Specific Keyword Ranking Advice

[AlabuSkinCare]

Hi Folks,

We're trying to optimize the page (http://alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/) for the keyword "goat milk soap". Our page used to rank #1 before Panda (actually our home page did, not the page I'm trying to optimize on now). Now we're around rank 25. I've followed all the guidelines for on-page optimization I know, and I've done everything I can think of. We're currently executing a link building campaign but that obviously takes time. Does anyone have any advice? Is there anything else I can do to improve our ranking?

Thanks,

Hal

[SanketPatel]

I have few suggestions for your website.

• Website gets open with both www & without www url. Both will consider as a different page with the same content. So please make 301 redirect.
• You already setup the Webmaster so i suggest you to please set the "Target Country" in Geographic Location.
• The canonical setting which are already on your website seems wrong please check this reference link : http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html
• Please check your canonical settings. Here is the best solution for your case http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html.

Hope it will helps you.

[SEO5Team]

Hi Hal,

Try reducing the keyword density of this keyword on your page. You are also using the keyword in your internal links with that keyword as the anchor text. Your site could have suffered from Google's over optimization penalty. Also check your links and report any bad links using the disavow tool.

[Debdulal]

Big problem but small solution. This page has 48 [I am discounting the www and non www think] variations. Here are few of them -

http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=featured&page=2

http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=featured&page=3

http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=featured&page=1

http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=newest

http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=alphaasc

http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=pricedesc

http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=pricedesc&page=2

http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=priceasc&page=5

All you got to do is not showing the body content in any of the pagination series – [can be achieved programmatically]

http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=priceasc&page=5
http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=priceasc&page=6
http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=bestselling&page=2
http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=newest&page=3

_And for these types of pages – you need to set the following URL as canonical - http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/

http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=newest&page=1
http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=featured&page=1
http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=bestselling&page=1
http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=alphaasc&page=1
http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=alphadesc&page=1
http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=avgcustomerreview&page=1
http://www.alabu.com/goat-milk-soap/?sort=priceasc&page=1_

and please fix that www issue

[AlabuSkinCare]

Thanks for the help folks. I have the WWW issue fixed. However the pagination is a little more complicated. The shopping cart I use (big commerce) implements pagination canonicalization improperly and I have no control over that. How big of a deal is that?

Thanks,

Hal