Website not ranking and new strategy question

[INN]

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[danatanseo]

Hi Chris,

From my very quick look around your Website, it appears to me you have a fairly solid business and a decent site. I am thinking that perhaps it's the keyword research that might be weakness. I assume when you say you aren't ranking, it's because you aren't ranking for keywords that you are hoping to rank for...is that correct?

Web design and development is hugely competitive (as you well know I'm sure). If I were you, I'd go back to the drawing board with your keywords research and perhaps look at it through different lenses. Explore more localized terms and long tail keywords that have less competition, perhaps even try combining some local search terms with larger scale, longer tail terms, and go for those instead.

Also, explore what terms you are ranking for, and perhaps spin-off of those with some variations.

The content you are creating, is it fulfilling a need for information that people are searching for but perhaps having trouble finding? For example, I am an in-house SEO for a mid-sized AV business that is preparing to completely revamp their e-commerce site. The biggest challenge for us is exploring and choosing the right platform for us. I can tell you, there is precious little unbiased information available online to help business owners make that choice. How to guides and checklists that go beyond fluff and offer unbiased information can be great link magnets.

Those are just my thoughts. I hope they help a little!

Dana

[INN]

Dana,

Thank you so much for your response. You are right we are competing for tough keywords like Website design, Web design with search volumes above 50,000 per month in US.

Do you think build specific links to respective pages will help? for eg: We will have a page for Web services and we are planning to build links with anchor text related to web services to that page? Is that a good strategy

Please advise

Chris

[danatanseo]

Hi Chris,

You are welcome. Honestly, I think "Web services" is too broad. I would go local if and when possible. "Web services houston" for example (or something closely relevant to your location. I would also go specific by industry based on what you guys have already done and that you have relevant testimonials for. For example "e-commerce Web management" I would think would be way more achievable...or even "small business e-commerce Web management."  Try to forget about search volume a little bit. You need to do that for a couple of reasons. One, the space for "Web services" is so crazy competitive you'd need millions of dollars to crack into that space (i.e. GoDaddy). I'm not saying you can't get there, but you aren't going to get there by trying to start with those kinds of keywords will only get you broke and frustrated. Second, even if you did get traffic from those broad keywords, it's not going to convert very well. People using those keywords are usually looking for something with the word "free" or they have no clue what they need.

Trust me. Build out a long tail keyword list that targets exactly the locations and types of businesses that you want to work in and with and you will not only rank, but get the kind of visitors that are more tightly qualified to your business offerings. I know there's a vanity element to ranking for a broad term, but shake that off. Vanity terms are just that, and they aren't going to help you gain clients or make more money.

Does that make sense? I hope it helps!

Dana

[INN]

Thank you Dana.. Appreciate your response