Unknown factors affecting our SEO effort

[wtfi]

Good morning / afternoon / evening all,

We are continually working our website - www.movingeverywhere.co.uk , it has suffered some drastic drop in rankings with the last 2 google algorithm updates which we have been working to resolve. This has involved:

• Redesigning the website (responsive now) , increase of speed, reduction of code, better UX and generally better all round experience for the user.

• Signed up to Moz and resolved any issues which have been highlighted. (Hopefully fixed the last ones today)

• Investigated our inbound link profile to try and weed out any bad incoming links or any links that were damaging the site.

• Increased our social network profile and reach.

We have done competitor analysis and we are beating all of our competitioers with on site factors as per Moz results but it appears we are missing something which means we are not reaping the fruits of our efforts at the moment. The site is wordpress and we read there could be a canonical issue with Wordpres ssites

We are asking the Moz community for any guidance and assistance to try and diagnose any negative factors affecting the SEO effort on the site. Thank you for your time and help.

[RobertFisher]

Brett,

I took a quick look at the site and have to say I don't see anything on the top that is major. Personally, I like to utilize title tags with the business name in them and to follow the convention of Manchester Movers | 24 hour service | Moving Everywhere - so the business name is the last thing in the Title Tag. What I am trying to target most is at the first part of the title tag.

As to you v. your competitor, this is always a tough one. I suggest you look for what they are doing correctly and ask yourself if you are also doing that. With moving companies in the states, Local is everything. If you have not nailed Local as a moving company it will be hard to rank in a city here. I did not look at that for your site.

Now as to a universal WP canonical issue, I do not know what it is. We handle over 100 WP sites and I am fully unaware of any canonical problem we have ever had. While I do not touch every site even semi regularly, if there is an issue I am the first one made aware of it. I know there are several Mozzers who are Uber WP nerds (I say that as a form of admiration) and hopefully one or two will answer your query better.

I did not run a link profile, etc. but you could always try something like Link Detox to see where you stand. You could run Screaming Frog to check that all pages are giving correct response codes, etc. Ultimately, your home page would have a hard time ranking in a major city in the US from a DA/PA point of view with all the directories and then several older companies with good SEO there. You could get Local really right and have a good shot at showing there. I am not studied enough to speak to the Manchester market.

Here is the good news and I do not often say this: I really like the look and feel of the site. While I did not test it for UI/UX, I liked the colors, the airy feel, the way it is inviting around a subject that is stressful. Excellent job IMO. Here is a hint that we keep front of mind: Does your meta description answer the query?

Hope this gives comfort of a sort.

Robert

[wtfi]

First of all, thanks for a great response and thank you for the compliments about the site - It is always nice to hear good things about a site you have designed so it means a lot.

I will look at the Link Detox and the link profiles in more depth. We are targeting the local listings more now and trying to hit that hard - the keyphrase we are going for is "Manchester Removals" / "Removals Manchester" but also drilling into some more local areas.

I am hoping one of the WP geeks might be able to help. One question (I might have phrased wrong re. canonical) - Moz is showing up X number of canonical links in the crawl. Is that anything to worry about or any negative factor on the site?

Since this redesign our bounce rates have started to drop as well as we are trying to convert more of the visitors to the site to leads instead of just trying to get more and more visitors to the site (which isnt the answer). We have been focused on the information, the flow of the user and answering their needs.

[RobertFisher]

Brett

I snapped a minute after I sent this that you are underutilizing data markup / Schema. You are using postal address without utilizing local business and you don't have a phone number in it. Also, I would definitely use aggregate review markup, etc. for you. If not on the home page, you should be using authorship as well. If I were to change one thing it would be that first. With authorship and review schema you have a chance to standout on whatever serp you are on. 
Best,

[RobertFisher]

When you consider a canonical as similar to a 301, you could have any number of canonical links on a site.

[wtfi]

Thanks - we will implement the authorship tool via WP and I have been looking into Richsnippers and Schema data too. Thanks for the info. I was just about to look into the Link detox items to see if there is anything negative there.

Hopefully more suggestions will come from others

[wtfi]

Well, I have added the relevant information for the scheme microdata as a start and I have fixed some issues re. authorship so that is now included. Thanks for the tips. Checking for Toxic links.

What constitutes a "toxic" link though - Reading up on various things there are opinions. Any guidance or Moz article would be good.

[RobertFisher]

The sources are too numerous to list. You can find tons of posts on Moz though. Of note is we are handling the link cleanup on a rather large client and I decided to try out removeem. Based on weighing all we have seen so far with the software, I like it. Like with any there have been a glitch or two but their support has been very excellent.

But, as I am talking with a team member she says, "Our link to our client shows up as Toxic." So, I am like "Get outta here!?" Sure enough we were. Note about software: You have to look at what they are utilizing to call something toxic or not. In this case it had more to do with the anchor text that had been used in linking to this client. So, not all that are toxic are and not all that are clean are clean. That is where you have to be somewhat nuanced in your approach. I suggest that if it looks like a paid directory (Other than dmoz or Yahoo) or if it is one that is just a perpetual listing of firms with no real content or context, I would remove it. If it is comment spam on posts, etc. Those are the types of things that stand out readily.

Best,