Unknown factors affecting our SEO effort
-
Good morning / afternoon / evening all,
We are continually working our website - www.movingeverywhere.co.uk , it has suffered some drastic drop in rankings with the last 2 google algorithm updates which we have been working to resolve. This has involved:
-
Redesigning the website (responsive now) , increase of speed, reduction of code, better UX and generally better all round experience for the user.
-
Signed up to Moz and resolved any issues which have been highlighted. (Hopefully fixed the last ones today)
-
Investigated our inbound link profile to try and weed out any bad incoming links or any links that were damaging the site.
-
Increased our social network profile and reach.
We have done competitor analysis and we are beating all of our competitioers with on site factors as per Moz results but it appears we are missing something which means we are not reaping the fruits of our efforts at the moment. The site is wordpress and we read there could be a canonical issue with Wordpres ssites
We are asking the Moz community for any guidance and assistance to try and diagnose any negative factors affecting the SEO effort on the site. Thank you for your time and help.
-
-
The sources are too numerous to list. You can find tons of posts on Moz though. Of note is we are handling the link cleanup on a rather large client and I decided to try out removeem. Based on weighing all we have seen so far with the software, I like it. Like with any there have been a glitch or two but their support has been very excellent.
But, as I am talking with a team member she says, "Our link to our client shows up as Toxic." So, I am like "Get outta here!?" Sure enough we were. Note about software: You have to look at what they are utilizing to call something toxic or not. In this case it had more to do with the anchor text that had been used in linking to this client. So, not all that are toxic are and not all that are clean are clean. That is where you have to be somewhat nuanced in your approach. I suggest that if it looks like a paid directory (Other than dmoz or Yahoo) or if it is one that is just a perpetual listing of firms with no real content or context, I would remove it. If it is comment spam on posts, etc. Those are the types of things that stand out readily.
Best,
-
Well, I have added the relevant information for the scheme microdata as a start and I have fixed some issues re. authorship so that is now included. Thanks for the tips. Checking for Toxic links.
What constitutes a "toxic" link though - Reading up on various things there are opinions. Any guidance or Moz article would be good.
-
Thanks - we will implement the authorship tool via WP and I have been looking into Richsnippers and Schema data too. Thanks for the info. I was just about to look into the Link detox items to see if there is anything negative there.
Hopefully more suggestions will come from others
-
When you consider a canonical as similar to a 301, you could have any number of canonical links on a site.
-
Brett
I snapped a minute after I sent this that you are underutilizing data markup / Schema. You are using postal address without utilizing local business and you don't have a phone number in it. Also, I would definitely use aggregate review markup, etc. for you. If not on the home page, you should be using authorship as well. If I were to change one thing it would be that first. With authorship and review schema you have a chance to standout on whatever serp you are on.
Best, -
First of all, thanks for a great response and thank you for the compliments about the site - It is always nice to hear good things about a site you have designed so it means a lot.
I will look at the Link Detox and the link profiles in more depth. We are targeting the local listings more now and trying to hit that hard - the keyphrase we are going for is "Manchester Removals" / "Removals Manchester" but also drilling into some more local areas.
I am hoping one of the WP geeks might be able to help. One question (I might have phrased wrong re. canonical) - Moz is showing up X number of canonical links in the crawl. Is that anything to worry about or any negative factor on the site?
Since this redesign our bounce rates have started to drop as well as we are trying to convert more of the visitors to the site to leads instead of just trying to get more and more visitors to the site (which isnt the answer). We have been focused on the information, the flow of the user and answering their needs.
-
Brett,
I took a quick look at the site and have to say I don't see anything on the top that is major. Personally, I like to utilize title tags with the business name in them and to follow the convention of Manchester Movers | 24 hour service | Moving Everywhere - so the business name is the last thing in the Title Tag. What I am trying to target most is at the first part of the title tag.
As to you v. your competitor, this is always a tough one. I suggest you look for what they are doing correctly and ask yourself if you are also doing that. With moving companies in the states, Local is everything. If you have not nailed Local as a moving company it will be hard to rank in a city here. I did not look at that for your site.
Now as to a universal WP canonical issue, I do not know what it is. We handle over 100 WP sites and I am fully unaware of any canonical problem we have ever had. While I do not touch every site even semi regularly, if there is an issue I am the first one made aware of it. I know there are several Mozzers who are Uber WP nerds (I say that as a form of admiration) and hopefully one or two will answer your query better.
I did not run a link profile, etc. but you could always try something like Link Detox to see where you stand. You could run Screaming Frog to check that all pages are giving correct response codes, etc. Ultimately, your home page would have a hard time ranking in a major city in the US from a DA/PA point of view with all the directories and then several older companies with good SEO there. You could get Local really right and have a good shot at showing there. I am not studied enough to speak to the Manchester market.
Here is the good news and I do not often say this: I really like the look and feel of the site. While I did not test it for UI/UX, I liked the colors, the airy feel, the way it is inviting around a subject that is stressful. Excellent job IMO. Here is a hint that we keep front of mind: Does your meta description answer the query?
Hope this gives comfort of a sort.
Robert
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
-
Multi-Store SEO
I am currently developing a website which will have a multi-store function, i.e. one for US & ROW customers and one for UK & EU customers. The domain names will be along the lines of: Original domain: www.website.com UK & EU domain: eu.website.com US & ROW domain: us.website.com When a customer visits the website they will be redirected to one or the other depending on their location. Can anyone see any problems which this may cause in respect to SEO? I know there may be a duplicate content issue here also, how should I best deal with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
How to find a good seo company?
Hello there, Can anyone recommend how to go about finding a good seo company?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may0 -
SEO Effect of Outbound Links
Greetings MOZ community: What is best practices when it comes to creating outbound links to other websites? Will adding such links improve the MOZ domain authority of my site? How many outbound links should be added to each page? For example I run a commercial real estate web site in New York. About 20 pages are written about neighborhoods. If several outbound links are added to each neighborhood page, and these links point to pages that provide further information about that neighborhood, will my neighborhood pages where the links originates from see improved ranking (or ranking potential)? Are these outbound links a critical SEO factor? Thanks everyone!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
Zenfolio set up for SEO
We are using zenfolio as a hosted photography/image gallery set up as http://oursite.zenfolio.com We have about 24,000 backlinks to the website however over 22,000 are from zenfolio.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jazavide
Do you see issues with this set up from an organic seo perspective and so many links from one domain pointing back into the main site?
Thanks0 -
Wordpress Blogs and SEO
So far we have been creating separate blogs on wordpress.com for our sites, and writing there. Today I was told that there was better SEO hosting the blog on the actual domain. i.e. www.widgets.com/blog instead of widget.wordpress.com Is this true? Oddly I have had my WP beat my own URL on one account. So I am not sure if this is valid. Can someone tell me pros and cons of both? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | greenhornet770 -
SEO-friendly WordPress Templates
Hi, I usually build WordPress sites and I was thinking about buying one of those ready-made Wordpress templates I found on a site that sells them to the public. FYI, the site at issue is: yootheme.com. I'd like to make sure that building sites using ready-made templates is NOT a bad thing. Could you please confirm? Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | salvyy0 -
Does a Slider widget harm my SEO?
Does using a slider widget (such as the one Skype uses) harm my SEO? Meaning, is the text still totally readable to search engines or will it be in JAVAscript. Are there any SEO-friendly sliders you would recommend?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | theLotter0