Steady decline since Panda 4.0 but struggling to identify cause (and solution!).

[KateWaite]

Hello

I work as an in-house SEO (previously worked for an agency) for the website naturalworldsafaris.com. After a strong start to the year we were seeing really good growth but since Panda 4.0 was released we have been steadily declining.

Our site has, I believe, good, unique content and is largely free of technical issues. I'm struggling to identify what exactly is the issue for the drop. We've had several key terms drop from the top half of page 1 to page 2 of the SERPS, such as the term "Borneo Holiday" (on a Google UK search). I don't believe we have any duplicate content issues.

We've had a few external SEO specialists take a look and none have come up with anything new. Site speed has been flagged as a concern but when compared to our competitors in the SERPS we are consistently one of the faster sites so while we are looking to improve this, I don't feel it can be the only issue.

Any suggestions as to what else we should be investigating next would be much appreciated.

[GPainter]

Hi Kate,

Unfortunately it's always a guessing game but couple of things i did notice - you've got a Google plus page set up but you seem to have forgotten about Google local (because it's always fun to confuse people by naming all your products Google "something") - https://plus.google.com/113270767742987744992/about  it can be helpful to make sure that it is up to date as it can assist any local searches.

You've got a rather large site which is fine just make sure its all optimized so every page is helpful, authoritative etc.

Another oddity is on my quick look you've got a very large volume of images (nearly 90% of your links) which is fine but they all have very similar names (and a lack of lat tags).

Although somewhat controversial don't forget to get people to review you! e.g your Google local is without reviews which can help identify your site as a great place people are using and a reason why you should move up in the SERP.

Hopefully there is some 'Leads' for you to look into from my very brief look (I also noticed you're in Brighton High five)

Just a quick disclaimer all the above is not a garuntee and it's only observations i made I'm sure some of the Moz "recommended" list can come with a very good action place to help your site if you wanted a bit better advice etc.

The last bit of advise is remember Google wants to give the best answer to a search so make your site that, with information that's going to help and then back that up with e.g shares/ reviews etc. show people found it helpful if possible.

Best of luck!

[KateWaite]

Thanks Pixel by Pixel. We don't operate on a local basis which is why we've not done anything with Google local before.

I'll look into the images, thanks for picking up on that; I think a lot of it is to do with how the site was built, it uses a lot of images for all the styling. While the site is large it holds a lot of good, unique content and on the surface I think we do meet all the requirements that Google recommends for content depth and quality.

Will keep looking through to see if there is another issue we can spot though!

[alankoen123]

You've taken good steps so far and kudos for continuing to put time and effort into the cause. Great collective feedback. Additionally, have you run a keyword density tool on the home page? Your other top level pages are good candidates as well. Check All Text and Headlines. Other SEO's can chime in but rule of thumb has been no higher than 4% keyword density on a page. A high density in Headlines could indicate an issue as Headlines has historically been a key component in Google's algorithm. I haven't studied at this granular level but others may have. All the best.