Stuck in SERP 6-10. What to do next?

[Timur]

Hello,

my website is ranking relatively high for a bunch of targeted keywords in my county. However, lots of pages are stuck in position 6-10 (it`s been several months). It seems like they are feeling pretty comfortable sitting there lol, but I am aiming to be in the top 3. Are there some specific strategies for cases like that? I haven`t acquired any backlinks yet, all the rankings are content-related.

 

[JoyHawkins]

It's gonna be very difficult to offer advice without knowing anything about the business, location, or targeted keywords. Can you list some details?

 

[Timur]

Hi @JoyHawkins , thank you for joining the thread
It`s an appliance repair business in Orange County CA. I am located in Irvine and targeting pretty much every city within OC for implicit and explicit searches associated with appliance repair, refrigerator repair, dryer repair etc

 

[Conor Treacy]

One of the things to do would be to look at the top 3 or 6 above you and see what they have on their pages that you do not. Links do play a big factor in rankings too, so it's possible that you've climbed as far as you can go with content before getting links. But first things first, take an inventory on what the people above you have on their pages that you don't have on yours and see if that helps move you up the list.

 

[JoyHawkins]

So I'm guessing these are mostly service area pages then. The best way to improve those is to add extra stuff that is not on every other competitor. So not more keywords, actual job examples, prices, other local related businesses, info about the brands and models you repair etc.

 

[Timur]

One of the things to do would be to look at the top 3 or 6 above you and see what they have on their pages that you do not. Links do play a big factor in rankings too, so it's possible that you've climbed as far as you can go with content before getting links. But first things first, take an inventory on what the people above you have on their pages that you don't have on yours and see if that helps move you up the list.

Thank you @Conor Treacy ! Yes, I did check their pages, and they have a lot of backlinks that I am missing. Hundreds. The thing, however, is that I don`t know what backlinks in particular are giving them a ranking boost. It doesn`t seem to be a good idea to chase down every single one of them, and I guess there are some services that can acquire a lot of links as a whole, smth like citation packages for GBP?

 

[Conor Treacy]

Thank you @Conor Treacy ! Yes, I did check their pages, and they have a lot of backlinks that I am missing. Hundreds. The thing, however, is that I don`t know what backlinks in particular are giving them a ranking boost. It doesn`t seem to be a good idea to chase down every single one of them, and I guess there are some services that can acquire a lot of links as a whole, smth like citation packages for GBP?

Most times, if they have hundreds of links pointing to a service, they're usually junk links
See what links they might have received via another article or recommendation from other sites. Directories are good, Press Releases still work, and inclusions in other people's content is one of the better kind of links to get. Don't go chasing links that are not relevant to the industry. Getting a link from a generic blog created solely to sell and provide backlinks is generally not worth its salt.
Many sites suffer from links in blog comments, profile links from forums, or sites/pages that are not ranked in Google (or have no business being ranked).

The easiest way to spot the junk is to check the backlinks and see if they have an "exact match" phrase in their anchor text. If you see hundreds of links with the same anchor test, it's likely purchased links, and at that point, you start to weed out the junk based on domain, page quality, etc.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Check to see which of their backlinks are actually in Google's index. Those are the non-junk ones.

 

[Lahsa H.]

For the last month, i saw so many websites ranking in the top 3 with 2-8 dofollow backlinks...
Try to set up your entities to be exactly in tune with the top ranking websites.

 

[Christopher Labbate]

Are there some specific strategies for cases like that?

In my agency, here would be the exact process that I would use to get you from position 6-10, to #1 for all pages.

1. Run CORA Software for On-page SEO
2. Implement Advanced Hand Written Schema
3. Conduct an Internal Linking Strategy
4. Make up the Backlink Gap for any pages

Usually this is enough to get to #1, however just like Joy Hawkins said, its hard to be 100% confident without looking at the website, or knowing the competition level of the area. There may also be other underlying factors hindering the rankings, like technical SEO .... which could be anything from site speed, poor indexing or not having the proper tags set up in the website.

In 2023, I was heavily invested in Entity SEO, and Topical authority, but in 2024... it will be getting more content into Google's SGE and Ai models.

 

[Christopher Labbate]

Check to see which of their backlinks are actually in Google's index. Those are the non-junk ones.

Pro Tip: I really love this simple tool to check for indexed backlinks!
Google Index Checker SEO tool

If you get this tool in combination with a good indexer, it can really help you save on indexing credits.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Pro Tip: I really love this simple tool to check for indexed backlinks!
Google Index Checker SEO tool

I love them too!