Hi, Looking for someone to give some advice. I've got a website with quite good age and plenty of backlinks etc. When I took on the site a few years ago it had really good SEO - I could put up a blog post on anything and within a few hours I'd probably rank 1 or 2 for that search term. Since then I've made a lot of changes, mainly design based. I've got a new design now, and I don't know if this is causing it but I can't seem to rank for anything and my site has dropped so much in Google. I don't know if its my link structure or what. Here's an example. A while ago I published a post on Rafa Benitez (just a funny picture). This is the link - http://footyblog.net/rafa-benitez-before-abramovich-came-calling/ If I search in Google.co.uk for "Rafa Benitez before Abramovich came calling" my site doesn't show up. I have to search for "Rafa Benitez before Abramovich came calling footyblog". Then my site is the 5th result - the ones above this are all related to my post. I don't understand how its possible for me to rank so poorly? Anybody able to take a look at the blog and see what the problems could be? Site is http://www.footyblog.net Really appreciate any help
Oh and another thing, probably quite significant, is that if you search "Footy Blog" in Google.co.uk the description it comes back with is: Footy Blog. Football site · News · Premier League · Players ... Popular Articles. The most popular Footy Blog articles will appear here! How Franck Ribery got his ... These are the titles from the categories (I think) and then from the sidebar. So its a bit random and I don't quite know why it isn't taken from the page content or something more relevant?
Hello, As far as i can see, you do not have meta description or keywords. Although the meta keywords will not help that much now, the meta description is essential. If you had one, it would not be 'random' as you put it. You would be able to choose what would appear. Make sure you include your keywords in there. About the meta keywords, they are not that essential after the update, but are still useful. As to your "site drop in rankings, see if you lost any important backlinks. Furthermore, after the google update, if you had any low quality backlinks, then you would be penalised. The age is a good sign - but make sure your backlinks are not spammy, and are quality. It is better to have a few high quality and PR sites than many low quality sites. The design should not be much of a problem, unless you have many videos/flash items, as google's bots can not crawl this. However, if you had the same amount of flash/videos before, it shouldn't be that causing the problem. Tell me if you've changed your link structure recently, and how - i'll try to help with this section! Other than that, you're site looks great! Good luck, please tell me if you have any more questions. Check out my multi-author website, promoteyoursites.net for more info on SEO, advertising campaigns, link building, and generating more traffic.
Does this mean that I need to have meta keywords and description on every single post I make on the blog? I presumed this would be automatic really, that Google would just do this bit for me by scanning the page? I've not increased video use and don't use flash on the site so it shouldn't have been caused by that. Only way I can think of link structure changing is that before when I made a post it would always go on the front page (most recent at top, etc). However now the front page shows only 3 categories, which I chose. But I tend to only post to these 3 categories so I don't know if that'd have made much difference to my SERPS or not.. Thanks for the advice!
Hello, You'd need Meta tags on each page of your website that you want indexed by google. Depending on the software you use to create your website, you may have an option of putting the same for all your website. The layout is as follows; make sure the Description is catchy, as it is what people will see. You can also include essential keywords there, but don't overdo it. < head> < title>Not a Meta Tag, but required anyway < /title> < meta name="description" content="Awesome Description Here"> </head> The section in green should be, but not always is, the section that shows up in search results under your title, and above your url. As to this, as long as you still have the same amount of quality content, it shouldn't matter where it goes on your website. Tell me how you go about creating backlinks and reciprocal links, and i'll try and help on this aspect. Good luck, please tell me if you require more help! Check out my multi-author website, promoteyoursites.net for more info on SEO, advertising campaigns, link building, and generating more traffic.
I have searched in Google.co.uk for "Rafa Benitez before Abramovich came calling footyblog" but I can't find your site footyblog.net. I have found other website http://www.thefootyblog.net/. I think because it has good quality content and you haven't. Check your analytics account and find when you have lost your traffic. Is there any Google update around your traffic lost? Specify that when you lost your ranking If you have changed your website' URL structure then it might be a reason.