What is my site missing for improved ranking - Pls Help
-
Hi
I would really appreciate any advice or guidance on what my site needs to move onto the 1st page as I am at a loss on what else is required?
On a search for chartered accountants swansea according to the SEOMOZ campaign ranking report the site www.harrisbassett.co.uk is down in 27 position for this keyphrase in Google.
However when looking over the ranking analysis my site has a stronger authority, more root domains, more domain authority and linking root domains than 4 out of the top 5 listings. Also the onpage analysis of some of the top 10 results is very poor, with no blogs, social features etc
I have been building links based from competitor analysis which should be more than what is shown in the ranking report, but is my site missing any kep ingredients that would propel it up onto the 1st page - as the keyword difficulty is only 25% so I am struggling to work out what key elements/improvements are required for this final push.
-
1. Please redirect all non-www traffic to it's www equivalent.
2. Please redirect the http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk/index.html page to the / page.
-
Ok thanks - what do I need to ask them to do so that the main page is http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk and not the other 3 variations you mention
-
The best solution by far is the .htaccess solution. The canonical tag still leaves you open to others using and linking to the wrong page.
As far as your host, if they are a "real" hosting company, they will have the knowledge to change the htaccess file and probably have done so for hundreds if not many thousands of sites. If they cannot make this change quickly and easily, I would consider changing hosts. Any quality host offers 24/7 telephone or at least ticket support. If I requested this change for any client of mine it would be made in 24 hours at worst, and often much faster.
-
or can it be done with the canonical tag? as my host is a local company and not sure if they would do that or at least not very quickly
If so how would you implement this to solve the 4 pages into 1 scenario I have.
Alternatively I have access to the FTP of the site so if any experts in the forum can help with a .htaccess file that will solve the problem I would be very grateful.
-
My preference would be to ask your host to make that change. Most small sites use managed hosting, and almost every web host is willing to make that change for their customers.
If you make the change yourself and the slightest mistake is made, your website can be taken offline, your SEO compromised or your web security compromised. Additionally, the order of statements within the .htaccess file can alter the results.
-
Ryan
Many thanks - I applied some of your great advice last time which helped so I am hoping this will also do that
With the multiple homepages is it possible you could supply the relevant .htaccess file required so the search engines know it should point to http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk and not any of the other 3 addresses you mention
Thanks once more for your time and excellent help
-
I completely agree with Ryan here.
When I started (@ the furniture market.co.uk) our home page was attempting to rank for loads of key words, I created sub pages.. long story short... Just yesterday in the Rank Tracker report I have guided a brand new sub page "glass-coffee-tables" to number 1 for that search term on Google.co.uk, against Argos, Amazon, John Lewis, M&S.. It can be done. (10 months later & all white hat)
Concentrate on 'On Page' basics before you go off page.
-
The feedback I previously shared in your prior Q&A still applies.
I see your site presently ranked as the 14th result in Google.co.uk for "chartered accountants swansea".
You have a small site with 17 pages. The recommended approach would be to have your home page rank for your brand name "Harris Bassett" and an internal page to be created which specifically targets the keyword you wish to rank for "Chartered Accountants Swansea".
The process would be as follows:
1. Create a page titled "Chartered Accountants Swansea"
2. Use a H1 tag on the page "Chartered Accountant Swansea"
3. The content on the page should be specifically designed to support the page's topic.
4. There should not be other pages on your site discussing this topic or, if they do, then use anchor text to link back to the main page for the topic.
5. Earn links from other sites to the page using anchor text.
Your site has a variety of issues which I believe I shared with you previously when you presented this same issue.
1. Your home page is presently available under at least 4 unique URLs
http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk/index.html
http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk/
http://harrisbassett.co.uk/index.html
You need to fix this problem for your site on your ranking will suffer. Choose one version of your URL you like and 301 redirect the other versions to the desired URL.
2. Presently your home page title is "Chartered Accountants Swansea | Harris Bassett Swansea". You also have another page on your site, http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk/accountant-swansea.html. The page title is "Harris Bassett | Swansea Accountant". While it is a different phrase, there are strong similarities, especially for such a small site.
The problem is raised because you use the term "chartered" on the latter page, and you do not use any link to refer back to your home page.
3. Your home page is also diluted by focusing multiple terms. The page is further diluted by discussing multiple topics not related to "Chartered Accountants Swansea" such as Taxation, Outsourcing, Financing and Grants.
