At a bit of a loss as to poor rankings
-
I have a site in the UK, with these metrics:
- 15 years old
- 500 pages in sitemap, but Majestic says 186,000 indexed URLs ?
- DA of 45, PR of 3
- 1000 links from 200 linking root domains, across from 150 IP's (from OSE)
- 33,000 links in OSE when I use the compare tool and look at the "links to this root domain" section
- 24,000 external links according to Majestic
- 350 shares, 2,000 tweets, 60 +1's
- Median PA of linking root domains (from OSE export) = 20
- no Moz on-page errors, or webmaster tools issues
The above metrics are better than 2 competitors who have only just launched, have fewer links, lower DA, etc, and are ranking for keywords like "wedding entertainment", "corporate entertainers"
Our site is www.superted.com
-
Why doesn't OSE show 33,000 links when I select "links to this root domain". Why will those links only be shown when I do a domain comparison in OSE?
-
I'm thinking our anchor text distribution is the problem. We have very few links containing the keywords want. Also maybe our sitemap is an issue as it only lists 500 of our pages? But given our domain age, DA, etc... surely anchor text / site map isn't the only issue here?
Any hints would be awesome.
-
Wowsers... nice response.
Thanks for spending the time on writing all that out
I'll re-work the site structure, taking all comments on board!
-
I think there are generally three areas of weakness for this site at the moment;
- Brand Strength - searching google.co.uk for "superted" or "super ted" and the site is no where on the SERPs, instead you get stuff about a TV show --> http://screencast.com/t/Am735xTr0 - and so if you're going to have the same brand name as another thing out there (even if you came before the TV show) the fact you are not ranking for your own brand means Google does not weigh the "brand" very strongly. The build this up you need
- lots of strong profiles on the web (Google Plus, social, etc) all clearly connecting back to your site
- recent mentions in reputable publications
- people searching for your brand name or branded terms and clicking on your site in the SERPs
- (sidenote: I just realized a while later the "brand" name might also be "the entertainment directory" and you do show one result in the SERP for that --> http://screencast.com/t/hy2wi88VFQtH but this also seems weak and unclear.
- Keyword Targeting / Architecture - I know it would be desirable to rank for "wedding entertainment" but it's really hard to even find a page solely dedicated to "wedding entertainment" that answers that specific query for the user really well. Instead, you have to dig many clicks in to even find such a page and when you do, it's "wedding bands" not wedding entertainment" --> http://www.superted.com/profiles.php/bands-musicians/wedding-bands - what I would do is some really thorough keyword research and align it with architecture - this is a pretty involved process, you can't fix it overnight, but in short;
- You're first do very in depth keyword research - my intuition tells me a site of this magnitude would result in probably 10,000 keywords minimum.
- Then you'd prioritize these by many metrics - search volume, current ranking, conversion potential, competition etc
- Then here's the key - you'd look at top keywords that do not have a singular page focusing on answer this user's query better than any other page on the net
- You'd have to work through a process of aligning keyword opportunities with best site architecture - this may mean building new pages, this may mean removing pages that don't provide value for you or users.
- User Experience - When I land on the homepage it is a terrifying experience. There are so many options, and it is not clear what direction to go in.
- The "hamburger" menu option is probably not clear that it's even there to most people. When I do click on it, there options are overwhelming and clicking on an initial option just brings us to another set of options.
- Then trying the search bar, I expect to get a normal search result - like a list of "wedding bands in ___" but instead I just got a form to fill out, which is surprising and doesn't seem immediately helpful.
- When you click "play" on the video in the slider, the video starts playing but then the slider also starts moving so not only can I not seem to watch the video, I can't stop it from playing once the slider kicks in.
A common oversight I see, is that the site is organized from the site owners perspective not the shoppers perspective. In other words, your basic categories are "bands" "look alikes" etc - but a user would _start _with "I need entertainment for a wedding/party/event ..." - the user starts with the need (X event, situation etc) and would like to see options - so I would consider organizing the core structure of the site around "wedding entertainment" "party entertainment" "corporate even entertainment" etc - think of the categories of events and needs the user has and show them the listings from that perspective.
To answer your questions;
1. I believe the comparison numbers "total links" are including internal links - which there are a lot of.
2. I don't think anchor text is as much of an issue as the other things mentioned above. The sitemap is also not the biggest issue in my opinion. If I were to boil it down it would be site architecture / keyword alignment coupled with user experience.
-
No, but if I highlight a page it may give it more Google signals than the intended page you want to promote and that's just annoying And Google has confirmed it does crawl naked links (links without anchor just written on a page) even if it says they are treated as nofollow it is still a signal.
-
Is it a problem if google crawls this thread?
Thanks for your insight into this!
-
I found this page http://www.superted.com / wedding-entertainment
I put a gap between the slash in case google crawls this thread.
re: first comment, I searched for that because I did a Google site query and there seem to be a lot of similar things coming up, I cant remember what I was looking at at the time that brought that up exactly, but it does seem like there could be a potential quality issue.
-
Interesting.
Why did you search for: "Find event ideas, wedding entertainment or party ideas" ?
When I do it, I get the same result and also the google message about some results being omitted.
Maybe all those pages are considered "keyword stuffed" by Google?
You said you noticed one of them had a page. How do you mean?
There is a landing page for weddings:
http://www.superted.com/wedding-entertainment.php
But no external links to it yet.
