Bad performance for low competition term

[Blink-SEO]

Hi everybody. I've been working on this page for some time, http://www.double-glazing-forum.com/anglian-windows.aspx. Until several months ago, it ranked really well for the terms 'Anglian windows' and 'Anglian windows reviews'. However, following a Google update it tanked and has got worse ever since. Here's what I've done to try and fix it.

Added 800 words of unique copy

Added YouTube videos

Replaced scraped press releases with unique descriptions that link to the source

Analysed the backlink profile and uploaded a disavow file containing all bad links

Contacted webmaster to remove them where possible

Getting a bit low on ideas now, so any help would be great!

[TomRayner]

Hi there

It looks like you're taking the right steps to rectify the problems with the page.  All I would suggest is that removing the bad links is one thing, but replacing them with the right sort of links is another.

All of those bad links, whether they were boosting or bringing down the page itself, will need to be replaced.  Try and produce excellent, contextual content (both written or visual) on your site that people will want to share or link to - or alternatively, produce informational and educational content for external sites that may want to link back to your site as a result.

When earning these links, try to make sure that the anchor text linking to the page is diverse.  Right now, a lot of the links to the page are keyword rich and it would appear unnatural, or over-optimised, to either a Google manual reviewer or the algorithm.  Diversify it with brand terms, raw URLs and other anchors.

Unless you received a link warning in webmaster tools, this looks like an algorithmic update that has affected your site.  As a result, your efforts to restore your site's position may take a bit of time until that part of the algorithm updates or refreshes.  If you can, it's a good idea to run your analytics profile through the Panguin Tool.  This tool marries up your organic traffic to major Google updates.  If your traffic (and rankings) have fallen on a date that coincides with an update, such as Penguin, it's a strong indication that it's that particular part of the algorithm that has effected you.  This can help you decipher what steps need to be taken.

Hope this helps!

[trainSEM]

You still have (as you know) a lot of links from article directories and a large proportion of keyword anchor text backlinks from the usual suspects with low trust. The home page link profile is slightly better.

You should get some URL and "click here" kind of spread in the anchor text. The link profile still looks like an "SEO job" since inner pages seldom have a lot of deep links and there isn't any hint of natural links. Some out of the box thinking is needed to get citations, e.g. finding some real magazine or newspaper to feature the page.

[LynnPatchett]

Agreed with all Tom and Ash have said, would just add that low competition is a relative thing. If I understand it that is someone else's brand right? So competition there is the brand pages (they even get a brand knowledge graph entry for me) and brand+review brings other review sites into the picture. Doesn't look THAT low competition to me.... maybe a brainstorming session for longer tail terms might be in order. Just saying

[artdivision]

This is a quiet common trap people fall into when they see "low competition" and 1000+ searches a month for a term. They tend to go for that keyword without google-ing it and having a look what top 10 looks like. There might be a reason why it says "low competition". For the review keyword you chose for example you have to compete with blogs and review sites (UK) such as "money supermarket", AVForums, mumsblog jsut to name a few, there is no way in the world you will beat these people.

Also with forums and MNS the problem is that you do not sell the actual product thus google thinks that a web site which sells and have reviews is much more important than yours.

[evolvingSEO]

Hey There

As other have mentioned, I would also echo that "low competition" is a little relative depending on the query.

For just "anglian windows" this is a brand search and will be really tough to rank there moving forward. Even if you do, I am not sure it would get tons of clicks, because this is likely more often then not a navigational search where the user knows they want the brand homepage.

For "anglian windows reviews" - maybe I'm missing this, but does your page have reviews on it? As in a collection of 3rd party authentic non-biased reviews? Unless it has something like that - or at least genuine internal reviews written by your site, it's also going to have a hard time ranking there since the query intent / content match is a little off.

-Dan