I know you are looking at your site and comparing it to some other sites with the feeling you should rank better. You are right, you should rank better but that wont happen until you fix the issues with your site. The rankings as they stand seem perfectly valid to me. Yes, you mentioned a few of the 200+ factors which determine a page's rankings where your site performs better, but the above items should be addressed so you can cash in on those metrics.
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
-
Site DA and rank is not increasing
Hy, My site https://cocpureapk.com/ DA is Still 1. I am Publishing the content regularly, Site age is 6 months But Still DA and PA are 1 and rank is still not increasing.. Why its not increasing. Is there any way to increase DA and rank Of my site?
Link Building | | ikzayahot0 -
Are these links helping
Hi, We have had a few new links for a client and we are hoping that we can get some feedback on whether these have any link juice. We dont want to waste our time with links that dont benefit the website. Thanks http://thebestmealplancateringbiz.strikingly.com/blog/diet-meal-plan-delivery-services http://mealplanguide.home.blog/2018/11/02/importance-of-diet-meal-plans/ https://besthealthymeals.tumblr.com/post/179669447854/benefits-of-diet-meal-planning https://lauraberbenaj2.wixsite.com/mysite/blog/healthy-diet-meals-delivery
Link Building | | Caffeine_Marketing0 -
Would a link from an unrelated website, that is popular, help me ?
I have a website that gets 200,000 visitors a month. It is a very popular financial tool. I have another website that sells widgets, but honestly, not really related to the financial tool. I would like to help out the unpopular website by giving it a link. What's the professional opinion?
Link Building | | sonic220 -
Manual action and no ranking impact?
Hello, I received the message in Google Webmasters Tools about unnatural links to site (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UFHCw4Q_FQ) for two of my websites. I have a hard time undestanding why since I don't buy links, I don't do link exchanges and I don't directories or article directories. Anyways, I received this message on Friday and I didn't lose any rankings on either of those sites or at least not on my main keyword which is the only one that matters. Is it normal that I didn't lose any rankings? Would you advise I do anything specific? Thanks a lot.
Link Building | | EndeR-0 -
Linking back to a high authority site
I have an odd situation. One of our most powerful links comes from a not-for-profit whom we have an advertisement with. That ad gets us half of our business. Recently, they slipped for the term that got them the traffic that flowed to our site. I was thinking of linking back to that page to boost them up a bit. Their page is a deep page on a high authority domain with only a few links. I am an authority site for my niche. I'd like to boost them up without diminishing my rank for other related terms. I'm willing to consider linking to them from my homepage, blog or link page. To play it safe I could just link build to them from outside my domain. Can I just link to them and its not a big deal?
Link Building | | JDP0 -
Link building need help
I've been doing link building for the past 2 months for a website. I've put together some blog posts and submitted them to some sites. However, I don't want to repeat the content on other sites or use the same sites again for links. The problem with this company is that nothing is happening. The last press release they issued was in 2010 and in the 4 months I've been working for them nothing has happened. I have found a few good quality websites in our niche which I could approach for links, but I want to have good content to put on them. Does anyone have any ideas as how to create content that would be suitable, bearing in mind this a B2B company.
Link Building | | AAttias0 -
Link exchange with nofollow bad for ranking?
Hi, I wanted to give my EMD (Exact match domain) some more links and added it to some general start pages, just as my competitors did. The disadvantage of such link sites is that you have to add a link back to them. So I created a new page in my footer "links" and added a link back to those who requested that. However, I made all links a nofollow because I don't want them to benefit from my rankings. Those sites really have nothing to do with my subject and are just interested in a link to give them some boost I guess. I'm sure not everybody like my approach, but my question is. Will those nofollow links on my page back to the ones that requested it affect my rankings?
Link Building | | severtservice
Or should I remove the nofollow? Thanks!
Dennis0 -
Backllinks to our site but via redirect (still SEO helpful?)
Hi, A large website may link to us but via their internal redirect mechanism. So it would be somthing like this: [If you select the link, it eventually goes to our site but not from the original page. These links would be placed on lots of pages, but since they would all "pass through" the "redirect" page, it seems not as beneficial from an SEO perspective. Is this reasoning correct? Would google still follow the link and see where it ends up, even though it is via multiple pages? Ideally I'd prefer direct link but how much better is it than the redirect as listed above?](/redirect/rd?site=www.oursite.com/page&trackingparam=111111)
Link Building | | NicB10