New Service/Product SEO and rankings
-
Hello, fellow MOZers.
We are a web design company, and we had SEO as secondary service for years. Due to changes in the company we started pushing SEO as one of our main services about 6 monhs ago. We have separate page , targeting that service, as well as case studies, supportive information pages, even SEO Center, which is like a blog about SEO only. We are not using black hat SEO, doing honest link earning and building, don't use keyword stuffing, everything is by the book.
I understand that SEO takes time, especially for a company which has a footprint as web design company, not as SEO company. We are ranking very good for web design related keyphrases, however, we don't see any improvements for SEO related keywords. It always was and is between 25-30 SERP.
At the same time, competitors, who are ranking on first page for SEO related phrases are pretty bad looking. Design-wise as well as blackhat-SEO-wise. Everything is keyword stuffed, UX is horrible, prices are ridiculous.
So, do you guys have any thought/advise on how we can see results / why we are not seeing results.
Links:
Google search result: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=seo%20houston
Competitors: www.seohouston.com, www.graphicsbycindy.com
Our pages: https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com/seo-houston.php, https://www.hyperlinksmedia.com/seo-houston/
-
In my head, good UX results in good SEO. I think you need more copy for the user to talk about all of your great Houston SEO experiences, but that will also give more fodder for the bots to read and traverse.
Other things that come to my mind. Google search console is looking at your entire site. On your site as a whole, the word "houston" is mentioned a lot and the word "seo" is mentioned a lot and probably "houston SEO" happens a fair amount. But if that is the case, out of all the pages on your site, which one should Google rank for "Houston SEO"? What signals are you giving that are clear to the point of whacking a 2x4 over the head that "this" is the most important page on your site that relates to that key term. You may need to look at how you use keywords across the site. You may want to look at how you link internally and on what anchor text you use internally.
I know this is not the same example, but what comes to my mind is this WBF
https://moz.com/blog/why-good-unique-content-needs-to-die-whiteboard-friday
Rand states that if you really want to rank a page on something, your content has to be 10x better than everyone else's. It has to be that good to stand out to Google and users to rank in the SERPs.
Is your SEO houston page content 10x better compared to all the other pages on your site (and to your competitors' sites) as it relates to Houston SEO? The suggestions I gave on how to add more content related to Houston SEO to a specific page underscore that idea and in the process, it also adds some additional keywords on the page without it looking too spammy. Good for users good for Google.
The other aspect that not a lot of people talk about is how making the page "sticky" aka making it really useful, helps with SEO. Google tracks people clicking on a result and then coming back to the SERPS with the idea that if you stay longer on a page then it must be "better" and it helps with the rankings. (This is also why making sure your meta description is on point for conversion as you have to get people to click that result if you ever want a change to have them get to your site and stay a while). Adding all that additional "houston SEO" content on a page will hopefully cause the user to stay longer and improve your quality score with Google from the standpoint that Google should see people spending more time on your site before or if they click back. This is also why using bulleted lists and short paragraphs work. People skim. If they see a bunch of long text, they will leave quick as they do not want to process that info. Lists, bullet points, bolded highlights, pictures, I will hang around and glance through that for sure!
-
Thanks! I have noticed that we pretty much don't have the keyphrase on a page anywhere. Work is going to be done on that for sure.
Now, you are talking about UX, but what about crawlers? that's what defines your rankings, pretty much, isn't it? When i look at our Google master tools "content keywords", "seo" is number 1, "Houston" is number 2. Also, we have "seo houston" phrases in html elements like alt tags, metas, titles etc.
So, I do agree that there is no "seo houston" phrase for human eye, however, there should be plenty for crawlers. Does that matter? Am I thinking in right direction?
-
Howdy from Dallas!
For what it is worth, you have 2 pages that you want to rank for the key term, but which one? I took a quick first glance at them and here is what I saw (this was quick first glance remember).
On both of the pages you mention, you only have "Seo Houston" in the title and URL and don't mention it anywhere else on the page with the exception of having your Houston address in the footer. Just glancing at your pages with my human eyes, I cannot see anything on the page that talks about why you are the best SEO in houston.
Your pages, read to me (with a quick glance) that you offer great SEO services and have great SEO resources, but not for houston per se. You competitors do work SEO Houston into the text a lot to the point of being annoying, but at least I could see quickly that they service Houston.
I was thinking, it is a shame he does not have some case studies on that page that talk about what he did for some Houston businesses, that would be a good way to work Houston into the copy with our looking spammy. On second look of your SEO Houston page, I saw the links to the case studies. Now, if I want to see the case studies, you take me to another page, plus I cannot tell by reading the original page if these are Houston based businesses or not. You might be helping some business from New York City for all I know!
