Can't rank with certain keywords for the life of me

[cbielich]

I have a website http://www.freescrabbledictionary.com in which functions as a scrabble dictionary lookup and word finder for scrabble. There are many keywords that rank well for this niche but the main ones I target are

Scrabble Dictionary

Scrabble Cheat

Scrabble Word Finder

Scrabble Help

I used to rank well for all these keywords, I am 4th with scrabble dictionary currently but with the other 3 am no where near the top. On March 24th I dropped off the map for scrabble cheat, scrabble word finder and scrabble help. I actually dropped to 9/10th for scrabble dictionary on that date as well but since then I have been able to hold on steady to 4th.

I can't figure out why I can't rank for those other keywords anymore. Its almost like Google has penalized me for those keywords. I have contacted Google a few times to ask if I have any penalties and they have told me that I don't.

Even though in my backlinking I have targeted these keywords I can't seem to rank for them no matter what I do. The only idea I have come up with is that Google has re-associated those other 3 keywords in a group and separated scrabble dictionary on its own.

I have other sites I have created in the same niche and I have noticed if the URL contains "word", "Finder" and/or "cheat" I can rank in the 3 keywords within about a week all the way up to the second page. My main site FSD has the highest DA and PA compared to my other sites. Any idea why I can't seem to rank for those other 3 keywords anymore?

[cbielich]

Thanks for using my site also I have always had a hard time with "content" because no one uses my site for content, they use them for my forms (just like you :)) I consider myself a "tools" based website.

The way I figured was that people care more about my form than anything else, so putting that form on every page will make it easier for users to get what they need. That was my reason for adding the form to almost every page.

Fluff? Yeah totally fluff lol - Good ideas I will make some of those changes

Call to action - with trying to keep a form on every page could I make the call to action scroll down and place the form at the bottom of the page? or you think just have one main page with the form?

[TheeDigital]

I agree with Mat that the more content the better.  Also be sure to use common scrabble cheating words and cheating methods.  Remember that Google is crawling all of your website and that the more keywords it picks up the better.
Also  I notice that your website has a Google+ button on the bottom of your page, why not create a Facebook community around scrabble?  Many people love this game and being able to share high scores and scrabble game stories might prove to be beneficial for many users?

[matbennett]

Hi Cesar - I've actually used your site in the past! That's cool.

That date sounds suspiciously like you were hit with by the Panda. Panda is a Google update that mostly targeted 'thin' content - it was updated on the 23rd.  If you ever get a sudden drop in rankings like that it is always good to check http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change which lists when updates happen.  That is fast becoming the page I link to most frequently in Q&A answers!

So - why might they think you have thin content? I'll look quickly at 2 pages: http://www.freescrabbledictionary.com/ - ranking for scrabble dictionary & http://www.freescrabbledictionary.com/scrabble-cheat/ - presumably the one that has dropped for scrabble cheat.

OK, the two pages have a few paragraphs of unique content, but it is really what I would call "fluff" - it doesn't really serve any purpose other than to tell the search engines that you wish to rank for that page. That is not an accusation - I've written plenty of fluff myself. Just telling it how it is. This text is also quite a way down the page which indicates that it isn't the most important.

The "meat" of the page is the form. This is identical on both pages. So really we really have 2 pages that are only really different in terms of the fluff. That is textbook for the sort of thing that Panda hit.

How to fix it then?

I'd consider actually providing information that is more relevant to the search "scrabble cheat". List common cheat methods (and how to spot them) plus a big call to action pointing back to the main search tool. At first glance I can't see any need to replicate that form on every page.

Your scrabble helper page is actually following roughly this process - although I would make the link back to the main tool much more obvious. However the on page optimisation isn't great on that one - tweak that up and get some people to link to it and I'd imagine that could help quite a bit.

Good luck with it.