Am I on the right track -- still not seeing results in rank, traffic, etc.
-
I am a complete novice, but I tend to learn quickly.
My site is one year old, and I have very low traffic. I also rank poorly. I have recently learned a ton, and made some changes:
1. Put in meta no follow, no index tags on certain pages
2. Found and fixed some horrid content -- I had forgotten to finish certain pages (!) and they had been left up for months -- a good example is /California-homeschool.html basically said "Washington homeschool, blah, blah, blah" for about 8 months before I fixed it (!)
3. Added new content, changed the look and navigation of the site, added social media links and have been working to build those up (FB, Twitter, etc)
4. Started blogging regularly.
Those are the main things I have done.
I plan to continue to add content, tweak the navigation, and blog regularly. From what I can tell, link building should happen organically.
My question is: Am I on the right track?
Here is a link to my site: http://www.i-school-at-home.com
Am I missing anything -- there seems to be so much info out there. Because there is a time lag between making changes and seeing results, I just would love to know if I am on the right track, before I devote more time to this strategy.
What I would like to do is be the #1 homeschool website (long term goal) and generate revenue (eventually) from affiliate marketing and creating my own curriculum and resources.
Thank you!!!!!!
-
Thank you for the encouragement, Rob. I am really glad I posted this question, and I think I just have to chalk it up to "this is odd"
I have checked my site out at Google webmaster tools, and also at Bing's webmaster tools - and with SEO quake -- I do read a lot.
I can get traffic -- I see my own searches show up. But most days it is zero, other than that -- yesterday there were three other search visits, and I am pretty sure at least one was in response to this question.
It seems as though it's just "bad luck" -- my content needs to be better -- it isn't that bad, I don't think : )
I thought to as this question mostly to see if there weren't some glaring thing I missed about SEO -- but I think, in the end, that I do need to keep plugging away...
Thank you!!
-
That is unusual Wendy - that you have recieved no traffic to date
Have you checked the robots.txt file to see the Search robots are coming through ?
You can check https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools for any problems with the site access.
You seem to have the basic grasp of Seo and you have the ambition to learn and ask questions, it should not be too long before your on track - wish you good fortune with it
Rob
-
Thank you so much -- I actually rephrased my question here:
http://www.seomoz.org/q/rephrasing-my-question-i-have-no-search-traffic-i-would-love-some-feedback
The thing is, I have read the beginner's guide -- and do think I know the basics (basics!)
My main concern, which I didn't put in this question, is that I receive no search traffic -- none. It's odd. I know I have recently done a few things to improve my site, and I know it takes time, but I guess my question is better phrased as "I would really like some feedback, specific to my site"
I so appreciate the responses, too -- I have read, and read, and read about SEO for awhile, and this forum and SeoMoz in general, is the best I have seen, by far.
I very much appreciate this community -- Thank you!!!
-
I would start here SEOmoz beginners guide It will give you a basic understanding of what you should be doing.
-
I do have a site map and submit it regularly.
I have a sub-question -- this is kind of weird. So, I get zero search engine traffic -- zero...and I get some from direct and referral traffic.
Traditionally, my bounce rate was hovering around 50% ,which was okay with me.
Recently, and today is especially bad, I have received 13 visitors so far (it is 12:00 noon) and 11 of them are direct traffic, with 100% bounce rate...and I checked, and all of them are from Lebanon. That just kind of seems weird.
Any ideas? What am I doing wrong? My site isn't the best in the world, but it is over 100 pages of (I think) not too bad content...what's up?
-
Of course. SEO is basically about 2 things:
1. On site optimization
2. Off site optimization (link building)once you have optimized your site with good content and a great site structure, you should start promoting and marketing your website. I don't know if you have done it or not but I would make an site map and robot.txt file for the webstie. Once you finish the onsite, move on the marketing it and thats when youll start to see ranking improvements. While good content will drive links being built it doesnt hurt (well it can) to give your website a kick start. If you are ready to move on to the off site optimization I would start learning about link building which is the hard part.
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
-
When rel canonical tag used, which page does Google considers for ranking and indexing? A/B test scenario!
