Trouble Ranking 1st
-
We are having trouble ranking. We seem to do well for lower competitive words but we are really want to rank for "web design" in our local area. Which is Tyler, Texas. Can anyone advise on what we need to differently?
We use Moz Local, have a reviews and are using Yoast SEO. The only thing I can think of is on page optimization. Any advice?
-
Hi Matthew!
My pleasure, and I'm so glad you found my answer helpful. It sounds like you have a game plan for some work ahead. Yes, it's possible that by not being #1, you may be missing some traffic, but it might not be as much as you think, given that you are in the top 3. In your shoes, I'd be counseling myself to focus a little less on rankings and a little more on broadening my company's visibility for secondary terms in the local-organic results. The size of your city (population about 100,000) convinces me that you could really cover the waterfront of things people in Tyler need with the right content strategy and harness some highly targeted/highly converting traffic.
Rand, in particular, has done some amazing Whiteboard Fridays over the past year or so about content, keywords, etc. I hope you'll take full advantage of this section of the Moz Blog:
https://moz.com/blog/category/whiteboard-friday
Good luck!
-
I guess that is one way to link build?
-
Thank you both for the thorough answers.
1) You need to perform a thorough competitive analysis of the 2 companies outranking you. Are they older? What's their authority like? Their link profile? How many Google-based reviews have they earned compared to you? How strong is their content? What is their geographic position on the map, relative to the 'centroid' of Tyler and relative to you? Etc., etc.
They are both older than our company. We are very new, our main competitor has been in business since the beginning of the internet...they claim 30 years. The other has about 3 years on us. However in a year we have gotten into the top 3.
2) You mention you are using Moz Local, so this should mean that your core citations are either in great shape or are on their way to being so. Have you fully filled out your Moz Local listing with images, photos, social links, etc? Images, in particular, impact conversions.
I'd like to think so. We have a 94% right now in Moz Local. We just changed our main phone number for our headquarters and we have two other locations on Google Business that are in cities close by. 30-70 miles away. We only have additional Google Businesses set up for them, all other citations are our headquarters location.
3) How is your review game beyond Google? Narrow and thin or diverse and broad?
We have 20 or more reviews on Google (4.9, one 4 star). Our top competitor has 3 reviews, a 5.0 (I just checked, they now have 5. That is 0 to 5 in the last 4 weeks) and they outrank us (DA of 51, ours is 14). Our second competitor has less than ten reviews. We have 15 on Facebook, all 5 stars (I think). Competitors have nothing. But other than that, we have one review on BBB and one or two on Yelp. Competitors have nothing there. Overall, I'd say we win but it isn't playing out that way.
We will start focusing on content and links. This was something we focused on in the beginning but have lost focus on. As for our conversion rates, we do pretty well with leads. We also close most of those leads...so I'm pretty happy with that. That said, once we get an inquiry we usually get a client. I just feel we are missing out on traffic/leads by not being number 1. It's also hard for us to say we will get clients ranking when we can't rank ourselves. It is hard for us to settle for top 3.
I do thank you both for the very informative posts. We still have a lot to learn so I welcome any additional insight.
-
Hi Matthew,
I agree with Igor that this is a competitive keyword, but I'm assuming that you are talking about local pack rankings, rather than organic (Igor cites competing with Wikipedia and others, which would not be a wise use of time/resources). I think what you are asking about is how to compete with the businesses coming up in the local pack for the search 'web design tyler tx' or for people in Tyler searching for 'web design' alone?
So, first of all, I would start with a small adjustment of your thinking. If you can rank in the top 3 in a free (non-paid) local pack, you are more or less equal with the folks ranking 1 and 2. In my own search for 'web design tyler tx', you are coming up 3rd in the pack and in the local finder view (reached via the more places link at the bottom of the pack).
I'm not sure where you see your own business ranking when you do this search from your office and from locations around your city (it may be quite different from what I see), but going on the premise that you've achieved a #3 ranking (well done!), here's what you'd have to do to try to move up:
-
You need to perform a thorough competitive analysis of the 2 companies outranking you. Are they older? What's their authority like? Their link profile? How many Google-based reviews have they earned compared to you? How strong is their content? What is their geographic position on the map, relative to the 'centroid' of Tyler and relative to you? Etc., etc.
-
You mention you are using Moz Local, so this should mean that your core citations are either in great shape or are on their way to being so. Have you fully filled out your Moz Local listing with images, photos, social links, etc? Images, in particular, impact conversions.
-
How is your review game beyond Google? Narrow and thin or diverse and broad?
-
If, at the end of your competitive analysis, you find that your metrics are quite similar to the two companies outranking you, then my best advice would be to:
-
Focus on content development that bests your competitors' efforts
-
Earn some really solid mentions from the main publications in your city, preferably with links, but w/o them can be valuable simply as authority citations
-
Analyze new linkbuilding opportunities
-
And, finally, consider whether what you really need is higher rankings or a better conversion rate. There may not be that much difference between the number of clickthroughs you are getting from the local pack vs your 2 competitors. Let's say you are getting 3 leads a week through the #3 ranking you've earned and the guys at #1 are getting 4 leads. What really matters is whether your website and your sales people are converting 3/3 leads, or 0/3 per week. That's where the money is. If it turns out that what you really need is better conversions, then you must analyze the website for this specific goal, and also, analyze how your sales people are handling calls that come to you through the local pack and other avenues. It can make a big different to your bottom line if you get to where you are converting even 2/3 leads per week instead of 1 or 0/3.
Hope this helps!
-
-
Competition on "web design" is waaaay to high. It displays 7 ads in SERP in Tyler TX, which is A LOT. With top websites in organic search being Wikipedia, Behance and even Google. Beating these will require way more effort then you should waste on it.
