Pages higher than my website in Google have fewer links and a lower page authority

[andrewstewpot]

Hi there

I've been optimising my website pureinkcreative.com based on advice from SEOMoz and at first this was working as in a few weeks the site had gone from nowhere to the top of page three in Google for our main search term 'copywriting'. Today though I've just checked and the website is now near the bottom of page four and competitors I've never heard of are above my site in the rankings. I checked them out on Open Site Explorer and many of these 'newbies' have less links (on average about 200 less links) and a poorer page authority. My page authority is 42/100 and the newly higher ranking websites are between 20 and 38.

One of these pages which is ranking higher than my website only has internal links and every link has the anchor text of 'copywriting' which I've learnt is a bad idea. I'm determined to do whiter than white hat SEO but if competitors are ranking higher than my site because of 'gimmicks' like these, is it worth it?

I add around two blog posts a week of approx 600 - 1000 words of well researched, original and useful content with a mix of keywords (copywriting, copywriter, copywriters) and some long tail keywords and guest blog around 2 - 3 times a month.

I've been working on a link building campaign through guest blogging and comment marketing (only adding relevant, worthwhile comments) and have added around 15 links a week this way. Could this be why the website has dropped in the rankings?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks very much.

Andrew

[Cornel_Ilea]

Hi Andrew,

Can you give me some more details?

1. How long before doing the SEO optimization was the website live.

2. What was you position on the SERP

3. CTR on that position?

4. Have you guest posted in any news websites?

5. Have you measured your position in the SERP with SEOmoz Tools?

Cornel

[andrewstewpot]

Hi Cornel

Thanks for replying, here are the answers to your questions...

1. How long before doing the SEO optimization was the website live.

The website has been live since September 2007 but we've had two redesigns, one in December 2010 and one on 19th April 2012 but the domain name remained the same. We started our SEO campaign after 19th April. The website was nowhere in the SERPS prior to April 2012.

2. What was you position on the SERP

The website was on page 6 for 'copywriting' in April and May but jumped to page 3 (position 34) in June

3. CTR on that position?

We were on page 3 from around 4th June until yesterday and we had 285 unique visitors during this 3 week period. For the 3 weeks prior to this, we had 264 unique visitors but I think this number is skewed as on one day (26th May) we had 165 unique visitors and a huge bounce rate.

4. Have you guest posted in any news websites?

Not news websites but magazines and blogs.

5. Have you measured your position in the SERP with SEOmoz Tools?

According to the SERP tool the website is in position 36 but I believe this is updated every Thursday?

Many thanks