Been working on my site to rank but has not moved.

[JimFranco]

I used to rank well, But the practices of the seo company years ago were not good. So, after panda and penguin my site dove. Been working on it for a few months and still really has not moved up.

I have disavowed any spammy backlinks. Tried to fix all my citation issues. I had previous address. I only have the white pages and 1 or 2 more waiting to be fixed.

I have tried to add local links. But, I think I need a couple of good ones and not sure where to get them.

My business is a cleaning business. Here is my google page

https://plus.google.com/u/1/+MightyCleanHomeRoswell/about

Been trying to get reviews. Most of my reviews though are on Kudzu which is big here in Atlanta.

Creating area pages that are unique. I only have two locations my business is out of.

I am working on writing content.

Afraid to add any links I don't want to waste my money or have them look bad.

Should I trade with other local businesses ?

I am trying to rank for
house cleaning Atlanta, Roswell, Marietta, etc for the town in the northern metro area.

Also for maid services Atlanta, etc.

Any advice or critique would be greatly appreciated.

our site never had any manual action. Just seems like a filter.

I look at my rankings and it seems still to be filtered


Thanks in advance




above my stats from semrush, how it use to be till now.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey Jim,

We haven't seen a Penguin refresh in over a year (since October 2014) so even if you cleaned up everything correctly you still won't see a lift in the penalty/filter until Penguin refreshes. The good news is that it should be refreshing soon.

---------- Post Merged at 08:26 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 08:23 PM ----------

On the local front, you have 2 verified pages:
https://plus.google.com/114002249654620582667/about
https://plus.google.com/+MightyCleanHomeRoswell/about


I'm guessing you're a service area business? Customers don't show up at your house, right? If that's the case, you need to hide your address to comply with Google's rules. Also, what is the address in Chamblee?

 

[JimFranco]

The Chamblee one is our old address , which is being changed to our new address in Marietta , just waiting for the postcard to come in . We requested it a couple of times and yet have come. I called and they said they sent it , so I am waiting.

Well we do have an office for our Roswell. Its not based out of home. So customers can come to our office and talk to us etc. So we do both.

So only time things get fixed is if Penguin updates and that can be over a year ? Wow ! How far apart are they usually ?

 

[CodyBaird]

If you've been slapped by penguin then you are going to feel it for 12 to 18 mo after Google let's you out of the sandbox.

It is not a slap on the hand. It is a slap in the face. Sometimes a punch to the groin. It is ment to hurt you badly, so that you don't go down the path again.

Traffic increases slowly in my experience. Slower if you were very blatant in your blackhat link building. (Thousands of domains) Faster if it was only a handful. (Hundreds) It also depends what percentage of links were good vs bad. 80% bad, pick up a hobby, it's going to be awhile. 20% bad links and you probably don't even need to submit.

You can also off set by building more good links now. How? The easiest way is BBB (ignore the talking heads and their nofollow attribute baloney) YP if you advertise, AngiesList, lots of the same places you get citations. Pay to join local chambers of commerce. Donate to local charity's that lists sponsors on their website. Ads on local media, newspapers, blogs etc. Sponsor events like meetup.com events in your area that are relevant to your biz.

I know what you're thinking. Cody, that's just paying for links. Yep. You will always pay for links. These are still the cheapest, easiest links on the web. They also have the best authority. 2 - 4k on these links will do wonders for your rankings. These links are still cheaper than the cost of creative content and outreach for that content. You spend a lot of money building content that probably won't get a single link let alone a power link.

Yes nofollow attributes stop some of the link juice but Google loves them and your rankings will prove it.

Link ghosts are real. Pay AngiesList for a couple months, or yp and then cancel after the link has been indexed. I believe that a large part of the juice never evaporates. Sign up for the chamber 1 year, get your juice and move onto the next one.

You will have to do a lot of guest posting (10, 20, 30) to get the same juice as 1 BBB or YP link.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[CodyBaird]

Reviews on Kudzu are a waste of a review IMO. Its hard to go ask someone to leave another review on Google, Yelp, or Bing after they already did it once. Even if it's popular in your city most prospects will never see it. Unless they visit your site but they won't visit your site if the competition has a lot more reviews from the search page.

If you want to move the conversion needle then you need Google, Yellowpages, Yelp, and Bing reviews. In that order for your vertical IMO. Maybe bing before Yelp. If you were a resturant and would place yelp after Google.

Google for the accounts with gmail. Yelp and YP will work for the rest becuase first time users can sign in with Facebook and almost every has a FB account.

I can't tell you how many times I see a business with hundreds of demandforce reviews and 5 google reviews. Epic fail. You need reviews where people start their search. GOOGLE. First page is pointless if your competition doubles or triples your review count. This is especially true for service businesses.

Molly Maid has 14 google reviews and Qcare has 7. You have 2. Get 25 and your online success will change DRAMATICALLY.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[CodyBaird]

Your mobile site is a bit frustrating to use. I can't see the expanded menu. I recommend a responsive wordpress design. I would bet that someone here in the forum would be willing to set that up for $500 with the same content that you already have, maybe less.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[JimFranco]

Thank you very much for all the advice !

---------- Post Merged at 02:46 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 02:43 AM ----------

Reviews on Kudzu are a waste of a review IMO. Its hard to go ask someone to leave another review on Google, Yelp, or Bing after they already did it once. Even if it's popular in your city most prospects will never see it. Unless they visit your site but they won't visit your site if the competition has a lot more reviews from the search page.

If you want to move the conversion needle then you need Google, Yellowpages, Yelp, and Bing reviews. In that order for your vertical IMO. Maybe bing before Yelp. If you were a resturant and would place yelp after Google.

