Is my domain holding me back in the SERPS?

[Buffalo-Mobile]

Even after a good year or so, my site intensivedrivingschoolmiltonkeynes.co.uk does not rank in the top 10 (google.co.uk) for "Intensive Driving School Milton Keynes", and is nowhere for "Driving School Milton Keynes". Do you think the domain name is being penalised, or do you think there are other factors that contribute to the poor performance.

[donsilvernail]

Hi Gemma,

Will need more information. Time is not the only factor the ranks a website. I used open site explorer and see that there are no backlinks.

Backlinks should be a focus area if you want to rank your site.

[NickW816]

Agree with Donald above, I do not believe your website is being penalized in anyway for your URL. Some things to consider to help:

1. Setting up, and/or optimizing as much as possible, your social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest)
2. Create & Verify Your Google My Business Profile if you haven't already.
3. Use Moz Local to see what profiles your business has or doesn't have, then use Moz Local to help or do them manually.
4. Add Schema to Your Website to help Google properly index it.
5. Look at some of the backlinks the people ranking in the top 3 for the 2 searches you mentioned above using Moz's Open Site Explorer, Ahrefs, or SEMRush, and then see what links you can gain to your website as well from what they have.

[Buffalo-Mobile]

Thanks guys. Yes open site explorer does not register any backlinks.  According to google webmasters tools we have 49 links in from 7 domains. I'll work through the points you raised.

I'm disappointed about the backlinks as we have, in the past, paid for blogger outreach with programmes like fatjoe and the hoth.  I take it, you would not recommend these?