Why is this site ranking higher?
-
We've put a fair bit of effort into delivering value here:
https://lewescountycars.co.uk/
But a search for "Lewes taxis" or "taxis Lewes" puts this site above us:
https://www.lewestowntaxis.co.uk/
As you can you see, this is a tiny site that we outperform in most ways.... what can we do to rank above it that we haven't already done?
Thanks in advance - Gerard.
-
Many thanks to both of you for your very helpful responses. I'll get to work on improving things as suggested.
-
Hi Gerard,
Google sometimes does weird things that is very difficult to understand. I've seen and compared both sites and yours at Seo Onpage is much better, because the other one is very poor at content and number of pages.
The only 2 things that can make sense are the domain name (your competitor's domain name includes "taxis") and the backlink profile, so like you cant do nothing about the first thing, I recommend you to replicate the links they created that you don't have:
https://analytics.moz.com/pro/link-explorer/overview?site=www.lewestowntaxis.co.uk&target=domain
Maybe that helps.
Good luck!
-
Hi Gerard
Oops - yes I was looking at the top one - but it is valid that the top one has so many backlinks and I think that this is what you should be aiming for so if you looked at a citation burst first you could easily add 30+ good backlinks which will help you. I have updated my first answer.
I would consider putting your phone number in the SEO Meta title for the home page.
Google measures Click Through Rate (CTR) and I can imagine that their click-through is higher than yours because someone sees the result and calls them. You could easily leapfrog them I think.
1. Add phone number
2. Get lots of good backlinks
3. Try not to keyword stuff the page - you have 232 mentions of the word Lewes in the html which is a lot! they have 98 which is still a lot but fewer than you - keyword stuffing can harm a page.Good luck with everything and apologies for the mix-up - it was actually good though as you can see the value of a lot of backlinks!
Regards Nigel
-
Hi Nigel
Many thanks for your response.
I think you have the sites mixed up - I was referring to https://www.lewestowntaxis.co.uk not lewestaxis.co.uk, as the site that is somehow ranking above https://lewescountycars.co.uk
-
Hi Gerard
I have looked at the URL and backlink profile for starters. So these are my observations:
1. https://www.lewestowntaxis.co.uk/ was registered in 2012 yours in 2008 - Looking at Moz their Domain Authority is 10 and yours is 14 so little difference
2. You both have very few backlinks 7 vs 8
3. Lewstowntaxis is quite skinny and your is better defined. Plus you rank for around 4x the number of keywords they do.
4. You've got better GMB reviews than them too!
If it was me I would.
Work on your local backlinks from Yelp, Yell and Thompson to local news sites - get those links! - this is not difficult. You can use Moz local or Bright Local is good - you can do a 35 site citation burst for $100 https://www.brightlocal.com/take-contol-of-your-citations/
Get more reviews on GMB - talk about yourself and add photos, links & posts
https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038063?hl=en-GB
Set up Google maps and embed one in your site - 'How to Find Us'
https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6139433?hl=enThat really is just for starters and the best things you can do to bump your site upwards.
