Rankings conundrum

[Jarod4545]

I have a website that is much better optimized than its competitors, but the competitors rank much higher for the keywords I'm going for!

This site: https://carlsbadchiropractic.com/ Has errors and all sorts of issues but it ranks in the top 10 for all the keywords I'm trying to rank for in Carlsbad, CA. chiropractor, chiropractic, carlsbad chiropractor, and chiropractor near me. My site: https://www.gohlclinic.com is much better optimized for a year now and it still ranks extremely low for these keywords. Not to mention, I was #1 for chiropractic and then it suddenly dropped to #97 and all I did was optimize some images. It's now back up to #17 but I'm seriously confused.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I'd really appreciate it.

[MiriamEllis]

Good afternoon, Jarod!

Let's see what we can figure out about this in the community. But, first, please answer some questions to help us rule out some things.

1. What is the keyword phrase you'd like us to look at?

2. Do you share an office with other chiropractic businesses, or are there any other chiropractors within a couple of city blocks of you?

3. Could you have engaged in anything that Google would frown on, like building duplicate listings or paying anybody for reviews? (Sorry to have to ask that, but it's important to get the facts).

4. Can you be specific about when your rankings dropped, and also, whether you are talking about local pack or organic rankings?

There may be more questions to come, but let's start with these. I'll be happy to come back and take a look with you. Thanks!

[Jarod4545]

Thanks for your response.

1. I was ranking #1 for "chiropractic" in Carlsbad CA. I made some simple updates, optimized images etc... and it dropped to 97 and then back up to 3 and then down to 17. I'm also trying to rank for carlsbad chiopractor, chiropractor near me, and chiropractor.

2. There are no other chiropractic clinics very close to me but it's a small town and there are quite a few competitors.

3. No, I haven't built any duplicate listings or paid anyone for reviews. I also started a PPC campaign. Oh, and I published a blog entry.

4. I updated some plugins and optimized images...and I changed the layout of a few pages but that's it. The drop was in organic rankings.

Question: Does traffic to my blog posts help my rankings on my homepage seeing as it's a different page even though it's on the same domain?

Question: Is it realistic to try to rank for 4-5 keywords for my homepage? I should I be happy if I just rank for one?

Thanks again, I appreciate your input.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jarod,

Thank you for the further information. I'm going to take a look and jot down what I see:

1. Using BrightLocal's rank checker with my zip set to 92008 and searching just for "chiropractic", I confirm that you are not in the local pack and are coming up on page 2 in the organic results around spot 17. In the local finder view, you are #7.

2. I see that carlsbadchiros.com and carlsbadchiropractic.com are both at the top of the organic rankings with what are basically exact match domains, which still, unfortunately can heavily influence Google's rankings regardless of site quality. Compared to your domain name, gohlclinic.com, their domains more identically match the user's query.

3. Now, searching manually from my locale in NorCal for "chiropractic carlsbad", I see different competitors in the local packs, but the same two competitors ranking organically. I see you at spot 12. organically  and when I click through on the local pack to the local finder, you are coming up at #7, which is pretty good, though not as high as you'd like to be.

4. So, from the above exercise, we've identified that you aren't in any way barred from ranking or suspended or anything like that. You're just not ranking as well as you would like to. Good to know.

5. Locally speaking, and again using BrightLocal for this same search phrase + your zip code, I see that Google has two rough clusters of businesses coming up at the top of the local finder. The top 3 businesses for this search (Kline, New Wave and Longevity) are clustered between Palomar Airport Road and and Cannon Road near something named the Carlsbad Premium Outlets. The next 4 businesses are clustered around what Google is deeming the city center of Carlsbad, near the juncture of Carlsbad Blvd. and Carlsbad Village Dr.

This second cluster is where you are located, and as I begin to zoom in on it, I see that you in the midst of at least 15 chiropractic listing in this very small area. So, competition is quite fierce! And, in fact, when I zoom in quite a bit, I see that you are located right next door to two other listings (Chad R. Chapman, DC and Brian T. Killeen, DC) which appear to be practitioner listings both located at 2564 State St # A, Carlsbad, CA 92008 next to you at 2562 State St Ste B.

