Can't get past the 15th page of Google SERPs
-
I've been doing Local SEO for 9 years and have never had an issue that frustrated me as much as this one. I have a client who I can't get past the 15th page of Google's SERPS for their #1 KW. Here are the details:
- The domain is 4 months old
- In that 4 month span the site has gone from a DA 1 to a DA 24
- Spam score is a 0. I know this doesn't mean a ton but I can tell you from closely reviewing their AHrefs report, there's no influx of spammy links or anything like that.
- The design is a custom wordpress design
- The content is 100% unique and professionally written content
- The backlink profile (in my opinion) is full of high DA and PA sites from authority sites with high trust flow ... in my opinion their backlinks are superior to all but maybe a handful of competitors.
- I was not expecting 1st page results by now but I would have expected top 50 results a the very least. But to not crack the top 15 tells me there's some major issue here.
I really need some insight as to what could be holding me back here ... I don't want to share the domain publicly but but I will PM you it if you're interested in taking a crack at it. I will seriously pay someone a small fortune if they can help me figure this out.
-
Hi Brian,
Unless you are able to share the identity of the website, it's going to be shooting in the dark as to what might be going on. You've categorized this as 'local'. Could you be targeting keywords that don't actually relate to your client's geographic location? For example, a business outside city limits trying to rank for a geo+keyword term inside the city.
Everything cool with Google Search Console? No warnings?
How competitive is the market/keyword phrase you are targeting?
-
Hi Brian,
As I reviewed your website and found following points to fix
- Most important (this might fix your problem) Your website is accessible via http:// and https:// .. this can be a major issue as Google would view your content as duplicate. 301 all your http requests to respective https pages
- Robots.txt missing from the website, add it and enter the sitemap location on it.
Few less important but relevant points to fix.
- Promote > "Main keyword" to H1 instead of H2 (you can take help of developer if required)
- Your webpage has 46 'img' tags and 43 of them missing the required 'alt' attribute.
- Your webpage is using 17 inline CSS styles, fix it.
I hope to get positive results with this.
Thanks,
Vijay
-
Looking at the details provided by you. I am sure about few things:
- Your website is already ranked for few related keywords, that you might or might not be aware of .
- You are targeting a VERY high competition keyword.
Having said that, there should be no reason you should be moving up from the 15th page for the target keyword. Please discuss the details, I would like to take this as challenge and publish the findings here to help others (without revealing specific details of the project)
Regards,
Vijay
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
-
Children's club Google My Business conundrum
Hi there I have been contacted by a small business to help them with their <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">SEO</acronym> effort.
Local Listings | | coolhandluc
The business is a children's club offering drama classes, music classes etc... Looking at their online visibility shows they don't even have a Google my business profile which is where i was going to start however, they operate from a local school after hours. The local school already has a GMB profile, obviously with the same address and postcode. Is it possible to set up a GMB for the children's club anyway? Many thanks0 -
Google My Business - two businesses, same location
I have client that has developed a new brand targeting a specific segment of their wider market - the more price sensitive customer. They have launched a website for this brand, which specialises in promoting special offers. Both operations have the same physical address and the new brand - that targets this niche, I believe has been set up as a service-area business on Google My Business. I think they should change this as they do publish their address on their website and do on occasion welcome customers on their premises. My question - at last! - is that can both businesses exist on Google Maps - with the same business address and is this the right way to proceed if I want to target directory listings for the new brand. Any thoughts welcomed! thanks.
Local Listings | | nathangdavidson21 -
How do I treat multiple buildings on the same college campus on Google for local SEO?
Should I delete them? Simply give them a different address like "City, State, Zip"? I see the benefit of having key buildings on campus in Google Maps, but I don't want those to affect my accuracy score and, thus, my local rankings for SEO.
Local Listings | | GabeGibitz1 -
Can you set up a SAB for a virtual service?
Google's guidelines for creating a GMB profile states that the business must make "in-person contact with customers during stated hours." Does this mean that an online-only business such as a virtual urgent care clinic is allowable as a SAB? This is where customers use an app or website to have a video visit with a doctor - which is person-to-person, real contact, nut not in-person. It doesn't feel like the right kind of business to be listed locally, especially if the service area is an entire region or state. Does anyone have a source of truth on this? Thanks for the assistance!
Local Listings | | jeremyfharrison1 -
Merging Google Place Accounts to Merge Reviews for same Company
Hi Everybody If you have 2 Google Place Listings (Local Listings) 1 with 1 Location and 1 with another Location, is there anyway to merge the 2 Accounts. 1 of them has lots of Reviews and the other contains some Reviews so Ideally there would be 1 Account which merges all Reviews into 1 Account Multiple Locations can then be added into the 1 Account. Any Ideas Thanks Adam
Local Listings | | AMG1000 -
Default Local SEO question: Does Google really do improptu check ins?
I have a client who has multiple locations within his state, many of which are satellite offices. Although they don't have anyone working at these satellite offices full time, they have office space available to them their, someone who can take calls/mail and do use the space frequently in person. We've been in the process of cleaning up duplicate and incorrect listings in directories to get on the map in the SERPs in these markets, but the local SEO outfit we've hired has come back with a problem I found surprising. In order to clean up the duplicate & incorrect Google+ profiles that we've got out there for these offices, we evidently need to work with an actual Google moderator. This moderator has said that the satellite offices in question are actually not real business locations and are in violation of G+ guidlines. The local SEO I'm using says that it's not uncommon for Google to actually send someone out to do an in person improptu visit when they are suspicious that a listing might not belong in their listings, and I find this really surprising. Do any of you have any experience with whether this is the case? FWIW, this is a real business that could have someone working remotely in these offices remotely if that's what it took to make Google happy, but they'd rather not and certainly don't need to in order to offer their services in these markets.
Local Listings | | LeeAbrahamson0 -
Targeting both Dutch countries .NL & .BE --> 2 ccTLD's using rel-alternate or just one TLD?
We want to target both Dutch countries .NL & .BE (Belgium & Netherlands).
Local Listings | | Brainlane
Should we go for the 2 ccTLD's using rel-alternate, or go for one TLD, .EU or similar? We currently have an SEO project going on where DNS.be & DNS.nl are equally important. Currently we are using the rel-alternate meta data. The .be website is doing fantastic, the .nl one seems stagnant and not really getting to target. For a similar project, we are now wondering whether we should go for the same approach, or just pick one TLD (.EU or similar). Note: we cannot create content that is regionally specific, since the content is just what it is and cannot be altered.0 -
Competitor outranking me on google with their yelp, facebook and youtube pages
I'm working to rank for a local search term (my city wedding photographers). I'm frustrated that my competitor is outranking me not with their website (they are no. #9 and I'm #6) but with their Yelp account (#1) Facebook Account (#5) and Youtube account (#7 - not outranking me, but right below me). I'm going to continue working on my SEO to hopefully get higher up, but even then, they are basically dominating page 1 with their links. It gets worse on page 2. They are showing up 5 times for youtube/vimeo videos, and 1 time with a spammy landing page with no images, full of keyword anchored links to their main site. What gives? Since when are social media profiles outranking local sites on google organic searches? Could it be that our keyword is just so low competition that google has allowed all this stuff to rank so highly?
Local Listings | | studio35design0