Completely Stumped. Any Onpage SEO Pros willing to take a look?

[d2minc]

Looking at my profile page for probably the first time, I?ve been a member of this forum since 2013. But I have never posted or contributed anything, just taken the info of those who do take the time to contribute. So while I don?t deserve any favors from anyone here, I?m hoping a few will chime in anyways. I will make a better effort to try to contribute what I can in the future, regardless of any responses.

My question/issue - I have a local appliance repair client ? a niche that (at least from what I see) is pretty uncompetitive in my area. The site is fairly new (less than a year), but has been optimized (around Oct 2015). Not much local SEO/citation work done, so that?s not part of the equation just yet.

It's been a several months and I still haven?t been able to move the site to the first page for any of the target terms with searches. I've never had this issue before in such an uncompetitive niche so I?m completely stumped as to what might be the issue.

It?s actually a little embarrassing (putting this out on a public forum), but over the past couple of months I've tried testing/tweaking certain elements on a couple of pages trying to find something that works, but haven?t had much luck.

When I look at the overall metrics of the sites on the first page (using Market Samuari) - the sites on the first page have very little good metrics (links, etc.) - other than domain age - and aren't really optimized at all. I've replicated every competitor link possible and then some.

Another mystery I?ve never had an issue with before - for some reason this page - bringerappliancerepair.com/louisville-appliance-repair-services/ - has been the page that?s ranking for many of the target keywords, instead of the home page?

I would greatly appreciate any insights or suggestions anyone might have. Here is a short link to the site. Thanks for your time in advance.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi d2minc,

Thanks for posting – it's about time! Haha

Sundays are quiet here so you may not get many replies today so I decided to jump in real quick. But I'm supposed to be on medical leave so can't go into too much detail. Several things I found just after a quick glance, I didn't do a deep dive.

Ideally the most important keywords should be at the very front of the title tag.
The title tag on that internal page that's ranking is "Louisville Appliance Repair Services". Where as home page leads with their name.

Do you know if he has another business he runs out of his home called Bringer Investments? Because there is an unclaimed listing for that business w/ Bringer in the name and same home address as what I assume you have in dashboard. Google knows the two are associated so wonder if that one is interfering?

The 3rd thing I noticed and others here will say there's no proof – but I've personally gotten listings in the rankings by cleaning this up. In the GMB description Appliance Repair is part of the name which is repeated there and it's also the primary keywords. And those 2 words and derivatives of them which Google considers synonyms are repeated a total of 12 times in that short 3 paragraph description.

I've seen the page GMB links to – which in this case is home – get dinged for the same keywords that are overly repeated in the G plus description. I've had consulting clients jump right up in rankings when they clean up the description.

The average consumer will never see that Google plus page now that Google has hidden it from view. And keywords in the description are definitely not a ranking factor, but I have seen them be a ranking killer. So since it doesn't help and could hurt, might as well strip all those repetitive keywords out of the description. Their name doesn't need to be repeated maybe washers and dryers in the other types of appliances could stay in. But I'd strip out any instance of those 2 words or synonyms of – is again nobody's going to see that page.

So that's a couple things I noticed just doing a quick peek. I'm sure other members will chime in if not today tomorrow.

 

[Blake Denman]

I would work on the site speed first and foremost: https://developers.google.com/speed...://www.bringerappliancerepair.com/&tab=mobile

I agree with Linda's recommendations. You may want to go through all the pages and make sure that title tags and descriptions are not truncated.

After making all of those adjustments do a fetch and render through Google Webmaster Tools.

I would also say that it doesn't matter how quickly you do the work, it can take some time for your efforts to show.

 

[James Watt]

Figured I'd jump in and add a little to what Linda and Blake put out there.

I noticed that you're at the bottom of the second page for your organic listing... having a good organic position is one thing that weighs into 3-pack spot, so there's definitely some work to do organically. It looks like you've got a better backlink profile than some of the sites ahead of you (which you already commented on) but doing a little more backlink building wouldn't hurt, if you've already exhausted the on-site optimisation. A resource to help with the brainstorming for backlinks is here.

If you haven't already, it'd be good too to start working with the client to build more reviews. Use a link you make here to send customers to.

Looks like you've got huge holes in your citation coverage as well. Citation building can be complicated if the owner absolutely positively doesn't want the address public anywhere, but since the address is already listed on Facebook, I'd add Moz Local onto the stack to go along with your manual citation building.

I realize that with lower monthly fee clients there's only so much time you can afford to spend on them every month, but I'm afraid I wasn't able to spot anything big and obvious that's holding you back, aside from your organic position making me think your time might be well spent addressing any organic ranking holes if Linda's tips don't shake things loose first.

 

[d2minc]

Greatly appreciate all the feedback.

Ideally the most important keywords should be at the very front of the title tag.
The title tag on that internal page that's ranking is "Louisville Appliance Repair Services". Where as home page leads with their name.

Yeah I had Appliance Repair Louisville, KY (most searched keyword) at the beginning of the title tag originally. But looking at what the first page competition title tags decided to back off and just go with the business name since it still has all the same keywords. Part of the testing/tweaking I've been trying.

Do you know if he has another business he runs out of his home called Bringer Investments? Because there is an unclaimed listing for that business w/ Bringer in the name and same home address as what I assume you have in dashboard. Google knows the two are associated so wonder if that one is interfering?

Haven't gotten into much local search yet, just Google, Yelp, and few others. But client never mentioned this business so I'll have to ask about it. Thanks for the heads up though.

The average consumer will never see that Google plus page now that Google has hidden it from view. And keywords in the description are definitely not a ranking factor, but I have seen them be a ranking killer.

I'll definitely clean this up since, as you mentioned, consumers can't find the page anyway. Thanks Linda

I would work on the site speed first and foremost

Site is pretty good in gtmetrix and pingdom, but I guess what Google thinks is all that matters ; ) I'll work on this. Thanks Blake

I noticed that you're at the bottom of the second page for your organic listing... having a good organic position is one thing that weighs into 3-pack spot, so there's definitely some work to do organically. It looks like you've got a better backlink profile than some of the sites ahead of you (which you already commented on) but doing a little more backlink building wouldn't hurt, if you've already exhausted the on-site optimisation. A resource to help with the brainstorming for backlinks is here.

Still working on building more links. Seen this article before, great resource, need to revisit this one. Thanks James

Looks like you've got huge holes in your citation coverage as well. Citation building can be complicated if the owner absolutely positively doesn't want the address public anywhere, but since the address is already listed on Facebook, I'd add Moz Local onto the stack to go along with your manual citation building.

Haven't done much on the local search site yet with this client - so definitely have a ways to go there.

Again appreciate all the insights and feedback. I could be wrong, but I feel like the onpage is pretty good overall. Really looking for anything related to onpage that I'm completely missing. It seems like there must be something "technical" or site structure related that I've somehow screwed up somewhere.

 

[James Watt]

On page looks reasonably good to me at least. Might be something I missed, but I don't see anywhere you're likely shooting yourself in the foot on-site.

 

[JoyHawkins]

I would suggest removing the link to the marketing company in your footer, or at least add a no-follow tag to it.

 

[pbarnhart]

Just a minor item, but you might be keyword-stuffing the alt tags (ref https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/114016?hl=en) - unless you have a guy wrench in hand, that's just an oven, not oven repair.

 

[CodyBaird]

I would try adding a google map embed on your home and contact page that links back to your google+ Local page.


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