Strong Site, Pages, Ranking Low

[ben10001]

Hey Mozers

This is a question which has been bugging me for a while now

I have an authority site in my niche which has a stronger DA than pretty well every competitor, but certain sections of the site underperform.

For instance, when you search for 'Jerusalem Dead Sea tour', my item, http://www.touristisrael.com/tours/jerusalem-dead-sea-day-tour/ does not appear in the first few pages. I have a page that appears on the first page, but it is less relevant than this product page. This is an example, there are tens of cases like this.

So the question is, am I signalling to Google not to rank these pages, and is there something I'm missing with regards to strengthening product pages in this tour section?

Thanks

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

When I conduct searches based around your website and the topics, most of your competitors are doing a fantastic job of local SEO. They have verified listings for Google My Business and are doing a great job of showing Google their relevance to the area. Here's how my search appears.

What I would focus on is making sure your content and onsite SEO is relevant to the searches that users are searching. Really understand your user and what they would want out of their searches.

I would also take a look at the following resources:
Why Good Unique Content Needs to Die
Why We Can't Do Keyword Research Like It's 2010

These resources will help you analyze your audience, their searches, the kind of content that ranks for what you need to rank for, and how to prioritize it. It's a great mix of looking at your personas and competitive analysis to guide your focus. You can also look into doing a content audit to see if you can consolidate, update, or remove pages; that way you shed fat or group related pages if needed.

I would start there. Let me know if this makes sense or if I am not answering your question - good luck!

[ben10001]

Hey Patrick

Thanks it totally does make sense, and I really appreciate the detailed answer.

One question though is that for tours in particular, local SEO seems to somehow be a little contradictory to me. Because I will optimize to my location, which is an office, but not a place that any of my customers ever come to, because they are all traveling on transport to different destinations. So in other words local SEO is going to strengthen me in Tel Aviv, for instance where my office is, but not at the Dead Sea which is what my users are searching for. Maybe I'm short-sighted, but I'd love to hear what you think?

Thanks a lot

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Ben -

That's right - Local SEO is going to based around where your offices are physically located; not tourist destinations you feature. So, local rankings will only be for your offices. Visibility for your destinations will need to attained via organic SEO or PPC.

[ben10001]

Thanks for the answer, Miriam.

So in that case, the original question still stands..