Google for the accounts with gmail. Yelp and YP will work for the rest becuase first time users can sign in with Facebook and almost every has a FB account.

I can't tell you how many times I see a business with hundreds of demandforce reviews and 5 google reviews. Epic fail. You need reviews where people start their search. GOOGLE. First page is pointless if your competition doubles or triples your review count. This is especially true for service businesses.

Molly Maid has 14 google reviews and Qcare has 7. You have 2. Get 25 and your online success will change DRAMATICALLY.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Since Kudzu is out of Atlanta it had a very large audience and still does. I did not even ask for those reviews. It was just that many people use it here. I have been asking for months for people to review. But, I dont know why they wont. I have given them step by step guides. Maybe an incentive will budge them to do so.

 

[CodyBaird]

It's a pain in the @ss frankly. Stick with it @jimfranco. Getfivestars.com might be a good idea. Getting a group a clients to really LOVE you and your service is the key. When they know you care and see you going the extra mile they will be willing to do more for you.

It also helps to ask them if they read reviews, if they make decisions based off reviews, have a dialog to understand their behavior. Once they agree that reviews influence their buying behavior, you say humbly, "it would mean the world to get a review from you and would really help my business"

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[CodyBaird]

I also believe in review karma. Do you personally leave reviews for your favorite business? Asking someone to do something you aren't doing yourself...doesn't really make sense or seem fair in my book.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[JimFranco]

I always leave reviews not just on review sites , but local Facebook pages when a company is great or bad.

I'm a Yelp elite reviewer.


Though my customers are loyal its hard to get them to review. Thanks for the advice !

 

[CodyBaird]

Hey Jim check out this post by Barry regarding penalty recovery
https://www.seroundtable.com/google...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[JimFranco]

Hey Jim,

We haven't seen a Penguin refresh in over a year (since October 2014) so even if you cleaned up everything correctly you still won't see a lift in the penalty/filter until Penguin refreshes. The good news is that it should be refreshing soon.

---------- Post Merged at 08:26 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 08:23 PM ----------

On the local front, you have 2 verified pages:
https://plus.google.com/114002249654620582667/about
https://plus.google.com/+MightyCleanHomeRoswell/about


I'm guessing you're a service area business? Customers don't show up at your house, right? If that's the case, you need to hide your address to comply with Google's rules. Also, what is the address in Chamblee?

I found out that Google Penguin update will be within the next couple of months which is good and for now on will be continuous and no longer have to wait for an update.

Google: Next Penguin Update Should Happen By End Of 2015

 

[Marie Haynes]

Something about this case is bugging me.

Yes, you've got some unnatural links that probably could hurt you in the eyes of the Penguin algorithm. And yes, SEMRush is showing me big drops in April and May of 2012 which are Penguin dates. However, I am not seeing you rank anywhere in the local pack at all. As far as I have seen, Penguin only affects organic rankings and not local rankings.

I'd be interested in hearing what the local experts in here think about your local listing and whether they can see a reason for it not to be ranking at all.

Hopefully the upcoming Penguin refresh will make a difference in organic rankings. But, I'm not convinced it will cause you to pop up into the local listings as well.

 

[CodyBaird]

@mariehaynes organic factors affect local pac rankings and pure local factors affect organic rankings. They don't operate in a vacuum.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[Linda Buquet]

@mariehaynes organic factors affect local pac rankings and pure local factors affect organic rankings. They don't operate in a vacuum.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

I hear what you are saying Cody and in general that is true.

I think in general the organic and local listings combine to determine pack ranking. But if there is an organic penalty it's often (always) ignored by the pack algo.

But Marie, I and others have documented many times that you can have a major organic penalty and it does not affect your pack ranking. You still rank.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Moved out of general discussions into "Help & Support" which is where posts for help on a specific listing need to be posted.

Thanks for understanding as we try to keep the forum organized for all.

 

[JoyHawkins]

"But if there is an organic penalty it's often (always) ignored by the pack algo.

But Marie, I and others have documented many times that you can have a major organic penalty and it does not affect your pack ranking. You still rank."

Linda - have you seen examples of this since Pigeon? With the exception of really old business listings & keyword stuffed listings, I rarely see any businesses ranking in the pack if they don't also rank high organically for that same keyword. I'm curious to see if you're still seeing otherwise. Some examples would be sweet to look at.

 

[Marie Haynes]

I'm interesting in having more discussion on this as well. Google has said in the past that the local algo is completely separate from the one that drives organic rankings. But, I wonder if things have changed at all in the last year with all of the changes that we have seen (i.e. Pigeon, RankBrain, 3 pack changes, etc.)

I still have some clients with Penguin issues who are indeed able to rank locally, but not organically. But, I also have some clients with Penguin issues that have dropped out of the local pack. It's hard to say though whether this drop is due to Penguin or due to the changes that happened when Google only started showing 3 local results in most SERPS.

Perhaps this would be a good thing to start a new topic on and see what others think?

 

[Linda Buquet]

The keywords I could use to find previous examples are generic enough that it might be hard to track them down. And I don't remember off hand if they were post Pigeon, but I'm pretty sure a couple were.

I'll try to dig later if I can.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Scratch that, found a couple:

<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local/22424-google-pigeon-forgives-penguin-penalties.html">Google Pigeon Forgives Penguin Penalties???</a>

<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/local-seo-ranking/28300-ranking-1-local-7-pack-even-though-panda-penguin-penalty.html">Ranking #1 in the Local 7 Pack - Even Though Panda or Penguin Penalty?</a>

Didn't have time to read to see if still valid but those are both post Pigeon and if I remember right in one or both, others weighed in confirming. May even be other examples in those 2 posts.