Hi Moz community, We have redesigned our website and launched for A/B testing using canonical tags from old website to new website pages, so there will be no duplicate content issues and new website will be shown to the half of the website visitors successfully to calculate the metrics. However I wonder how actually Google considers it? Which pages Google will crawl and index to consider for ranking? Please share your views on this for better optimisation. Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Why is google still crawling my old website pages?
Why is google still looking at my old indexed pages and not my new index. ? Why are they crawling my old website links when none of them are available? How do I overcome these problems?
Web Design | | optimalspaces0 -
Any second opinions as to why our organic search website traffic hasn't recovered from website rebrand (domain change, website redesign)?
I am hoping to see if anyone in the Moz community would be able to help troubleshoot or lend any advice on a major organic search traffic issue we've been experiencing over the last 8 months. In a nutshell, we decided our ~4.5-year-old business needed to undergo a rebrand in October 2015. After changing domains & redesigning our website (more below), our search-driven sessions have dropped 20% in 2016 v.s. 2015. We made quite a few on-site modifications (with some success) post-redesign but are still deep in a rut and not sure what more we can do to recover. I've listed my theories below as to why we're still suffering this hit. If anyone could weigh in on these and/or share any other troubleshooting ideas, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it (and owe you a lunch/beverage of your choice the next time I'm in your city!). ****Backlinks - despite our efforts to 301 all links, I sense we have lost many backlinks. According to Open Site Explorer, our old domain has 1,172 backlinks (some from some very authoritative pages domains), 1,068 of which are passing link equity. In contrast, our new domain has 367 backlinks, 321 are passing link equity, and very few overlap with our old domain. Domain Age - we may have lost much of our reputation with Google as our new domain is much younger than our old domain (1-year-old v.s. 5.5 years old). Domain Name - although I thought to have common keywords in one's domain was a myth, I am now questioning that belief. Our old domain contained a popular, topical keyword and our new domain is derived from a term that is topical, but very uncommon. New URLs - our developer has insisted all links were moved to the new domain, but I have a hunch they were not. When conducting a "site search" (i.e. "site:websitename.com"), the new domain returns 7,740 results. Prior to our switch, a site search with the old domain yielded 30,000+ results. 404s - we found and fixed 100-200 404'd links after the domain switch. We still see a few pop-up today and I'm wondering if this is a red flag in Google's eyes. For a little more background too, here are the nitty gritty details with a rough timeline: Pre-October 12, 2015 - registered new domain and designed the new website on Wordpress, while researching a range of articles and resources for a successful site migration (e.g. this and this Moz guide). October 12, 2015 - flipped the switch on the website design, domain, minor content reorganization, and social handles. We announced the change to our audience via an article, newsletter, and social; informed Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) of the new address, 301'd all links from the old to the new domain, and submitted new sitemap in GWT. October 12 - 16, 2015 - traffic is normal, everything seems to be okay. October 17, 2015 - search traffic drops by 54% v.s. the same day of week pre-rebrand. October 26, 2015 - search traffic rises, so now only down by 30% v.s. the same day of week pre-rebrand. November/December 2015 - re-added numerous elements from the old website such as category, tag, and page pagination and a few sidebar modules that linked to other important pages and tags. Search traffic rises slightly in November (down 27% year-on-year), dips again in December (down 31% year-on-year). January 2016 - today (June 17, 2016) - we published more content on a daily basis and search traffic fluctuates around the 20% versus the same period in 2015. January 2016 - down 23% year-on-year February 2016 - down 17% year-on-year March 2016 - down 20% year-on-year April 2016 - down 21% year-on-year May 2016 - down 21% year-on-year June 2016 (until the 17th) - down 23% year-on-year Thank you all in advance for your time and help, please let me know if you have any questions!
