Page not Ranking I feel helpless!

[vhitnah]

Hi there

I have been working at SEO for quite some time and I am such a noob. I have even done an online course. I am at my wits end.

My website is https://www.urbani.com.au. I changed to https about 1 month ago.

I want to rank for "outdoor furniture perth". Recently my homepage has stopped ranking for this keyword, and a useless blog page started ranking instead (www.urbani.com.au/tag/outdoor-furniture-perth/), on page 5 of google. I got rid of that page and redirected it to my homepage.

Do you know what the problem is? Why won't google rank my homepage for "outdoor furniture perth"? It is ranking for "outdoor wicker furniture perth", but for "outdoor furniture perth" it has disappeared from the face of this earth.

Thank you so much, if I can get help for this it would save my business!

Whitney

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[vhitnah]

Hi James

Thanks for your help. I only just changed the title and heading to be so exact, so I'm not sure if that is it Segals.com.au does excellent for "outdoor furniture perth" and I think they are over-optimized. What do you think? Thanks so much,

Whitney

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[RobCairns]

Hi Whitney,

A couple of things:

1. I went to check your site and my security software has returned a malware warning. I would consider taking a look at the security of your site with your hosting company or asking an IT expert to give you a hand.

2. From what you describe, your lack of rankings is almost certainly attributable to your link profile. I won't say that's the case 100% since there can be other factors, but links represent a major factor of any page ranking on Google. They are effectively "votes of confidence" in your content since they suggest that visitors found your content noteworthy enough to link it to their site/blog/social media, etc.

The reason you are probably not ranking is that you either:

a) Have insufficient links to your page
b) Have weak/irrelevant links to your page
c) Have competitors with stronger link profiles
d) Have poor anchor text procedures that are reducing the impact of your links

You will likely need a link profile audit to determine which of these is the culprit.

3. You Have Weak Content

If the content on your page is weak, you will not rank. That's pretty well known by now. However, if your content is strongly weighted towards more long-tail keywords (outdoor wicker furniture perth vs. outdoor furniture perth, for example), then you will rank for long-tail keywords before generic ones. This is called "semantic keyword ranking" and is something Google is using to help consumers find specific products, services, information, etc. that they are looking for.

You may need to diversify your page with new content targeting the terms you are looking for. Changing titles, headings, etc. is not enough any more. It is also the reason why your blog post (with outdoor furniture perth in the URL) outranked your Home Page for your chosen keyword - Google determined it was more relevant to the keyword search than your home page was.

If you would like a hand with any of the above points, please don't hesitate to get in touch. I'd be happy to go over it with you and help you get moving in the right direction.

Cheers and best of luck!

Rob

[vhitnah]

Hi James

Thanks so much for your help. What you've said makes total sense and is very smart. I can see why more trusted sites can get away with more. Whereas mine is less trusted, and it is obviously trying too hard.
Changing to https might have invited new consideration.

Thanks again!

Whitney

[vhitnah]

Hi Rob

Thank you very much for your help.
Would you mind telling me the security software you use? The website has been cleaned and is free from malware, but it is still blacklisted by some security software- I need to contact them and request to have my website removed from their blacklist.

Thanks, I hope getting more backlinks helps. I have been gaining high quality backlinks recently. A trusted outdoor patio company is even writing a blog article about me. I have also joined many home forums and have been posting a lot so I don't look like an advertiser, then I will post about my business when it is appropriate. I am not sure how long the back-linking takes to register with Google.

Thanks, it is a good idea for me to get stronger content. A lot of my competitors have weak content too- but I think they have better backlink profiles.

Thank you so much again for your help!
Whitney

[RobCairns]

I'm using a combination of tools but the ones that returned errors were Avast and McAfee - basic options but still worth having a look at. It's a better explanation than the alternative!

Links are indexed with every crawl cycle. It usually takes 2 weeks or so to register new backlinks on your site.

The content will really help, and from what you are telling me it sounds as if you are on the right track - just keep finding those relevant blogs and continuing to be a helpful poster in those communities. The links and the trust will come from that.

All the best!

Rob