Best Metrics but Consistently Outranked
-
I am hoping someone could help us determine why we generally rank quite poorly compared to our competition, despite leading in every single Competitive Metric. We get outranked on a term where the Page Grade gives us an "A", and we best the competitor on each of the metrics. Where would those with more experience suggest we start looking?
-
**I was under the impression that the tools here were designed to help alleviate some of manual labor. **
In my opinion, the tools on Moz are best suited to monitoring your progress and giving you objective assessments. They are not going to move you up the SERPs.
Moving your site up the SERPs takes effort from the webmaster (or whoever is hired to do that work). That effort is all about making a better website. There is a lot of valuable information on Moz to guide you with that work. Most of that information is free.
-
It sounds like you are looking at a product page, where several different products or different types of products are displayed in a grid.
Those types of pages can be optimized for the query. That might be enough to raise their rankings in weak competition, but if you are in strong competition their overall rankings are usually determined more by the strength of the domain and its populartiy rather than by the optimization of the page.
I would work to produce great content about these products that is excellent enough that people will share it, link to it, talk about it in other parts of the web. If you can achive that, links from those content pages into the product grid pages can deliver traffic and transfer power that can help these grid product pages to higher rankings.
If these product pages have very little text now, higher rankings might be obtained from increasing the amount of text on them. However, on-page improvments will only have a major impact if you are up against easy competition. When you are in intense competition, those pages will either need to be on a powerful domain or have links or other off-site support to move them up the rankings. These can be dangerous to acquire because google is becoming better and better at identifying contrived links.
-
I understand. It seems like a newbie question, and while I am not an expert by any stretch, this is my 2nd time as a paying MOZ member, and I'm really hoping this time we are able to make some progress. My example is there is a specific keyword phrase that we are trying to rank well for, and our page grade is an A, We outrank on metrics. We are on the 4th page of Google for this keyword phrase. Our competition ranks one or two. We should rank on the 1st page based on our position in industry, age of domain, site quality, etc.
Exactly like those results at the top of the SERPS, we list a page of products, in a modern, responsive Magento grid. There are 4 products per row. We have a description of the category. There are many pages like this, and I am trying to figure out which tools in MOZ can help me find the issue. I have tried to see if we are suffering a penalty. Spam score of 1/17.
I sense a bit of frustration in your response in that I was too quick to ask for help, but I have spent time in the SERP's, and I'm just not coming up with much. This is a site-wide issue. Generally poor ranking against competitors, with very little obvious difference in the quality of our site or results.
Is that the best it gets? Look at SERPS and metrics over and over? I was under the impression that the tools here were designed to help alleviate some of manual labor.
-
** Where would those with more experience suggest we start looking?**
Honestly, I would stop looking at metrics and start looking at ways to make your website better answer the query and better deliver what your visitors are seeking.
The metrics give no information on how to improve your rankings. They are simply a guess at where you would rank using data that is different from what google uses. Sometimes a good guess, sometimes a bad guess. Go out in the SERPs and look at the rankings and look at the metrics. Do that over and over. Make up your own mind how good they are at predicting rankings. Watch Q&A and see how many people come in here asking the same question that you asked.
If you want to improve your rankings, begin by looking at your title tag, be sure it is description of your page and what your visitor really wants for that query. Then look at your page and see if it delivers excellent information to answer the query - and lives up to your title tag. If it is not the best at answering the query - clearly, completely, easy to understand, and well-illustrated, then put your work into that job.
You probably know better what answers the query than any information that metrics will provide.
After that, some things will be beyond your control. A big popular site like amazon or wikipedia is going to win all ties, all close races and a lot that you will never understand.
If you have a small or a newer site that has not become popular, then time and promotion will be needed to become competitive with similar-quality content on stronger, more established and popular domains.
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
-
I have a new website and would like to use the keywords my competitors are using and was wondering the best way to take a look using Moz Pro?
The website is www.fapwrap.com - it's a new adult wall decals website. [editor's note: may not be safe for some workplaces] The wall decals we have are obviously a bit more niche than the bigger competitors, but I want to get into the first page to see how it helps us. I'm slowly taking over some kws like "xbox wraps" and "ps4 wraps" but those have low search volume and I feel like "wall decals" will help - though it's highly competitive. Suggestions? I just kinda want to plug in my competition and pick from their list of existing kws..... Ha.
Moz Pro | | JohnnyRoq0 -
What's the best tool to use to compare competirors
A client of ours has asked us to compare their search rankings to competitors. What's the best tool to use in SEOMoz to do this?
Moz Pro | | BillyBobGriffin0 -
Can I setup SEOmoz PRO's 3 organic traffic metrics within Google Analytics (as custom reports)?
I like the 3 organic traffic metrics in SEOmoz PRO: 1) Organic Search Visits
Moz Pro | | AndreVanKets
2) URLs Receiving Entrances Via Search
3) Non-Paid Keywords Sending Search Visits They rock - especially for a high-level view of SEO / Organic performance. Is it possible to setup these metrics as custom reports directly in Analytics? Does anyone have these reports setup? Or maybe there are similar custom reports that give a similar high-level view?0 -
What is the best Dev company to use to make a white label SEO Dashboard
If anyone knows of a design someone has built, or if you know of one that we can purchase and customize ourselves that would be an option too. I am looking to have a company build us a white label SEO dashboard that integrates SEOMOZ api and SEMRUSH api. I also like majesticSEO api for the lost links only, the rest of majesticSEO I don't really care about I like SEOMOZ much better hence why I am here. I need the following 1. Someone to be able to login and add their logo if they are a reseller company of our services, so we can offer white label solutions to them. 2. I need to have an admin section where we can upload backlinks. The admin section should do the minimum 2.1 Allow us to select a website, select a link type, and upload the backlinks. It should extract specific columns from a CSV and upload them into the desired website/link area like a guest post or a social bookmark etc.. 3. We need graphs and all of the fancy looks for others to look at.. 4. We want to make sure that someone can download the report to their desktop in a doc, excel, or pdf form. Extras Automatic rank checking like IBP or Jonathen Ledgers new software etc.. If not I will just continue to use IBP it's not a big deal.
Moz Pro | | MarketingOfAmerica0 -
Reliable Social Metrics Tool
Hi, Does anyone know of a reliable social metrics tool? So far I've tried Open Site Explorer, Tom Anthony's tools and SEO Quake With each one of them I get very, very different numbers. Cheers, Carlos
Moz Pro | | Carlos-R1 -
Where can I find a list of all Page Authority Metrics?
Where can I find a list of all Page Authority Metrics? I'm looking for an exhaustive list of all link metrics that calculate Page Authority? Thanks
Moz Pro | | poolguy0 -
What's the best research tool for measuring blogger outreach success?
I'm looking for the best MOZ Pro research tool to track the success of our fledgling blogger outreach/link building efforts. Should we use Open Site Explorer's "Full List of Link Metrics", or is there something better or more granular for counting and analyzing inbound blog links? Thanks!
Moz Pro | | MJOshea0