-
one thing I did find interesting is if you search for "Find event ideas, wedding entertainment or party ideas", Google comes up with a whole bunch of pages but none of them have that content on them, It has renamed all the descriptions.
It would seem that Google does not think your descriptions are good enough for serps. This shows there could be some content issues on the site.
Have you though of creating two main categories for "wedding entertainment" and "corporate entertainers" work on creating great content for them? I noticed one of them had a page but the content was really not what you want to show on it.
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
-
Anybody here look at Alexa Rank and or PageRank when doing research?
Any Seo'ers out there still looking at PageRank and or Alexa Rank? Any suggestions on how to look at these stats? I personally believe both are not relevant in todays SEO researches. I'm i very wrong?
Competitive Research | | PrizeWize0 -
Webby Rank Tracker That Works
So now that the Moz's rank tracker is down for maintenance, I'm seeking a new Webby rank tacker that WORKS! I need a platform that: is Online. Updates you daily on your client's ranking progress. Notifies you on critical ranking drops. Please don't offer LA's Rank Tracker as in my opinion it's the worst one.
Competitive Research | | Yoav_Vilner0 -
How to find a neutral rank for a webpage a keyword term?
Hi!
Competitive Research | | lilactree
I'm sure this has been answered here already - I'm just not searching for the right words. I'm trying to find the ranking for a website for specific terms. Being that the search engine remembers what I search (I try to log out, privately browse, etc), everything matters and impacts my search. I'm trying to see what a website ranks for a person who has never visited that website before, or doesn't have other factors influencing the result. I tried the keyword research tool, and while that seems to deliver what I'm after, it only gives 1-10. Even though these are the coveted positions 😉 I'd like to know if a website isn't ranking there, and is further down. We track the progress made after work is done to a page, to see if it moves up, and what other tweaks we need to make to improve the rankings and attract clicks. Thanks!0 -
Google Page Rank not working?
My Google PR in the toolbar has not worked since last night? Is it on my end or is anyone else have the same issue??
Competitive Research | | Robbie82990 -
How can a site rank higher when you beat them by A LOT on virtually every SEOMOZ factor?
Any insight into what's driving these results would be appreciated. Another site ranks #6 and we rank #22 on a keyword that scores 67% for "Keyword Difficulty", but we score significantly higher than them on almost every ranking factor including having nearly 10 times more backlinks along with higher PA and DA scores,etc. Here is a comparison from the Keyword Difficulty Tool report. Question: What could be going on? Factor and ranking comparison (us v. them) with our higher rankings are listed first. PA: 61 v. 39, mozRank 5,85 v. 4,54, mozTrust 6.00 v. 5.49, mT/mR = 1.0 v. 1.2, total links = 4,198 v. 90, internal links = 4198 v 90, external links = 275 v. 57, followed links = 4171 v 85, no follow links = 27 v 5, linking root domains = 46 v 30 on-page grade = A v B broad keyword usage in title: yes v yes broad keyword usage in document: yes v yes keyword used in url = no v no keyword used in domain = partial v no KW exact match - no v no exact anchor text links = 2373 v 13 %links w/ exact anchor text = 56% v 14% linking root domains w/ exact anchor text = 7 v 8 % linking root domains w/ exact anchor text = 15% v 26% partial anchor text links = 0 v 0 Domain Authority = 54 v 27 Domain mozRank = 5.4 v 3.2 Domain mozTrust = 5.8 v 3.7 DmT/DmR = 1.1 v 1.2 External links to domain 9261 v 63 Linking root domains to this domain = 355 v 33 linking c- blocks domains to domain = 267 v 30 tweets = 4 v 3 FB shares = 13 v 11 Google Plus one shares = 1 v 0
Competitive Research | | rickt0070 -
Trying to rank against keyword in domain
I am trying to rank for let's say the keyword "their site" , my competitor has theirsite.com, with next to no seo but are ranking #1 , my site lets say is mysite.com/their-site my site is about the same age and has a PR of 4,their site has a PR of 0 and 2 backlinks, how difficult will it be to get to number 1, am at spot # 5 in google now. Thanks David
Competitive Research | | David750 -
Why does website rank? PA-39 DA-24
This website is pretty nice, well done. The few links they do have are nice and clean, from his brothers website, very much white hat. However, it appears that they aren't doing much of anything from an SEO standpoint. This site, is PA31 DA21 is also doing unusually well. In both cases, these guy are outranking the best know, most famous, and most trusted company in the industry who is PA84 DA81. This is a HUGE company that wins the most awards and gets tons of media coverage both in print and on televisiton shows. I'm also noticing that the websites that are ranking well in my niche (every keyword) all have the name of their company at the beginning of the title tag, those with the name of the company at the end of the title tag are consistantly a few ranks lower. This seems to be consistant across all search terms. My niche is highly competitive for a very low amount of traffic. Adwords is crazy expensive for some of these keywords! That said, one valid sale generates a significant amount of money. Would love to hear your thoughts. I'm thinking the first company is being treated so well becase G considers them to be virgins, the purist of white?
Competitive Research | | dmac0 -
Whats the best way to see why your competitor is out ranking you?
I am trying to rank in the number on position for Part Time CFO. Currently we are in 2nd and 3rd. We have way more quality inbound links then the site in first position, more content etc. How would you go about investigating why they are ahead of us?
Competitive Research | | b2bcfo0