Ranking problem.
-
Hello,
Using Moz I can see that my ranks for my site ZenPlugs.com for keywords such as 'ear plugs' and 'molded ear plugs' and several other keywords aren't as high as other sites with similar DAs. I can't see why, am I missing something?
Many thanks,
Toby
-
Toby
There are two parts to optimizing titles and meta descriptions. Deal with the later first - Meta descriptions should firstly be optimized for clickability as they hold no significant SEO value. So use your 156 characters to create a great CTA.
Titles however are a different beast as they hold significant SEO value. In creation of the perfect Title you need to weigh two competing factors - SEO -v- Clickability.
In the title SEO has the priority or should come first - hence identify the keywords chasing. Then you work out the most clickable way to present those words. Here is a link to another post that answers your question. http://moz.com/community/q/how-should-be-a-perfect-seo-title-description-h1-and-h2
Moz has a snippet tool you can use. https://moz.com/blog/new-title-tag-guidelines-preview-tool Before getting to that use Semrush or another keyword tool your prefer to identify the keywords you are chasing and than start playing with the snippet tool.
Let me know if you have any questions. If you create a title and a description - happy to review it for you.
-
I have been working my way through the Technical Site Audit Checklist by Geoff Kenyon which tells me to make sure 'Important pages have click‐through rate optimized titles and meta descriptions'. How would you do this?
-
Hey Toby,
So many possibilities as to why this could be.
However, I would not use SEMrush right at this second because they recently changed their algorithm and with that, they show a lot of site pages that have low content ratios, when they actually aren't too bad.
An example... I am doing some work on a client site this week and next. 2 weeks ago, they ran a crawl and it showed just over 300 pages with low content ratio. Last week it showed over 1,400. After they spoke to them, it does indeed seem to be down to their update.
I would instead suggest trying Deepcrawl. Why? Because you are able to adjust thresholds (as shown in the attachment) that give you control over a healthy threshold rather than something that is just too sensitive. You also get a lot more useful data (IMO) so at a glance, you can see what is going on.
Outside of this, it is always difficult to try and put your finger on why someone ranks above you and if you put two identical sites side-by-side who have identical DA, then you can start by looking at the trust the site has within Google. The article at Backlinko is a very interesting read and I suggest grabbing a coffee and going through it.
If you haven't already, download ScreamingFrog because this is seen as a de-facto standard for any SEO. Something every SEO has in their toolbox.
I would also suggest reading this article by Bill Slawski on how Google may classify sites as low quality. Some great insights in there.
Let me know if there is anything else.
-Andy
-
Thank you! I'll get cracking.
-
Thanks for linking to my post even 2 years on. I should really do an updated version.
But you're essentially right - there are many reasons beyond PA & DA why a site ranks or doesn't rank, outranks you or simply doesn't show up. PA & DA have a place in ranking sites and pages against each other but not for how they rank based on a particular keyphrase.
Think about it like this. Moz.com is a very authoritative domain, right? Not so much about pizza and learning French, though.
So we can start with PA & DA but we need a lot more information to determine how a site will rank for a given keyphrase in a specific version of Google searched by a particular user.
-
Toby
A conundrum we face daily. Working through the long lists detailed above is arduous work and I will suggest a start.
If you have access do a site audit with moz or semrush. If access to moz review the moz trust score. After a site Audit you should have a better understanding of some technical issues but there are two factors that I address asap page speed. Just checked your on tools.pingdom and it was below 2 seconds which is excellent.
The second aspect which I suspect has high relevance is bounce rate. I would imagine bounce rate could be a factor for your site from a quick look at the home page. I am not sure whether the site is a shop, info brochure on ear plugs etc. I did not see a CTA. So if your bounce rate is above say 50% I would be studying GA for behavior on the site. Work out what page customers are dropping off, and then dedicate your self to getting the customer to move to the next page. Follow them all the way through to a conversion. If not enough traffic ask family or friends - though they can be brutal.
There are plenty of other items on your list - but understanding your customer and how they are interacting with your site is vital - and creating a deep connection with the right customer is integral to sustained success. If people have a good on site experience they will talk about your site and come back.
Ask away for clarity on any point.
-
Thank you, very helpful!
-
Hi Toby,
There are various other factors that affects ranking apart from DA & PA so it is not the best way to judge ranking only on the basis of same or similar DA.
