text, brand and url links. Should I be building links mainly to the home page with only a few to internal pages? Ultimately I want my internal pages to rank for specific terms so in my head it makes sense to concentrate my link building effort to internal pages but that would seem unnatural to google I'm sure. For arguments sake if I only built links to the home page with a mix of the anchor texts described above would these internal pages rank eventually anyway as 'link juice' flows throughout the site? Or is it an absolute must to build some links to internal pages. Could a page rank for a keyword without having any links to the site with the keyword anchor text (simply url links) based on the page title/content? Also what is a good ratio of home page to internal links? I would assume around 10:1? A lot of questions I know but I'm confused as to what will be the best strategy.
Link Building | | SamCUK0 -
Link Building Strategy Advice
Hi, I was wondering what everyone's general strategy is for link building. We're doing it all ourselves manually (i.e. not paying $5 for 100,000 links) and are using the Site Explorer tool to find links to competitors and related websites. The majority of sites are blogs and directories which ask for payment ($50 per month for example). We're obviously looking for free links as well but we're finding that pretty much every site wants something in return (cash or reciprocal link) - unless the content is amazing, why would anyone link to another site without an incentive? We're focussing heavily on content and writing articles, blogs, press releases every week but the subject matter isn't always exciting enough for someone to really want to link to it naturally. Thoughts?
Link Building | | AndyMediaLounge0