Site is not ranking, please help.

[spadedesign]

For some reason, we have been fighting and fighting to get a website to rank and no matter what we do- nothing seems to work.

I'm just taking over the website handle it personally, but was curious if anyone here had advice on what the issue may be. It isn't even ranking for its brand name, any ideas?

http://estesroofingtx.com/

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Matthew,

Searching from California for the term 'roofing tyler tx' I am seeing Estes coming up in the #6 spot in the local finder view (which you reach by clicking on the 'more places' link at the bottom of the 3-pack. This should be helpful to know, because the client is actually making onto Google's radar, but it's not making it into the top 3 for a search like mine.

Curious - when you search that same term and click into the local finder, are you really not seeing the company at all in the local finder results?

[spadedesign]

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to report back that we are still seeing ZERO rankings for "roofing tyler, tx" and other similar search queries like "roofing company Tyler."

We have added a lot of content since we took over this site, fixed a heck of a lot of broken links and errors but still; we are having issues. Its rare we work with websites with practically zero domain authority but even that being the case we are implementing a link building strategy. Other than that, can anyone shed light to why this site isn't ranking? I fear there is a technical error or something that we are not catching.

[MiriamEllis]

Good job checking Smarty Streets, and that's one worry off our plate, then. Don't worry about the suite number. Google doesn't pay them any mind. Just be sure you're putting your suite in the second address line field of Moz Local and citations you may build manually and you should be good.

I asked about the street because I've consulted with so many businesses located on a road that's called one thing by locals (like Old Country Road) and called something else by Google Maps or USPS (like Hwy 123) and it can be really confounding, but looks to me like you are good to go!

[spadedesign]

Thank you for the response.

I checked the address on Smarty Streets and it is verified as 15902 County Road 165, Tyler, TX 75703. They do not show suite numbers. Our Google location is 15902 County Rd 165 A, Tyler, TX 75703 - road being abbreviated and no "suite" in front of the A. What would be the best way to type out our business?

We will use Moz Local to push the data but I want to make sure we use the best address.

[MiriamEllis]

Good job getting the improvements going, Matthew! Nice!

Regarding Google My Business, it's Google's own rule that service are businesses (plumbers, electricians, and often various types of general contractors) hide their address. So, to strictly adhere to the guidelines, yes, you'd need to hide your address if you only go to customers to serve them rather than them coming to you (like to a retail store). My view of your scenario is a bit third-hand, but I would normally tend to think of roofing contractors as being SABs, unless they had some sort of showroom to which customers come. So, you'll have to make a judgement call here. The risk of leaving it up is that Google may think you're not complying with their guidelines, simply because your industry would typically be considered an SAB.

That being said, some experts believe that Google couldn't actually care less about whether the address is hidden or not, because they appear to do a very poor job of enforcing this rule. I concur with the lack of policing of this, but it's ALWAYS important to know the guidelines so that you can follow them as closely as possible. And, no, hiding your address should not impact your rankings. There can be some nuances to this I can't really get into without knowing the history of your business and its geo-industry competition.

I have a last question for you, Matthew. When I was looking at your GMB listing and looking at G Maps, I was a little confused about not being able to see your road name on the map. Could be I'm overlooking it, but are you sure the street address you've listed matches Google's database? I run into this issue a lot, particularly in rural areas, so, just be sure:

1. The street name matches what that street is called on Google Maps.

2. Cross check this with your local USPS and also consider using https://smartystreets.com/ to see how the post office names that street.

[EGOL]

Nice work!    This should help a lot.  I like the content ideas.

[spadedesign]

Thank you all for the feedback. I went to work on fixing some of the issues mentioned. We have reached out to the theme makers for support regarding the php error. That just occurred when we updated.

Hopefully we have resolved, or at least made a positive impact on the thin content. For instance the services parent page that just had an image and title for each service, now has a description and keywords. The service pages themselves are on their way to having 2,000 or more words on them. We are also working on custom images to place throughout the site. We still have some work to do on that but it should be much better. We also added internal linking throughout the site and fixed all the broken links. (running a scan now to see if they missed any).

We used Yext for citations but we were very unhappy with their service. We will subscribe to Moz Local later this week as well as put a review strategy in place. The local SEO Checklist is a great resource. I noticed that the PDF button returned a 404 error though, incase an admin sees this.

Miriam, you asked if customer actually come to the business. Yes, people that visit for meetings. We want people to be able to find them and visit if they. I'm curious though, if we chose the service area option, wouldn't it effect the local seo/google map rankings?

Also, this is a brand new website and web domain. The previous domain was with a company that would not release it, it only had a DA of 4 though. Anyway, we have a domain authority of 1 per our moz campaign. Competitors have a 12 and a 16. What is the fastest way to increase this?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Matthew!

Good for you for reaching out for help on this. EGOL has caught some really important problems with the website and these should be top priority fixes. Hopefully you (or your webmaster) can overhaul the website and get rid of the errors and then devote resources to improving the overall quality of the site's content.

Additionally, you'll be wanting to work on your citations. I just popped your name/zip into our free Moz Check Listing tool and see inconsistencies and duplicates: https://moz.com/local/details/JTI1NUIlMjUyMkVzdGVzJTI1MjBSb29maW5nJTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyNzU3MDMlMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjJFc3RlcyUyNTIwUm9vZmluZyUyNTIwYW5kJTI1MjBDb25zdHJ1Y3Rpb24lMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjIxNTkwMiUyNTIwQ291bnR5JTI1MjBSZCUyNTIwMTY1JTI1MjBBJTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyNzU3MDMlMjUyMiUyNTJDJTI1MjI5MDM3MDcyMjE5JTI1MjIlMjU1RA==

At a glance, I'm particularly noting a lot of inconsistencies in your business name. Any place you list or mention your business name (on local business listings, on your website, etc.) you should be totally consistent. There are other inconsistencies as well.

You'll want to begin working on earning more Google reviews as well as reviews on other platforms that are important to your customers.

I noticed your address on your GMB listing is visible. Do customers actually come to your location? If not, Google wants you to take steps to hide your address on your listing because you are an SAB (service area business).

So, you're on a journey here. The good news is that there are specific reasons the business hasn't yet achieved the rankings it wants, and these are all things you can attend to. I suggest, in addition to acting on advice you're receiving from the community here, that you go through our Local SEO checklist: https://moz.com/blog/local-seo-checklist

Hope it helps, and good luck in the work ahead in 2017!

[EGOL]

I just searched for the brand name "Estes Roofing" from Pennsylvania and see the site at #5  Above it are pages from Yelp (2), GAF (2), and BlueBook, where the brand name is displayed in the title tag.

This site has lots of problems.  Errors, empty pages, thin content.  The site probably presents to search engines as being "uncared for".     Visitors who see errors may leave quickly and Google will see them as bounces.

1)  Most pages I visited have errors in the php on pageload.....

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/content/p3pnexwpnas11_data01/66/3706666/html/wp-content/themes/tm-renovation/core/kirki/includes/output/field/class-kirki-output-field-spacing.php on line 28

2)  Many interior pages display..

Nothing Found.  It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching can help.

3)  Lots of the pages have just one or two sentences of unique content.  This presents as a "low quality" site and can result in a Panda demotion.

4)  Internal linking is inconsistent.  As just one example... "The Tyler Roofing & Construction Company that You Can Trust!" at the top of many pages links to http://estesroofingtx.com/services/commercial-roofing/#  instead of http://estesroofingtx.com/services/commercial-roofing/ .   The inconsistent linking should be eliminated.  Canonical tags are on the pages that I checked, so that is good.  Some people would use .htaccess to drop the #