Please check similar below thread so you can get whole idea on this.
http://moz.com/community/q/higher-pa-and-da-but-lower-ranking
https://moz.com/blog/going-beyond-moz-metrics-to-answer-why-is-this-site-outranking-me
Hope this helps.
Thanks
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
-
Is it better to try and boost an old page that ranks on page #5 or create a better new page
Hello Everyone, We have been looking into our placements recently and see that one of our blog posts shows on page #5 for a popular keyword phrase with a lot of search volume. Lets say the keyword is "couples fitness ideas" We show on page 5 for a post /couples-fitness-ideas-19-tips-and-expert-advice/ We want to try and get on the first page for that phrase and wanted to know if it is better if we did one of the following: 1. Create a new page with over 100 ideas with a few more thousands of words. with a new url (thinking /couples-fitness-ideas) 2. Create a new page with a new url (thinking /couples-fitness-ideas) with the same content as the currently ranking post. We would want to do this for more freedom with layout and design of the page rather than our current blog post template. Add more content, let's say 100 more ideas. Then forward the old URL to the new one with a 301 redirect. 3. Add more content to the existing post without changing the layout and change the URL. Look forward to your thoughts
On-Page Optimization | | MobileCause0 -
I have lots of articles on my website. Should I add myself as the Author Rank for seo purposes
Hi All, We have lots of articles on our news page of our website. Should we add one of us as the author to gain Author Rank points so to speak ?.. Have not done anything previously with this but just wondered if we were missing a trick here thanks Pete
On-Page Optimization | | PeteC120 -
Keywords & ranking
I am working for a social networking site called Yookos. Much our content is user-generated. How can i add keywords onto the site to make sure our site appears in the SERPS? Also what techniques can i use to make our social site rank highly? Do the other SEO techniques apply here?
On-Page Optimization | | seoworx1230 -
Crawl Diagnostics - Duplicates and canonical problem
SEOmoz crowl diagnostic reports duplicates (title, content) issue on this addres: http://www.meblobranie.pl/biurowe/fotele-biurowe/promocje page already has canonical tag - is this a bug of crowler, or smth wrong on page?
On-Page Optimization | | SITS0 -
Why a page with an On Page A grade has a less good rank than a page with a F grade?
Why a page with an On Page A grade is ranked 17 in Google when the home page with a F grade is ranked 9 ? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Amadeus_eBC0 -
Will unstyled bold tags help ranking
I intend using Bold tags to add emphasis but I don't want to
On-Page Optimization | | YGF
actually show bold words
so have amended by css. are the B tags enough to help with SEO or will my amended
CSS damage the effect? Many thanks,Sinead0 -
Canonical URL problem
On page analysis wanted me to add a canonical url tag. However I added then re ran the on page analysis and it came up with an error. What is the proper way to add a canonical url tag in the head of an index page? ie. add a canonical tag to www.hompeage.com/index.html would it be ? Or should I ignore this for a home page? Because I add it then run the analysis again and get this? Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical Moderate fix <dl> <dt>Canonical URL</dt> <dd>"http://www.ensoplastics.com/index.html"</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>If the canonical tag is pointing to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. Make sure you're targeting the right page (if this isn't it, you can reset the target above) and then change the canonical tag to reference that URL.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>We check to make sure that IF you use canonical URL tags, it points to the right page. If the canonical tag points to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. If you've not made this page the rel=canonical target, change the reference to this URL. NOTE: For pages not employing canonical URL tags, this factor does not apply.</dd> <dd>So do I add it or not? If I don't I get a lower page rating if I take it off I get a higher page rating with room for improvement. </dd> </dl>
On-Page Optimization | | ENSO0 -
Lots of links on homepage to internal pages with keyword rich anchor text - problem?
Hi, All! We have a new potential client, that when looking at his site with a tool, we noticed that the previous SEO company they worked with filled the homepage copy with lots of keyword-rich anchor text links pointing to different pages on the site - many links going to the same page, just with different keywords. These links are not indistinguishable in format from the other text, which is why we only noticed it with a tool. I certainly wouldn't recommend doing that to start with, but once all these links are there, would you recommend taking them down? Is there any conceivable chance it could help the site? Is there a significant reason to think it will harm the site? Or will it just be pretty neutral? In all that's been written (much by SEOMoz) about only the first link's anchor text counting, do subsequent links work like a no-follow in the sense that they are a waste of the link-juice of the page, or is it as if they aren't there at all? (And is "only the first link counts" still the most widely held theory, or have there been new developments since?) Thanks, All!
On-Page Optimization | | debi_zyx0