What am I doing wrong?

[standenman]

My google organic traffic is way down form last year. I have noticed a drop in ranking on SERP but I am not sure when that happened. What would be my highest priorities in checking out the problem? Thanks very much!

 

[James Watt]

There's a lot of things you'll need to look into. This is a pretty good superficial list of where to start, though it doesn't really lay out how to do most of it, so it won't be too useful if you aren't already fairly technically proficient. The fact that there's no concrete 'date' I can see where your rankings declined will make it much more challenging to diagnose. You may be better off just approaching it as a fresh technical audit. If you haven't done an audit like this before it can seem pretty intense, but as long as you have a good roadmap, it's not too rough. If you don't already know what to look for, this guide looks like a decent one to use.

 

[standenman]

Thanks James for your response. What kind of money does an SEO audit run generally?

 

[PerzonSEO]

Hi @Standenman.

Here are some tools you can run your website through:

1.) https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/
I usually want to see my clients website to be between 10-20. The more, the better.

2.) https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/
Run your website here and see the score. You will also get a list of things you can/should fix.

3.) https://tools.pingdom.com/
Check the overall speed of your website. How your hosting company performs etc.

4.) SEMRush.com - This is a Premium Tool. Keyword research mostly
5.) Majestic.com - This is also a Premium Tool. Backlink Checker

I can have access to both semrush and majestic. Let me know and I can run your website through them both and send you the results.

 

[standenman]

Do you do this kinds of work? give me a call at 214-219-7288 and let's discuss!

 

[PerzonSEO]

Hi Stanley,

I've sent you a private message here on localsearchforum.
Inside I've attached the SEO Audit of your website (PDF format).

Hope you?ll enjoy the information.

Looking forward hearing form you,
- Max Perzon

 

[Eric Rohrback]

Were you in the Map Pack, and then dropped out?

Which pages are seeing the largest drops YOY?

I think we could all speculate what the cause might be, but most of them will probably turn out to be false. I think you need to dig into the data a little bit more to help understand WHAT is causing the drop. Which pages are seeing the largest decline? From there you can review the organic landscape to see if anything changed. Is there now a map pack on that term? Are there more ads?

There's a lot of questions that I think are unanswered. While you may have a technical problem with the site (don't know, haven't checked yet), it may be a market change.

Drill down into the analytics a bit further. Right now you are seeing the surface level, so get down into a few more layers and let us know what you find.

 

[Ana]

Your website is loading too slowly, this is probably dragging you down. I think you should adjust your media files, some of them need optimising more, grammar skills need modifying, and refine and optimise your wordings, less is more for higher ranking. I don't think you need a technical audit as you can do this yourself. People have to read between the lines when on forum websites as some (not all) send you in the wrong direction. I used to take as read, now I read between the lines, hope it helps yeah.

 

[Caleb]

The other thing that often gets overlooked is what has taken your place. Just because you dropped doesn't mean you did anything wrong. Maybe your competitors are doing more right. Also, make sure you have Search Console connected and pulling in data. That can provide a lot of insights.

 

[standenman]

Thanks to all, I appreciate the very detailed feedback. I think Caleb you are right - have at least one competitor who has really skyrocketing on the page.

 

[standenman]

Thanks Ana for your comments. By "loading too slowly" do you mean both mobile and desktop? What do you mean by "grammar skills"? I agree on the "less is more" - I am having the site reworked with a priority on less narrative and text.

 

[djbaxter]

Thanks Ana for your comments. By "loading too slowly" do you mean both mobile and desktop?

I assume she's referring to Google PageSpeed Insights or Test Your Mobile Website Speed and Performance.

PageSpeed Insights does report a slow mobile load time but Mobile Website Speed gives a "good" rating of 5 seconds.

I didn't find that the site loads slow personally (desktop) and it actually loaded quite quickly on my iPhone but I have a pretty fast internet connection.

I don't see a major issue with the page content either: for a site like this one, detailed information is helpful and desirable, in my opinion.

The site footer looks very spammy and redundant, though. I would personally ditch that: