My Recent Drop from the first page

[Scott-Jones]

Hello, I have a website design operation in Akron, Ohio. I have been ranking on the first page for the last year or so. Just recently (within the last 5 -6 weeks) I have fell back to page 2 on google. I have changed up my content a little bit on my home page, adding more references to the "Web Design Akron Ohio" keyword. I have looked at the sites ahead of me and I noticed that most of the highest ranking sites are using Meta-Keywords, which moz suggest not to. I added Meta-Keywords about 10 days ago just testing if there would be any ranking change and so far no change at all.

Would someone be kind enough to look at my site and throw out some suggestions of what I might do to get back to the first page?

I'm trying to rank for "web design akron ohio" and my URL is http://www.uswebproducts.com

Any help would be appreciated.

[evolvingSEO]

1. For increasing Domain Authority, as mentioned in my other answer this is about gaining just a few really good quality links from highly trafficked and trusted sources. This can be done more proactively through maybe outreach or trying to get a story about you done somewhere, or land an interview etc. Or it can be done more passively through exceptional content, or an exceptional brand and you will gain links as a result.

2. Outbound links don't really carry weight in the sense of authority being given to your site the way an inbound link does. Having outbound links on your site may help to a small degree with perhaps your trustworthiness in Google's eyes though.

3. That is correct.

[evolvingSEO]

Hi Scott

I don't think further on-page tweaking for keywords is the best approach to be visible again for "web design akron ohio" as Google already "knows" this is what the site is about, and you will probably not boost ranking there by small tweaks to keywords on-site.

We know Google knows the site is about this by plugging in your domain to the AdWords keyword suggestion tool --> http://screencast.com/t/rZ0E74GVjeY

I think a combination of perhaps these three things;

1. Local SEO
2. Links
3. Social

Local SEO

For local SEO, make sure your local listings, citations, reviews etc are all complete, updated, current etc. Use https://getlisted.org/ or something like Whitespark's local citation finder/builder to help you there.

Links

I find for small/local business you don't need a lot of links, but you might need a few high quality and recent links to help get you back where you need to be. High quality means, editorially chosen/placed within the body of content - linked to probably with brand anchor text and in a good context about your business. This might mean a story in a local news site, or a good mention in a higher authority blog - check this out for some ideas: http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies

You don't have an over-optimized link profile from an anchor text perspective at the moment, so that's good - keep the links as natural as possible.

Social

What I mean here is build the authority / relevance of your business in one or maybe two social networks and make sure to clearly associate your profile with your domain.

In your industry, you'd probably want to get really good with maybe Twitter, Google Plus or even Pinterest (where you can share nice visual/design content) - and make sure you link to/from the profile and your domain. In the case of Google Plus, use rel author and rel publisher.

-Dan

[Scott-Jones]

I have looked in the Google Webmaster Tools and there are no errors or flags. I did check the backlinks with my site as well as some competitors and I noticed my Domain Authority is pretty low (27). I have viewed the video about Domain Authority and I have also read some blog post. It does not sound like anything I do will have an overnight effect on my domain.

1. Is there any factor within the scope of increasing Domain Authority that I should focus on more so than any other?

2. How much weight does an outbound link carry?

3. I'm under the impression that an inbound link will have more of an effect on my SERP than an outbound link, is this true?

Thank you for your input!

[artdivision]

So the penalty was revoked and in one day you were On page one. Never seen this happening in my life tbh or read it anywhere normally people wait for an update. Could be wrong here but I doubt it.

Anyways, in regards to our friend here I will insist to my original response, if he has no manual penalty notification a URL with a web site could be handy

[FedeEinhorn]

I'm afraid you are wrong Yiannis, my own Website had a manual penalty for over 1 year and as it was a "partial-match" it only affected "some" of its ability to rank, so instead of being in the 1st spot we were on page 2 position 11 - 15 for the whole year. 2 weeks ago the penalty was revoked and the very next day we found ourselves back in the 1st page. It will take some time until reaching a good rank following Google's guidelines from now on, but it is the only way.

[artdivision]

Hello Scott,

As Federico pointed out MEta Keywords wont help much. On the other hand I do not think that manual action has anything to do with it as you wouldn't be on page 2 if you were penalised. Maybe your competitors built more content or link.

I am in no position to assist further unless I can have a look at your web site and the back link profile.

Hope this help

[FedeEinhorn]

Hey Scott,

Have you checked GWT for any manual action notice?

About the keyword meta, it is completely useless, Google doesn't use it at all, you can remove that safely, the ranking drop has nothing to do with it.

Did you run some backlink reports on your competitors? (to see if they have higher authority than yours, more backlinks, etc.).