I then thought, lemme find out more about this guy, he is probably pretty good, and I go to the about us page. I see the item about the Houston Business Journal, and I think, that info should be on his SEO Houston page, a natural thing to talk about that can pull in the key phrase. I go back to your Houston SEO page a third time and then notice the H1 tag. I think I scrolled past it the first time as I looked at the graphics on the page and scanned.
I went back to writing this response and then looked at the page the fourth time and see, a-ha! SEO houston is in the copy 1x and among all the logos at the bottom there is a logo to the Houston Business Journal.
I hope this makes sense, as a user, I had to do a lot of work to see that you specialize in SEO in houston. I do not think you need to you do not need to H-Town, Hustle Town or Clutch City the heck out of your copy. You have all the elements, but I would say it needs a little more work to find a happy medium between what you have now and how your competitors use the term.
Check out the 5 second test at UsabilityHub http://fivesecondtest.com
If the user cannot tell in 5 seconds what you offer, then tweak the copy until they do without overkill. That would be my first step before any backlink analysis or speed testing etc. I think you have awesome stuff, it is just not hitting me as quickly when I first visit the page.
Good luck!
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
-
Never ending new links and our rank continues to plumet
HI everyone, I've been having an issue with a severe drop in rankings (#2 to #36ish). All of my technicals seem to be ok, however I seem to be getting my images hotlinked (which I have killed in nginx) from these spam like pages that pull and link to an image on my site, then link again with a " . " for the anchor. Even more strange is that these pages are titled and marked up with the same titles and target key words as my site. For example, I just got a link yesterday from a site leadoptimiser - d o tt- me which is IMO a junk site. The title of the page is the same as one of my pages, the page is pulling in images relevant to my page, however the image sources are repos EXCEPT for 2 images from my site which are hotlinked to my pages image and then an additional <a>.</a> link is placed to my website. I have gotten over 1500 of these links in the past few months from all different domains but the website (layout etc) is always the same. I have been slowly disavowing some of them, but do not want to screw up anything in case these links are already being discounted by G as spam and not affecting my rank. The community seems to be really split on the necessity of disavowing links like these. Because of these links, according to Ahrefs, my backlink profile is 38% anchor text of "." . Everything else checks out in my own review as well as Moz tools and Ahrefs with very high quality scores etc. Webmasters is fine, indexing is fine, pagespeed insights is in the 90's, ssl is A+. I've never had to deal with what seems to be an attack of this size. Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | plahpoy1 -
Redirecting 86'd Brand Product Category Page
What would be the approach if my website is no longer selling products for a brand that is driving top organic traffic? Where should I redirect the traffic on the page? I'm trying to decide between the homepage or another similar brand product page.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JMSCC0 -
Redirect from old domain to a new domain
Hi, assuming i have an old domain that i would like to redirect it to the new domain because the old domain contain good links on it and been ranking for its keywords. Would it be a wise choice? and can i redirect my sub domain into my new one too? for example website1.com/life > website2.com/life and how do i do so? can i do that by hosting the old domain in my new domain hosting and do all those redirect include sub domain redirect?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | andzon0 -
Which SEO companies offer Penalty analysis?
I'm having a hard time finding a (good) SEO company which specializes itself in Penalty analysis? Any recommendations? I only found Bruce Clay, but they charge 8,000$ :)...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wellnesswooz0 -
New domain or flagged domain?
New client had a domain get flagged by Google and disappear from search rankings. He left is old website company and wants us to design new site using the flagged domain. Are we better off using a new domain or try to resurrect the flagged domain?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Group20 -
Ranking in Multiple Geographic Locations
Hey Mozers, We are a Joomla Web Design firm located in Milwaukee Wisconsin, however, we serve clients all over the midwest (and US) (chicago, madison, minneapolis, etc) I'm curious what the best strategy for ranking in these new geographic areas? Originally I was thinking of creating geographic specific landing pages for each area, however, i'm scared it will hurt us with Google's recent penguin and panda 3.5 updates. Also, won't i need to link to these landing pages from our main website to get them indexed? What about creating mini websites on subdomains: (example) Chicago.SavvyPanda.com?? What are your ideas? Do you have clients who have successfully started ranking in multiple geographic cities/areas?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SavvyPanda0 -
How Is Your Approach Towards Adult SEO?
I would like to know how SEOMoz community members approach adult SEO. How do you approach a project when you get one (if you do it that is). If you dont do adult SEO, why do you not do it? Is it because it's much more difficult than normal SEO or do you not want to associate yourself with that industry?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ConversionChamp0 -
Using Canonical Tags to Boost Lead Form Ranking
I presently have a number of whitepapers that bring traffic to our site. If a visitor elects to download the whitepaper they are taken to a lead form with an abstract of the whitepaper. The abstract is present because the visitor may or may not have come to the lead form directly. I imagine this would be a "no no," but how do you feel about placing a canoncial tag on a whitepaper that points to the lead form w/ abstract? The obvious idea being to take the umph of a whitepaper to direction search visitors directly to the lead form.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | shoffy0