Not ranking for keywords. wehhh
-
I am not ranking for any of my keywords despite getting a number of Backlinks to my pages and mentioning them in both content and meta tags?!
-
Luie Chris mentIons effort is needed. But also time and patience. Could you tell us how long the pages are online. did you submit site maps and such.
-
Well Tristram, you have to put your efforts into context with the competitors who are filling the search results between where your search result is and the ones on the first page of the search results and then you have to think about how much money there is to be made by those who are at the top of the results.
Considering there are only 10 places available on page-one and there's probably decent money to be made for those who show up on that page, it's likely the folks at the top have put in somewhat greater effort than it takes to get a number of back links and mentioning their keywords in content and meta tags. It's also likely that the folks on page-two and three have put in somewhat greater effort in their attempt to get to page-one. Likewise, those folks one page 4 and 5 have probably been plugging away at it for quite some time, as well, and recognize that it's all about how much time, effort and organic search marketing know-how you apply that gets you to your goal.
While there is no tried and true formula for reaching the top of the results, the basics can be found here. But remember, it's not about just doing what Google wants you to do, it's about doing what Google wants you to do better than all your competitors. That means you first have to know what Google wants, then you have to recognize how well your competitors are doing it. In the end, you have to make a decision on whether you have what it takes to go toe to toe with your keyword competitors or if you should choose a different strategy.
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
-
Free tool, and it ranks well for adult sites and checking if they are down, will that hurt us with ranking for normal sites with google?
Hi all, We rank for searches around "is youporn down" and similar because we provide a free tool to check if a website is up or down: https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/youporn I am worried that ranking for these adult searches is hurting us with ranking for things like "is reddit down", thoughts? I'd appreciate some input!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | bwb0 -
Site Footer Links Used for Keyword Spam
I was on the phone with a proposed web relaunch firm for one of my clients listening to them talk about their deep SEO knowledge. I cannot believe that this wouldn’t be considered black-hat or at least very Spammy in which case a client could be in trouble. On this vendor’s site I notice that they stack the footer site map with about 50 links that are basically keywords they are trying to rank for. But here’s the kicker shown by way of example from one of the themes in the footer: 9 footer links:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RosemaryB
Top PR Firms
Best PR Firms
Leading PR Firms
CyberSecurity PR Firms
Cyber Security PR Firms
Technology PR Firms
PR Firm
Government PR Firms
Public Sector PR Firms Each link goes to a unique URL that is basically a knock-off of the homepage with a few words or at the most one sentences swapped out to include this footer link keyword phrase, sometimes there is a different title attribute but generally they are a close match to each other. The canonical for each page links back to itself. I simply can’t believe Google doesn’t consider this Spammy. Interested in your view.
Rosemary0 -
Permanently Moving Few High Ranking Pages from One Domain to Another
We are planning to move few high ranking pages permanently (301 Permanent Redirection) to another domain, Currently these pages are getting good traffic from organic search and ranking on top positions in Google search engine result pages. We have few questions in our mind right now, It would be a great help if anyone can answer following questions; Is it possible to move few pages from one domain to another by using 301 Redirection in .htaccess file? Will it have any negative impact on our website's current search engine performance? Will it be considered as a legitimate SEO practice by Google Search Engine? Will Google understand that these pages have been moved permanently to another domain and start showing URL's from the new domain on the same positions where they were ranking before moving to new location?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | tigersohelll0 -
HOW!??! Homepage Ranking Dropped Completely out of Top 100 on Google....
So I'm competing for a very competitive keyword, and I've been on the bottom of page 2 for a while now, ranking for my homepage, which is very content rich and has GREAT links pointing to it. Out of nowhere, last week I dropped completely out of the top 100 or so, yet one of my article posts now ranks on page 6 or so for the same keyword. I have great authoritative links, my on-page is spot on, all of my articles are super super high quality, I don't understand how my homepage, which has ranked for the main keyword for months on page 2, can just completely drop out of the top 100 or so.... Can anyone help provide some insight?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | juicyresults0 -
Our ranking as not returned after penalty, Why?
Hi, We have had a Google action against us for over a year. After many "SEO Company's" we found someone who help us remove (December 2013) the action. Which was due to our bad back link profile. We have 100% improved our content for our website, as Google has requested. We are active within social media, we add relevant content to our blog and we clean up our desk after we finish work 🙂 After looking at Moz tools we have great results, sometimes even better than our competitors. But we are still not getting or improving on our traffic, if anything its decreasing. Is anyone else in the same position? or has anyone recovered from a similar situation? Josh
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JoshuaKersh0 -
Help! Why are my rankings down?
Hi, Over the last couple of days I have found a HUGE drop in traffic. I checked a lot of our rankings, and we are definitely out of the game for at least a few keywords (not on 1st page). Our ranking has dropped on other keywords. We even dropped to #2 (for the first time ever) for our branded keyword search term. What happened?! Could it have been the Penguin update, 1 month after it was released? Help!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MangoMan160 -
If I were to change the geographic keyword such as "foreclosures in Dallas" on 20 related blogs to "foreclosures in Los Angeles" what would happen?
In other words I'm wondering if someone built up an internet presence for their company through multiple websites over the years and then decided to move to another part of the united states, would it work to change all the keywords to the new location? Would that work toward getting them ranked in the new area or would you have to create entirely new websites? Thanks guys.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | whorneff3100 -
Beaten in SERP's by a site going 'all in' on 2 keywords in their anchor text profile.
I would like to get peoples thoughts on putting 80% of your anchor text links in just 2 keywords vs a nice spread of branded and longtail keywords.. like I am. recently fell off the first page for a key SERP.. and the site in P10 has gone nuts on just that two keyword's.. I know we have a good site onpage/ conversion / low bounce rate page views etc.. Pretty sure we get more traffic than them. Seems that this obvious bloated anchor text profiling has worked for them though.. What do you guys think/know?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | robertrRSwalters0