SEO Problem? Not sure.

Hi All,

I've been running a VoIP gaming service site for over a year now and from all of my link checkers, SEO checking and tools say I should be scoring high on the search engines. I'm really not sure whats wrong. On Bing and Yahoo I'm in the top 10 but Google I'm somewhere in the 200+ area. I've even used tools to compare myself to competitors and still can't figure out where I'm going wrong.

 

It's difficult to say without knowing what SEO tools and link checkers you actually use, so I can only give you a basic advice at the moment.

Running many sites for 15+ years, I see SEO evolved a lot, and especially Google. While it's not really difficult to get ranked well in Bing and Yahoo by following very basic rules (like using proper meta tags, writing original and keywords-rich content, etc.), Google looks like a totally different beast today. Several years ago I had a properly optimized, software-related site in a very competitive niche, which was #3 on Google, outranking PCWold, PCMag, and others. So I did SEO even harder, but the more I worked, the lower rankings were. After a year or two of hard SEO, website was somewhere between #100 and #200 in Google, and never recovered.

Today, I don't do "external" SEO at all. I only focus on website itself by writing keywords-rich content, using proper meta tags, and just making website "right" (so it loads fast, has no errors, etc.). Believe it or not it's more than enough. For example, I launched some website for local market 3 years ago and didn't build a single backlink (however, some sites linked to my website). 3 months later, website was in 1st page on Google for all keywords I wanted to rank well, and it's here today (just checked).

Launched another website for global market 6 months ago and didn't perform any SEO again. Since the market is much bigger this time, website is ranked well in Google just for one of keywords today, but rankings for other keywords slowly get better month after month. I believe it should be in 1st page within next 6 months or so. As a result, I strongly believe Google has super-smart ranking scheme, and it somehow prefers "100% natural" SEO over heavy link building and other methods. Of course, it's just my personal opinion, but it worked great for me and still does.

 

The best thing you likely can do if you have not already:
Switch to HTTS
optimize/compress all the images.
Make sure to have a TOS page
Make sure to have a contact page
Reduce server response time to under 1 second.
Make sure page load time is under 2
Make sure site is mobile optimize
Make sure there are no 404 internal links, or external links.
Remove duplicate content from the SERPs.
Make sure the site passes copyscape.
Run site in siteliner for duplicate internal text.

Fix all of those ~ Then see where you stand.

 

They only thing I haven't done is https would that make much of a difference?

 

Its a ranking factor. If its a smaller site, I would probably go ahead and switch.
Unless you have tons of content and it would become a painful endeavor.

Some say HTTPS does nothing
Some Say having a site with a SSL does help.

Do some research into it atleast. Make ur own call on it.

 

Seems you are right, just waiting for the cert to clear, I'll report back if it has any effect. Seems that I've moved to #1 for bing and yahoo now with my target keywords, just still not even page 1 on google.

 

Hope so Best of luck on ur SEO campaign mate.

 

Maybe you are not using the right keywords which should be used for your game site so you can try those keyword with high search volume that may help you

 

Its actually for a TeamSpeak hosting site I'm pretty sure I got the right keywords down. Still working on it though, I'll keep everyone updated.

 

Https will help your site big time compared to http. You need to understand what an SSL Certificate does. In laymen terms, telling Google your site is Https is telling them your site is safe. Remember, it's all about user experience and Google likes sending users to a https:// site.

I also agree with Phpmillion. It's all about your website's functionality now. I strongly believe in it. In the end you need to understand what big companies like Google and Facebook strive for.... "Providing Amazing User Experience". This will be the mission statement till the end of time. So if Google can choose to send your visitor to Site A with great Content but poor loading time, or Site B with great Content and better loading time, guess who will win? Use "Think With Google" tools to check your sites functionality.

 

Ok, interestingly enough the PageSpeed Insights score went up just by going https. Still waiting to see what happens when the site indexes. Will keep you posted.

 

Have you considered or looked into the competitiveness of your keyword? Alternatively, have you investigated or assessed the quality of your competitors backlinks?

 

Do a full site audit or use tools SEMRush or Ahref to check the website status and errors.
These tools help you to find out the errors and suggestion how to fix them and also check the backlinks to your website.
There are other tools too you can use
Statcounter
SEOProfiler