Web Design | | nick490 -
Help, site traffic has dropped significantly since we changed from http to https
Heya, so I am just in charge of the content on the site, and the SEO content, not the actual back-end stuff. A little under 2 weeks ago we switched to https, and our site traffic has been down a lot ever since. When I SERP check our keywords, they don't seem to have dropped in rankings pages. Here is what I got when I asked our dev guy if 301 redirects were put in: I did not add any redirects so all of the content is accessible on both unless individual links get hardcoded one way or the other. The only thing in place is a Cloudflare plugin which rewrites links in cached pages to match the way its accessed, so if for example you access a page over https you don’t get the version cached with a bunch of http links since that will throw up mixed content warnings in the browser. Other than that WP mostly generates all its links to match whatever protocol you are accessing the current page with. We can make specific pages redirect one way or the other in the future if we want to though... As a startup, site traffic is a metric we track to gouge progress, and so I really need to get to the bottom of if it was the change from http to https that has causes the drop, and if so, what can we do about it? Also, in case it is relevant: the bounce rate is now sky high (ave. 15% to 64% this last week!) Any help is very welcome! Site: https://mobileday.com Thank you!
Web Design | | MobileDay1 -
Best Approach to Rank For Multiple Locations With Similar Targeted Keywords
I'm trying to determine the best way to set up a website to rank for a similar set of keyword phrases in three different cities. The keyword phrases I want to rank for are all pretty much the same with the only difference being the city associated with the keyword phrase. For example, "Austin water restoration" vs "San Antonio water restoration" vs "Houston water restoration". Each city needs about 7 or 8 pages of unique content to accurately target the group of keywords I'm trying to rank for. My initial thought was to write up unique content for each city and have each city act a site within the main site. For example, the main navigation for xyz.com/austin would be Austin specific, so when you land on xyz.com/austin and go to Services - Water Restoration, it would be all Austin specific content. The same would be true for San Antonio and Houston. The only problem with this approach is that I have to build up the page authority for a lot of different pages. It would be much easier to build up the page authority for one Water Restoration page and just insert a little "Areas we serve" on the page that includes "Austin, San Antonio, and Houston" and maybe work the coverage area in again at the bottom of the page somewhere. However, it would be much more difficult to work "Austin, San Antonio, and Houston" into the title tags and H1s though, and I couldn't logically work the cities into the content as much either. That would be a downside to this approach. Any thoughts on this? Wondering how large companies with hundreds of locations typically approach this? I'd really appreciate your input.
Web Design | | shaycw0 -
301 Redirect ! Joomla Pages, Already ranking. ( just wanted to change the url
hey guys hope everyone had a new year. I am ranking for a page on my site that i want to ( not specifically move ), but just change the url name: It is too long i think and i want to move it from one portion of my architecture to another menu. I have never physically done a 301 redirect myself, always had someone do it for me. I wanted some pointers. Since it is a fairly new site 4 months old! What are my options. Do i need to 301 redirect the page, if i am changing the Structure and AI of my site, or can i just change the url as is and it will still get ranked? How do i keep that url put delete the page and redirect it ? Sorry its very simple but i wanted to get the communities help to continue on ! Best Wishes HAmpig
Web Design | | BizDetox0 -
Still too many internal links reported on page
Hi Guys I am new here, and very much learning a lot, and enjoying the benefits of being an SEOMoz user. So here goes with my first question (probably of many). I have known for sometime that our website has a top heavy number of links in the primary navigation. But I wasn't too sure how important this was. Our main objective was to make an east to use nav for customers. All of the feedback we have had says that customers really like our navigation, as it is easy to use etc etc. However, when running an SEOMoz campaign on our site, again we got back that there are too many links on the pages. Example, home page has 500+ links. So I decided to do something about this. I have implemented what I think is a good solution where by the drop down navigation isn't loaded on first load. If the user then hovers over one of our "departments" the sub navigation is loaded via Ajax and dropped in. This means if the user wants it, they get it, if not then it's not loaded with the page. My theory being that Google loads the page without all the links, but a user gets the links as and when they need them. I tested with the SEOMoz toolbar and this tells me that when I load the home page there is 167 links in it vs 500+ previously. However, the my campaign still tells me that my home page has 450+ links (and this is a recent crawl of the page). Our site is here: www.uniquemagazines.co.uk Can you tell me is what I have done is a) a good solution and b) does the SEOMoz crawler have the ability to trigger the hover event and cause the AJAX load of the sub navigation content?
Web Design | | TheUniqueSEO0 -
Empirical Data on the effect of embedded Google Maps on Search Ranking
Does anyone have any empiric data on the effect of an embedded map on SERP's? Please understand that I already have anecdotal info and a personal opinion. I am looking for data. Thanks
Web Design | | RobertFisher0