Incredible rank variations!

[A.Popoviciu]

Hello,

I recently received a project that has incredible SERP variation - one month in the top - next month not even in 100. I tried fixing some problems, I also found out the website owners were changing their content - taking their offers down, and so on, and I thought that was the main reason the SERP variate so often. Now I discovered a page that wasn't changed - meaning it's place in the menu and dropped down from the 4'th page to ..i have no idea where it is. The page is: www.filadelfiaturism.ro/oferte-Cazare-Romania/116/oferte-1.html - I looked for the exact title and it didn't ranked at all. Could someone give me some advice?

[RyanKent]

Exactly which search engine did you use to perform this testing? Since you did not share, I used Google.com.

I performed a search for your url "www.filadelfiaturism.ro/oferte-Cazare-Romania/116/oferte-1.html" and the page is indexed. Next, I searched for the title and agree the page is not in the top 100 results.

From a SEO standpoint, the page needs work. Some specific issues:

• Your page title is "Cazare Romania, cazare hoteluri, pensiuni Romania". It appears you are targeting three separate keyword phrases. For the best SEO results each page should only target a single phrase.

• The only phrase in your title which appears at all on the page is "Cazare Romania" which appears once in the header and twice as standalone keywords. None of the three keywords are used even a single time in a sentence within your content. The purpose of your title is to share the focus of your page. The title requires support. The phrase needs to be used, preferable 2-3 times, in your content.

I see many good things about your site such as your social sites being prominently identified at the top of the page, and your physical address and contact information being clearly offered. There are numerous SEO opportunities on your page which need to be improved if you want to rank more competitively. For now, fixing your title and content should at least enable your page to be "on the map" so to speak for it's focus (i.e. in the top 50 rankings).

[A.Popoviciu]

Hi,

Thank you so much for your feedback. I introduced a text in the page. The search engine is google.ro -  two week ago the page was ranked 39 and 18 for Cazare Romania 2011. The Title means: Accomodation Romania | Hotel accomodation | Romania Pensions  - I was not targeting all the 3 words - I wanted to be more specific for the visitors - I am changing the title right now.

One more question - What can I do about pages that receive a 404 not found (ex: if i write anything after the domain name it will take me to a 404 page)- should I add a redirect to the first page - should I add a 301 redirect - would that help me?

[RyanKent]

Your site should have a 404 page. This is a basic "I am sorry the page you are seeking does not exist" page. It should include your site's normal navigation along with a search function so users can easily find the content they seek.