Top 10 keywords is still going strong but the rest just got smashed!
-
Hi SEOMOZ and it's USERs,
Been trying to find my answer online but now after three weeks of reading blogposts I'm going to try this.
My website was ranking really good on 10 important keywords but not so good on the long tail, between 11 - 50 on maybe 30 different other, not so important keywords.
So I began doing some work (I'm a newbie) but this is what I did:
1. Changed top navigation structure to get 4 other pages (w/ keywords as links) in it. (used a dropdown)
2. Wrote plenty of text that was a good fit for the page. (The text is OK and not to spammy looking.)
3. Added three links from high quality sites with keywords as links to these pages. I added them from my own site that is on the same server, same IP.I know, not looking so good.
4. Changed URL structure on a couple of pages to get a keyword in it. (did a correct 301)
5. Changed to better Titles and headings on the page. Keywords in them both but not the same.The result:
1. My 10 most important keywords I began ranking even better. I rank no. 1 on 9 out of 10.
2. Almost all the other pages went from ranking ~ 15 - 50 to not > 50.It has now been 4 weeks since I did most of the changes and 3 weeks since all the pages was hit > 50.
So now I'm thinking about what to do?
1. Should I clean up my text, titles so they don't look to over optimized?
2. Should I remove my links from my own pages? (my link profile in general is actually pretty good.)
3. or should I just wait? Because changing more will just indicate to Google that somehing fishy is going on?
In the beginning I hoped that Google killed my rankings just because of the big changes. But now after 3 weeks I'm more sceptical and thinks I've been hit by a over-optimizing filter.
According to webmaster tools I've not been hit by a manually penalty.
Please, help me. I would really appreciate all ideas from people here with more experience.
-
So it sounds to me that you really just need to focus on the SEO basics, don't do things that you know you're not supposed to do just to try to speed things up (like building a bad link profile) and focus on understanding who your audience is so you can create content that's better than "not too spammy". Remember, doing SEO stuff without a high regard to its correctness or its adherence to Google's webmaster guidelines gets a lot of newbies in trouble.
-
ok. Thanks for clarifying.
Of my top 10 important keywords that I rank no. 1, 7 of them are to my home page and 3 to other pages on my site.
-
By the second point, I meant: is it only your home page that ranks well (for all of those 10 high-ranking terms), or are any of your internal pages also ranking well?
-
Hi Chris,
Thanks for taking the time to get back.-
The pages were a couple of years old. But because of no On-page optimization they weren't ranking as good as I wanted them too.
If I look at my competitors, the top 10 pages are much worse in quality then mine. (Ok, I'm not unbiased)
-
Not sure if I understand this question. The important keywords that I rank really on are mostly ranking my homepage/front-page. But there are a few sub-pages that are ranking well on a couple of important keywords too.
-
According to SEOMOZ Keyword difficulty tool they are all about the same in difficulty. Between 30 - 40 %.
-
-
Eskil,
A couple of things I didn't get from your question that could help in providing an answer:
- How old were the pages that were not ranking as high as you think they should when you made the changes you described in your question?
- Are the keywords that are ranking well on pages besides the homepage?
- How competitive are the terms you are ranking well for and how competitive are the ones you are not ranking well for?
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
-
URL Indexing with Keyword
Hi, My webpage url is indexed in Google but don't show when searching the Main Keyword. How can i index it with keyword. It should show on any SERP when the keyword is searched. Any suggestions.
Technical SEO | | green.h1 -
Page has Noindex, nofollow, still ranks #1
Hi there, I have a question about a few pages on our site, whom has a no index, nofollow meta tag but they are still indexed and even rank number one in our market for the term. How is that possible or is it that Google just ignores the tags when they think it´s an error from our side? The url is www.drogisterij.net/kilo_killer and the keyword is kilo killer. We rank number 1 if you search from Google.nl Anyone have seen it before and know why this might be? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | JaapWillemDrogisterij0 -
Varicose Veins Just Not Ranking
Buonjourno from 6 degrees C damn cold wetherby UK 🙂 This page http://www.varicoseveinsurgery.com/varicose-veins/what-are-they/ has remained stubbornly out of the Google rankings for target term "Varicose Veins" Heres what Ive done so far:
Technical SEO | | Nightwing
1. Made sure the HTML is optimised for the target term
2. Linked from the home page via a scrolling footer Now i'm not looking for a page 1 result but I'm curious to know why the term hasnt even touched the unexplored backwaters of even page 3. p.s If there is a canonical problem please tell me how you diagnosed that 🙂 Thanks in advance, David NB - Just spotted this page can be access via 2 different URLS (Uppercase W being the difference) http://www.varicoseveinsurgery.com/varicose-veins/what-are-they/
http://www.varicoseveinsurgery.com/varicose-veins/What-are-they/0 -
Panda Victim still looking for recovery looking for help
I am an internet retailer hit by Panda and have made many changes to my site since first being hit on feb 2011. I had a slight recovery last september but have since slipped back again. I have scoured the internet for panda recoveries for internet retailers like me but I have not seen any. If anyone knows of recoveries of a site like mine (wackyplanet.com) -- we are on a yahoo store platform I would aappreciate any info as I am looking for an SEO who has experience with Panda as it relates to sites like mine.
Technical SEO | | bobforesi0 -
Sub-domains for keyword targeting? (specific example question)
Hey everyone, I have a question I believe is interesting and may help others as well. Our competitor heavily (over 100-200) uses sub-domains to rank in the search engines... and is doing quite well. What's strange, however, is that all of these sub-domains are just archives -- they're 100% duplicate content! An example can be seen here where they just have a bunch of relevant posts archived with excerpts. How is this ranking so well? Many of them are top 5 for keywords in the 100k+ range. In fact their #1 source of traffic is SEO for many of the pages. As an added question: is this effective if you were to actually have a quality/non-duplicate page? Thanks! Loving this community.
Technical SEO | | naturalsociety0 -
Use target keyword on several page titles or homepage only?
If I want my homepage to rank for a keyword (ie "red widgets"), does it support or dilute the homepage's rank if I use the keyword on other pages? I can see it working either way: The search engine looks at your site, sees that the target keyword is used throughout the site, and ranks the site higher as a result. Using the keyword on several pages makes it so none of them stand out, and ultimately it's harder to rank highly. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | Kyle_M0 -
Hyphens in keywords
Anyone know if hyphens affect the SEO value of keywords? So is: Sandwich-making course Worse than: Sandwich making course I'm talking about in titles and body text. I already know that too many hyphens is a bad idea in URLs and domain names.
Technical SEO | | JacobFunnell0 -
Still no pagerank after 1 year
i am workin on a site www.progazon.ca, it's been up for almost a year now 11 months and still no pagerank. Is there something i can do. does it change something. thx
Technical SEO | | martinLachapelle0