Ranking better

[bigtimeseo]

Hello there,

I am after some specific guidance on how to rank well for the keyword ‘Translation Services’. I have managed to get the site www.pstranslation.co.uk to page 2 of google UK for this key term. The difficulty is I seem to have run out of steam now on how to get higher rankings. After spending a considerable amount of time creating content and gaining links I managed to get the site from around page 15 on google uk to page 4 then to page 2. That’s where it seems to have stopped. I (think I) have got the onsite SEO pretty well nailed. I have got some good linkable content (http://www.pstranslation.co.uk/infog_languages.html,http://www.pstranslation.co.uk/language_resources_indus.html) and have plans to produce a more.

Experience working within the language industry tells me that a top 3 position on page 1 for this keyword can very lucrative so my main focus of SEO is to rank well for this key phrase.

There is a very good chance you reply will simply be get more (better) links and if it is that’s fine but is there anything else I can do? Am I missing a very obvious trick anywhere?

Looking forward to your reply.

[jaraca]

Thnak you all for your insights. I've learned a lot!

[Harbor_Compliance]

I would first say that you should consider other keywords including some "long-tail" keywords.  While these do not have quite as high of volume, they are generally not as competitive, and can tend to be highly profitable since the more established companies typically go after the largest volume keywords.

Through optimizing for the longer tail keywords, you will build more domain authority for your site, which I can tell is something you could benefit from doing.  At DA32, you have room to grow.  You're also not far off from your competitor, languageconnect.net, in that regard.

[Goetzman]

What did you use for scanning him?

[Goetzman]

Not really MORE, but a better mix of backlinks may help shift from page 2 to page 1 also, wouldn't you think?

[AlanMosley]

do you have access to Microsofy SEO toolket?
I found 646 errors or warning scaning your site. Dont be too alaremed as very few sites pass, in fact i have found none that pass.  If you have iis7 yoiu can instal it for free. if not i can send you the report.

I would fix these first. Your efforts are discounted while these problems are not fixed. its a bit like fishing with holes in your net.

[caseyhen]

Hi.

I think there are a few things you can look at that should help with this specific keyword. Please note that anytime you focus on one specific keyword you could be jeopardising traffic from other keywords. Having said that there are a few things I would look at if my focus was only on that keyword.

Firstly, I would look at updating the title tag slightly. You currently have Language Translation Services | Translation Company, UK. It tends to help having your main keyword as the first thing in a title tag. It would be relatively easy and still very natural to re-write the title tag to remove language as the first phrase and start with translation services.

Secondly, and in my opinion more importantly I would look at adding some textual content to the homepage. It is the homepage that is ranking on the 2nd page for the keyword, yet there is very little content mentioning the phrase. It is only mentioned in anchor text or in very sort snippets of text. I would look at writing some content explaining what your translation services offer and what your unique selling point is. You should avoid write the content with your users in mind and not worry at all about the search engines. Doing this you will naturally make use of the keywords required.

With those changes in place I believe you will be in a better position to rank for the keyword however I think you will need to continue building good quality links. If you compare your site with language connect (who I see in 9th) you'll see there is still a way to go based on these metrics.

(I've ignored babelfish in 10th, because they aren't a good comparison, in that they aren't a direct competitor except for in the SERPS).

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/www.pstranslation.co.uk%252F/www.languageconnect.net/a!comparison

The interesting metric in my eyes is the difference in linking root domains, which is thought of as a strong indicator for rankings. One word of warning, from what I see almost all your links are going to your homepage. Its natural for a large percentage of links to point to the homepage however to hardly have any external links to your internal pages could look suspicious.

Good Luck