Theme influence in your SERP
-
Hello SeoMoz community.
I'm a new member here and i took the 30 day trial to test out your tools and to check if i find a need to them.
I've a situation that is bugging my mind for a few days and i wish i had more data to have more accurate information. I have a website that stayed on first in my SERP for a competitive term. I did it with a very few links because i focused a lot on the UX (mostly on site performance & layout) and the outcome was a good usability for my site. Since the latest panda my site dropped from first to fifth and then came the Google dance between 5th and the 15th position. Then i decided to change the theme because i saw loads of problems like the page titles, i fixed loads of 301's and 404's, gave it a more clean UX, removed some ads and fixed some of the url's making them shorter and more accrued. This stopped the Google dance completely! And now the site is on the 10th position.
I'm not complaining about the positions or panda updates or whatever happened. I just would like some comments on this situation. And i would like to ask if a theme update making the site better (better is a very complicated word in the SEO world know) can give negative feedback to the search engines?
Thank you.
-
I always try to improve my designs for the users because i like to do it this way. It poses a more complicated challenge. The performance it's now my top 1 priority (Since mobile traffic came along. Damn 3g you're slow!). Guess i've to spend some time on the link building but i will try to avoid it if i can.
Thanks for the info guys
-
Your Question in particular is that does the theme update will make the site better? There is YES and there is NO at the same time...
YES! If you are changing the theme which is better in terms of design, load, user experience and more then yes it is correct that changing or updating a theme will give more value to website which will result in better SERPs...
NO! If you update the theme focusing on something which is shitty for instance your new theme contain more time to get load, the code is heavy and is less usability then chances are that you may lose your website rankings...
Remember at some point where on-page stabilizes the website’s position some good link building can give a positive jump in Google SERPs.
Hope this helps!
-
Hi Luis,
Do you know the latest full form of seo ? After latest Google update, it is search experience optimization not search engine optimization. If your latest theme makes site better for your visitor then search engine also going to like it, nothing negative in it.
Quote from Google webmaster Guideline:
Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit. Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.
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
-
What would the US traffic increase be for a website YoY if all Google SERP rankings remained the same?
This question has come up a few times with some of our clients and I've spent some time researching this question, but I can't find an answer online so hopefully, someone at MOZ has this data available to them with all the data they collect. The data points that would be needed to answer this question off the top of my head: Increase in the # of Google Searches in the US YoY The decrease in CTR for organic results "10 blue links" which take a searcher off of Google YoY, as Google continues to keep more searchers on Google.com with rich snippets, increased AdWords prominence, AdWords extensions, etc I'm sure this greatly varies per industry, but an average for all industries is all that is needed to answer this client question. Many thanks in advance and I've included a video which hopefully helps to better explain the search "plus/minus" that we can expect to see as SEOs in 2018. WF1yLlJC6LetnpbD3
Search Behavior | | WebpageFX1 -
Local SERPs Question - Phone Call or Click?
I have a client who recently experienced a boost in local organic rankings. They were appearing towards the bottom of the local (maps) results (with their phone number & address listed) for their main target keywords. After this ranking boost, they are now positioned higher in the SERPs, in the traditional organic section. It seems as though this boost in rankings has actually caused a slight DECREASE in organic search traffic to their website. My theory is that when they were listed in the Google+ Local section of Google, some people must have been calling directly from the SERPs instead of actually clicking through to their website. Due to the issues involved with organic call tracking, it's obviously difficult to measure the actual impact of strong Google+ Local rankings. So, I'm on a mission to find some reliable data on this. For my own peace of mind and that of my client. Does anybody know of any research conducted that analyses the % of local searches that result in a phone call directly from the local SERPs without actually clicking through to a business' website or Google+ page? In know this is a tricky one (and probably harder to ascertain on desktop than mobile) but any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Search Behavior | | Dave_Eddy0 -
Do sever errors affect SERPS
hoping someone can help VPS has been causing me 10 days of server errors (im now moving off it) as my wordpress site has kept running out of memory. At the same time my traffic had dropped. Could google and bing be penalising me for number of errors, dropping me in SERPS and resulting in web traffic?
Search Behavior | | mutant20080 -
Any Good Study on the Effects of CTR on Keyword Capitalization in SERP Description
Hey Guys I am wondering if any of you have done any study or testing on this ( or perhaps you might have come across one at some point in your career ) Personally I feel that while adding a description , it makes sense to Capitalize the Keywords and other words ( first letter only ) that I want to emphasise on ( perhaps stuff like Buy, High Quality, Best, etc ) . I want to pick your brains on this and see what you guys think about it. I have not tested the effects on CTR yet .. if someone else has then it will be a good resource for me to go through. ( and if no one else has done any relevant study I might do it at some stage ). Regards Saijo
Search Behavior | | Saijo.George0 -
Spammy website dominating SERPs! Why!?
Hey guys, I've recently noticed that a series of EMDs have been setup to completely spam an extensive set of keywords - and it seems to be working. All of the URLs are keyword targeted with tons of keyword variations. And they're getting massive ranking preference over a number of more established websites. These are just an example of some of the domains; diykitchens1.co.uk fittedkitchens1.co.uk cheapkitchens1.co.uk kitchenunits1.co.uk And then there's loads of local targeted domains such as; kitchensglasgow1.co.uk kitchensedinburgh1.co.uk Again, all of these are getting high ranking with what seems to be duplicated websites. It's pretty bizarre. Will Google penalise these sites? Surely they will?
Search Behavior | | Webrevolve0 -
Seller rating in Serps
Hello everyone, I saw something weird today with my own site in Google: http://www.google.nl/webhp?hl=nl&tab=ww#hl=nl&sclient=psy-ab&q=xenon+h4&fp=534989fd828f8f2e&pws=0 The site you see position one is my site (HIDxenonverlichting.nl), you see the seller rating with the stars, but also nearly 2 rules of price information: ''Prijsklasse: Normale prijs: € 79,99 Tijdelijke prijs € 74,99 Inclusief 21% BTW & Gratis verzending!' At this site i don't even have MicroData installed for the reviews or prices, and i've never seen such a long price description in Google. So i was wondering, how could this happen, because i want this much information also at other product pages of course. But then first need to know how this happened? Regards, Yannick
Search Behavior | | iwebdevnl0 -
Hi guys.. post-penguin my website coming in and out of serps every other day... what reason for that? ie. #11 --> #300+
We had one of the pre-penguin "unnatural links " messages in WMT - then Penguin hit April 24th/25th.. wee then set to work on Link profile... since 19th May we have had numerous search phrases come 'back' into rank pre-penguin for a day ie.. #5 - #10 and then drop the next.. ie 300+ this has been happening across a wide range of key phrases.... in fact it may well be that the key phrases are added to the serps 'briefly' or for a set amount of time... but our ranking checker checks daily so while it appears to be every other day in and out there may be another pattern... but the question is What is Google doing here and Why? any suggestions?
Search Behavior | | Geminineil1 -
Studies on influence of meta description on CTR
After having answered quite a lot of questions here, I figured it was about time to ask one of my own. Can anybody point me to decent (experimental) research articles or blogs that actually show variations in meta descriptions influence the Click Through Rate (CTR) of searchers? On dozens of websites on the internet it is stated that 'meta descriptions affect CTR', but (good scientific) sources for those statements are nowhere to be found. The only research I can find that comes closest to providing any evidence is a translated study by dynamical.biz, which states that searchers LOOK a lot at the meta description, but this study (atleast in the translation) mentions nothing of searchers actually CLICKING it. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Search Behavior | | Theo-NL0