It's not really the keyword you want to focus on too unless your website is a competitor to Wikipedia. This keyword is too broad and converts terribly if at all.
If you do web design, focus on k
keywords that your potential clients use, they probably search for things like "make a website" and etc, forget about trying to rank for Web Design, do some keyword research, find out what your clients search for and target those keywords.
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
-
Which one of these URL's will rank the best?
Hello! Curious on the community's thoughts on linking best practices for the following hypothetical scenario: I own a site called landscaping.com and want to rank for the term "landscapers houston". I have a link on the top title bar linking to landscaping.com/landscapers-near-me with an interactive map with clickable links leading to different metro areas. What should be my link from that page to the Houston page? 1. landscaping.com/landscapers-near-me/landscapers-houston 2. landscaping.com/landscapers-near-me/houston 3. landscaping.com/landscapers-houston 4. landscaping.com/houston The main question is whether to include the parent page or not. i have 2 conflicting thoughts. 1. short URL's are better so dont include it 2. include it because that is the page that links out to it and it helps Google understand the site flow. Thanks, Ryan
Local Listings | | RyanMeighan0 -
Local Ranking with No Physical Address in New Service Area - How to Rank?
OK, SO, I am a wedding company in Maui, Hawaii and have an established business on one island with a physical address. http://simplemauiwedding.net We have started a new team in Oahu, Hawaii http://simpleoahuwedding.com and we provide service there and have a full team in place. How can I rank for Local Search on that Island with no physical address? I would love to hear some proven strategies. Thank you 🙂
Local Listings | | photoseo10 -
Do you need contact details (NAP) on every page of your website for local search ranking ?
We’ve got a clients site which doesn't have the contact details on every page, all the contact details are on the /contact page which is using the schema.org local business markup Some sites that our outranking us locally have their contact details on all pages, where as others only have it on the contact page also. Is having your contact details on every page a ranking factor for local search ?
Local Listings | | mike8780 -
Do canonical links effect local search rankings?
Hello, I have just been doing some reading about canonical links. Part of my role at my family business is to look after all of the SEO and digital marketing for our business. I've been really pleased with the results i've managed to get as we currently rank in the top 3 in the organic search for all of the keywords we've been trying for. My question is though, The Moz scan of my site came back and said we have some duplicate content. Although i've written every page completely from scratch I am sort of saying the same thing. We cover a few different areas for our business and we are in the service industry and i've always thought it was better to have a page dedicated to an area. We are a removals company and I would always type in for example 'Removal companies in London' I wouldn't just type in Removal Companies. It is very location specific which we've found out by asking our customers what they have/would type in. Because of this, I was thinking perhaps this duplicate content is harming our sites SEO so I wondering, if i implemented a canonical link from all of my local area pages to my main House Removals page to say that there is where the content originated.Would it negatively affect the current ranking of my local pages (as it's pretty good) or would it actually increase the strength of our SEO and improve it? Any help would be hugely appreciated 🙂 Cheers, Robert P.S i'm only self taught and i'm trying to learn as much as i can, please be kind.
Local Listings | | BearPaw880 -
Help Understanding Localized Search Results/Ranks
I have a Moz campaign for duvalasphalt.com where I want to track a non-location specific keyword, then variations that include a location. For example, here are the rankings for a keyword and the 2 location variations. asphalt company (not in top 50) asphalt company jacksonville (ranked 6) jacksonville asphalt company (ranked 6) When I do a search for just "asphalt company," I see duvalasphalt.com ranked 11. Why does Moz not show an 11 rank? I understand Google tries to show me location specific results even if my search is not location specific. Is Moz's ranking crawler searching from a location where Google will not serve Jacksonville-related results? It would make sense, but how can I get Moz to capture the rankings that are important to my client? The rankings we want to see are the results made from in and around Jacksonville. Any help here is appreciated!
Local Listings | | ElykInnovation0 -
Brain Teaser - Dead Link Ranking in SERP's
Hello Moz Brains. Came across a site that is coming up for "caliber signs and imaging" which is a brand I'm working with, and a few things have me baffled: 1. The link in the SERP takes you to an error page (you can manually access it by dropping the www.)
Local Listings | | VanadiumInteractive
2. The entire site is setup with iFrams (header frame, body frame, and footer frame) navigating throughout the site keeps the single url and only swaps the body content.
3. The site if for a sign company but the blog area served in the iFrame is in Indonesian and seems to about some soccer matches.
4. The business associated with this site is in AZ, but they are coming in local (Irvine, CA) results with a dead page and no locally relevant content. I'm I missing something or is Google missing something? The site is "http://calibersigns.com/" and it belongs to a company in AZ. -- it comes up for "caliber signs and imaging" (in my case on the 3rd spot) or even worse "caliber signs and graphics" where it seems to be at the top, with all the surrounding content being the true brand -- which makes it look like my clients Google+ reviews and other endorsements belong to them. I have my local setting set to "92618", Irvine CA Would love some feedback on this and your opinion on how we should proceed? thanks in advance0 -
Change in Google local ranking
So we have a WA construction client that we're working on doing some local SEO stuff. This month all the keywords that we're tracking but one is on the first page. It's easy to say "yay, we're so damn good at what we do", but it seems like there must have been a shift in the way google is ranking local results. Anyone else experiencing this??
Local Listings | | SoleGraphics0 -
Local SEO: How many consistent citations needed to rank
Hello, Can you guys analyze this site and see how many (quality, consistent) citations they'll need to rank 1st (in local results) for the two following local terms: weight loss salt lake city hypnosis salt lake city website: The Brain Trainer LLC www.expandingpotentials.net Thank you
Local Listings | | BobGW0