These 2 unclaimed practitioner listings are giving me some pause. I'm looking at your website now to see if these doctors appear to work for you, but they don't. Do you know for whom they do work? Is there actually a chiropractic office located at 2564? There's no website associated with either listing. Neither listing is outranking yours organically, and you are not being filtered out by either, but I am curious about these listings.

6. From the above exercise, we've learned that this is a highly competitive search term and that you are located near the second of two clusters Google appears to be making on the map for the local results. You are just slightly west of the second cluster, actually.  We've learned that there is nothing geographic preventing you from ranking well locally, but we do see that the top 3 businesses are located down by the Carlsbad Premium Outlets and it could be that Google has some bias regarding that locale. Your rating is equal to or better than the top 7 competitors. You could use some more reviews to catch up with some of the competitors, but weirdly, you are also being outranked for this search by competitors with fewer reviews (in one case, a competitor with only 4 reviews!).

7. Looks like you have a bit of work to do regarding citations and possible duplicate listings: https://moz.com/local/details/JTI1NUIlMjUyMkdvaGwlMjUyMENsaW5pYyUyNTIwT2YlMjUyMENoaXJvcHJhY3RpYyUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjkyMDA4JTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyR29obCUyNTIwQ2xpbmljJTI1MjBPZiUyNTIwQ2hpcm9wcmFjdGljJTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyMjU2MiUyNTIwU3RhdGUlMjUyMFN0cmVldCUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMjkyMDA4JTI1MjIlMjUyQyUyNTIyNzYwNzI5ODgwMiUyNTIyJTI1MkMlMjUyMlVTJTI1MjIlMjU1RA==

8. Now let's look at some organic metrics using the Moz Bar.

You:

Domain Authority: 22 with 503 links from 104 root domains

Spam Score 28% (you have a number of questionable links pointing to your website)

Page optimization score for "chiropractic": 84 with an advisory not to keyword stuff

Page Title: Gohl Clinic of Chiropractic in Carlsbad - Gohl Clinic of Chiropractic (this is odd and repetitive)

Your Top Organic Competitor (carlsbadchiros.com)

Domain Authority: 12 with 196 links from 48 root domains

Spam Score 2%

Page optimization score for "chiropractic": 84 with an advisory not to keyword stuff

Page Title: Chiropractor in Carlsbad CA | Carlsbad Chiropractic and Integrative Wellness

Stacking these up side by side, your spam score is coming up as a concern for me, and while the DA of this competitor is lower, so is their spam score. So, looks like you need to delve more deeply into this. Their title tag is also somewhat better than yours, although it's still about repetitive due to their brand name.

9. I also notice the Moz Bar is finding schema for your competitor and not for you. Not a ranking factor, per se, but it does make it easier for Google to understand your information.

10. Summing up, what I've done here is not a replacement for a professional audit. That really can't be done in the space of a forum, and if you need to move up in the rankings, I'd recommend hiring a really good local SEO firm to help you create a strategy based on the findings of a full self-audit + competitive audit. But, in our quick glance, we've seen some interesting things:

• Your market is densely competitive for this term

• Google may possibly have some local bias towards that area of town near the Premium Outlets

• You are in the running with #7 local finder rankings and 2nd page organic rankings

• You may have a problem with link spam/link quality that needs to be addressed

• Exact match domains could be helping some of your competitors organically

• Your citations could use some work

• There are some curious unclaimed listings next door to you that deserve investigation, and of course, you should always look at all listings in your market to see if any of them could be spam.

I hope this provides some insight to get you brainstorming. In all likelihood, Jarod, you can improve your rankings, but my best advice is to invest in audits first so you can figure out a data-based strategy.

PS. Traffic to any part of your website is helpful, yes. Ranking a page for multiple terms is possible, yes, but not always easy.

[Jarod4545]

Thank you Miriam for your response. A couple of follow up questions. What would you recommend I do about the high spam score? Disavow links with a score over a certain %?