I hope that helps,
Regards Nigel
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
-
Desktop Ranking Disappeared After URL Change; Mobile Ranking Improved
A client's developer moved a site onto a new (WordPress) CMS, where the only change was URLs - the front end code stayed the same. The site is 10+ years old and previously had fantastic rankings (#1-4) with inner pages for some relatively generic search phrases (eg 10,000 searches / month in the UK, per Keyword Planner). Now, on Desktop searches the site isn't appearing anywhere in the 300+ results for a key search phrase, where it used to rank between #2-4; however over the last 3 weeks on Mobile the site ranks better than before, even though the site isn't at all mobile-friendly (it's over 10 years old). During the move, there were some errors by their developer: mistakenly left in a sitewide rel=canonical tag referring to the homepage 3-4 301s before finally reaching new URLs a lot of 301s missed (250+ crawl errors appeared in Search Console) page content differentiation by parameter, instead of individual URLs For example, the page that used to rank for the targeted phrase, this left 4 different URLs indexed, with the same content. To tackle this, we have so far: put in correct rel=canonical tags set up Search Console to recognise URL parameter as differentiating content fixed all crawl errors appearing in Search Console added a link direct to the problem page, direct from the homepage stopped duplicate content being indexed (including for the page in question) ensured the page load speed is still good (< 0.75s) Ranking for Desktop over Mobile would make sense, but not Mobile over Desktop! I'd really appreciate any advice on how to tackle this. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | magicdust0 -
How to rank for several keywords
Hi there Mozers, So far I have been building my webshop ouibonjour.com over the course of several weeks while studying the awesome educational content here on Moz and other SEO-related sites. I think I have done an OK job so far, and I have managed to rank #1 on several long tail keywords after a couple of weeks. Problem is - there are more long tail keywords I want to rank #1 for as well! **What I have done so far: ** I have taken the strongest keywords that can generate conversion and added them in page titles, title heads, main anvigation titles, in my alt text in images and so forth. The page is not screaming "SEO!" and I am happy with that. Nevertheless, I think the SEO measures here are done in an effective way. If you bothered to click on my page, you can see that the home page has only 5 posts (posts, not pages). They redirect visitors to other important parts of my site, and I change the image and/or the title once every 3 weeks to not keep the page too static. In a /magazine subfolder, I have a blog that ranks pretty good for several keywords, but the content here is not directly related to my products, but rather articles that fits the interests of my potential buyers (lifestyle, culture, etc). **What I need - but not sure how - to do: ** I basically want to rank for way more long tail keywords that relate to my products, but I don't want to continue setting up posts that have these keywords, because the content on the main page will be too heavy on the SEO, and therefore lose value for my visitors. How can I rank for more keywords without having to pepper my site with posts full of these keywords? I do not want to write articles on my blog that focuses on different combinations of long tail keywords neither, because it will get too spammy and make my visitors not return. I need help! I hope I have managed to explain my problem clearly. If there are any Whiteboard Fridays or posts on this subject that I have missed, please link me directly. If not, I would be tremendously happy and appreciative for any tips and tricks 🙂
Technical SEO | | Fernando_0 -
Site structure headache
Hello all, I'm struggling to get to grips with a websites site structure. I appreciate that quality content is key etc, and the more content the better, but then I have issues with regards to doorway pages. For example im now starting to develop a lot of ecommerce websites and want to promote this service. should we have pages that detail all of the ins and outs of ecommerce - or should we simplify it to a couple of pages. what is best practice? Also isn't a content hub similar to having doorway pages? let me know what you think! William
Technical SEO | | wseabrook0 -
Switching site from http to https. Should I do entire site?
Good morning, As many of you have read, Google seems to have confirmed that they will give a small boost to sites with SSL certificates this morning. So my question is, does that mean we have to switch our entire site to https? Even simple information pages and blog posts? Or will we get credit for the https boost as long as the sensitive parts of our site have it? Anybody know? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | rayvensoft1 -
Rankings drop after Panda
Hi All, My site dropped completely out of the SERPS on September 27th. I've tried everything I know to do (re-wrote all content, disavow links tool, filed DCMA complaints, de-optimized on-page content, made anchor text less aggressive, etc). Can you all please take a look at www.doctorloanusa.com and let me know what you think the problem is and how much you'd charge to help? Keywords used to be: doctor loans, physician loans. I ranked 2 or 3 for those keywords consistently for over 4 years. I know I need more content, but I feel like it's a waste of time creating it. If a thin site was the issue, wouldn't I at least rank SOMEWHERE in the 1000 results? Thanks for your consideration. At my wits end.
Technical SEO | | Cary_Forest0 -
Should I show archives on site?
Should I show my archives on my site? I have WordPress and have dragged the archive widget to the bottom. Would this be considered duplicate content?This is what it looks like. October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 February 2012
Technical SEO | | MyAllenMedia0 -
My site has vanished from google
Hi my site has vanished from google. We have been for a very long time. for example if you put in gastric band hypnotherapy then we would be first page number two and also lots of other keywords but now we have vanished from google and i do not know why or how to solve this. can anyone please help me and help me understand what i need to do to solve this please My site is http://www.clairehegarty.co.uk I am not sure if i have been banned or why i have dropped out of google
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Site revision
our site has complete redesign including site architecture, page url and page content (except domain). It looks like a new site. The old site has been indexed about thirty thousand results by google. now what should i do first?
Technical SEO | | jallenyang0