I'm struggling with ranking for a really important keyword!
-
I'm helping with SEO for a client who has a very old website, but is updated regularly and has lots of relevant content for the keywords i'm looking to rank for. For other keywords we are able to get to position #3 on Google, yet for this one - the name of the town the website is about - we rank on page 15 of Google. I haven't done anything differently between the two and I really can't see why we can't get there.
I've just done the monthly report for the client, and it's showing as being at position #1 for all of July - I checked during that month, and it wasn't. And then on 1st August it dropped to page 20 of Google. I understand slight fluctuations but this is pretty major.
Can anyone help?
-
Hi John,
It would be super helpful to the community if you can share the both the website you're referencing, as well as the exact keyword phrase you're trying to rank for. Also, please let us know if you're aiming for local or organic rankings. Without this information, I'm afraid we can only make random guesses, which aren't going to be helpful to your specific scenario.
-
Aren't we all lol!
Firstly I'd look at which websites rank higher than you. If it's websites such as Trip Advisor or Wikipedia etc, this can be difficult as they have such a trusted domain and many backlinks etc.
That is a major jump though. Is the website optimised for mobile? Google wants to present it's user with relevant content and a good user experience. So check if your Bounce Rate has increased over the past few months.
I've wrote a quick list of things I personally would check;
- Competition (Who is above you on Google)
- Bounce Rate
- Backlinks (you may have lost some with strong domain authority)
- Duplicate Content
- Over use of the search term
Be good to hear how you get on!
-
Hi John
What's the URL?
It's probably that the name of the town is in every title, some kind of duplication issue - let me see the site and I can tell you more.
Regards
Nigel
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
-
Rankings have dropped but why?
Recently our keywords have plummeted with regards to anything hen related on our stag and hen website. We were on the first page ranking 6<sup>th</sup> for terms such as Newcastle hen and hen weekend Newcastle. Now were around 15th this has also began to happen with other keywords. Content wise our pages score 90+ on page optimisation, we do have various keywords on the pages alike our competitors and use the highest searched for term as our page title. Our page speed is good on mobile and desktop. I’m struggling to see why we can’t seem to crawl back up to the first page when people who are outranking us have minimal content on slow sites. I know we lack back links but this can't be the only reason? Our website is hangoverweekends.co.uk
On-Page Optimization | | andy_simpson0 -
Should I optimize my home-page or a sub-page for my most important keyword
Quick question: When choosing the most important keyword set that I would like to rank for, would I be better off optimizing my homepage, or a sub page for this keyword. My thinking goes as follows: The homepage (IE www.mysite.com) naturally has more backlinks and thus a better Google Page Rank. However, there are certain things I could do to a subpage (IE www.mysite.com/green-widgets-los-angeles ) that I wouldn't want to do to the homepage, which might be more "optimal" overall. Option C, I suppose, would be to optimize both the homepage, and a single sub-page, which is seeming like a pretty good solution, but I have been told that having multiple pages optimized for the same keywords might "confuse" search engines. Would love any insight on this!
On-Page Optimization | | Jacob_A2 -
Multi Keyword URL Ranking at Number 1
Here is part of a URL that takes the local number 1 spot for "implant dentist glasgow" [website] /implant-dentistry-glasgow-scotland/implant-dentistry-glasgow-scotland.html The first /implant-dentistry-glasgow-scotland/ directory or page is protected and presumably just exists for ranking reasons. I am tempted to copy that URL on a client's implant page to compete for the keyword (I believe I have better content). Given that it works well for the other site, can you think of any reason that would that be a bad idea? Thanks very much.
On-Page Optimization | | neilmac0 -
Sudden drop in ranking for important keyword? No penalty / other issues detected
Hi For our site we previously ranked well for the term "botswana safari holidays" on the page: http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/destinations/africa-and-the-indian-ocean/botswana.aspx We've suddenly seen a dramatic drop for this term, currently ranked #43 on Google UK. There are no penalty notices in Webmaster tools and the only edits to the page recently have been to include the term "Botswana safari holidays" in the page title and the on-page h2 (previously Botswana safaris and holidays). Any suggestions why we have seen a large decrease for this term? We expect to see some fluctuation but this one seems a bit dramatic. We've not lost any backlinks to the page that we know of. Thanks for the help.
On-Page Optimization | | KateWaite0 -
Keywords to optimize
In the menu there's an item with a submenu with 4 items (pages) and another item with a submenu with almost the same pages with a litle bit different content. The problem is that one keyword can be applied and must be applied to the similar pages (the topic is very similar). I guess the number of keywords that we optimize is also important too. Optimizing minimun 8 keywords seems to me very hard. I' was told to optimize for a very low number of keywords but then we have the problem of redundancy. What should I do? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
New site not ranking for it's name
Performed on-page SEO for this new site that went live a couple of weeks ago - no link building or anything of that nature yet. http://maven-management.com I'm starting to see the site rank on Bing for some keyword phrases but it doesn't rank for the business name "Maven Management" on any major search engine. SEOMoz gives my on page optimization an A for the business name for the home page. Am I just being impatient? I didn't really put much effort into ranking for the business name because that generally seems to happen without any issue. There are other companies online with the same name. Any insight is appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | DenverKelly0 -
Page Rank Drop
Just trying to get more feedback - so we recently edited title and meta descriptions for existing website SEO and we've noticed in the past several weeks, our client's website has dropped out of the top 50 in a variety of terms we were targeting that they used to show up for (note: when updating SEO, we DID NOT remove any relevant terms we were targeting). When the website does come up in searches, it is the old meta description and title. So far, the feedback we've gotten is that first, it takes Google a few weeks to recrawl and index - however, we are now on week 3 after the changes and still no rebound in rankings. We were also told to check with the SEO Moz page grader to be sure the keywords were being optimized correctly - got As and Bs for the test terms I tried. We also submitted an XML site map to speed up the crawl process as another user suggested. We've tested the site with various tools to make sure there are redirect errors, etc. and everything looks fine. Again, it's now been 3+ weeks and no ranking rebound. Any other suggestions on what could be happening?
On-Page Optimization | | laidlawseo0 -
Apostrophes in keywords
It appears that SEOmoz tools like the On-Page Report Card treat keywords differently if they have apostrophes in. So for example childrens and children's are treated as different keywords. Is this a quirk of the On-Page Report Card or does Google treat them as separate keywords?
On-Page Optimization | | MulberrySqCraig0