Where to begin (again)

[IanTheScot]

In 2009 we peaked in organic site traffic. During that time we received traffic for 276,000 different keywords.

Since then our organic traffic from Google only has fallen almost 45% and our unique keyword traffic has dropped to 195,000.

During that time I thought we were doing everything right:

• We wrote over 300 articles on our site
• We got on Facebook and started posting regularly.
• We got on Twitter and tweeted several times a week both about our niche topic and our store
• We launched a new product review site and took on bloggers as product reviewers
• The reviews the bloggers write link to our store, the product and some valuable keywords in every post and there have been a couple of hundred written
• We've done about 20 Youtube videos

And yet, here we are with our organic Google traffic down 45%.Alexa has dropped us 200,000 spots.

At this point I feel like the house is burning down around me and really don't know where to turn to get this trend reversed. Any suggestions on a clear path forward?

[AdoptionHelp]

It sounds like you're doing everything right, but face much more fierce competition than you did a couple years ago. For the keywords you lost, is there a new dominant player at the top of the SERPs? Are you still ranking for those keywords? What industry are you in? Its hard to give any kind of real answer with the limited information here.

[IanTheScot]

The same player that was at the top then is there still. We've always been number two behind them. No dominant site has taken our place. It's like we just fell back into the masses of 2nd-tier sites. We still rank well for some of the main keywords that we used to but others we have fallen to the third and fourth page or vanished altogether.

We run a religious e-commerce site at Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.

[RyanKent]

It sounds like you have taken many positive steps towards improving your site. The question is, how well have you executed on these steps?

We wrote over 300 articles on our site

What kind of articles? Did you write about a topic of interest to you? Or did you research keywords to determine which phrases were generating the most traffic and write about those topics?

What quality of articles? Were they your average "lets write a 500 word article to gain traffic for my site" kind of average internet articles? Or did you set out to write "best on the web" type of content? Do you use anchor text in your content to link to various pages of your site from within each article? Have you used any form of evaluation tool on the article such as Paper Rater?

You can write 5 "best on the web" articles which get links from authoritative sources and generate more value then 300 of what I call "internet-filler" articles.

We got on Facebook and started posting regularly.

How popular is your facebook page? Are you actively encouraging users to Like your fb page? Many sites encourage readers to like the website page, but not their facebook page. Liking the fb page is much more powerful as you establish a link with your readers.

We got on Twitter and tweeted several times a week both about our niche topic and our store

That's great, but how many people follow you on Twitter? Do you tweet to general hash tags and @ addresses which are viewed by many people with a related interest in your site?

The ideas expressed above apply to your product reviews, blogs and YouTube videos as well. Creating content is easy. Creating high quality content that readers WANT to find and will gladly link to, that is the challenge. It's like the difference between going to school to get a passing grade, or going to school with the desire to graduate top of your class. You have competition and you need to step up to beat them.

[IanTheScot]

We have almost 8000 Facebook followers and 1800 Twitter followers. We held an e-reader giveaway earlier this year that really boosted our Facebook fans.

We regularly use hash tags for broad topics in our niche and also participate in conversations.

Re Articles: Most were written with quality and search terms in mind but I am sure that we could go back through and tweak them, especially the links internal to each article. We also haven't done a good job of letting people know they are there to encourage back links. The paper rater is a neat tool. I tested a couple and they rate high b's.

I guess what drives me most nuts about this is that apart from the company on top, we're the only one who is doing anything for seo (as far as we can tell) and yet we still have fallen.

[RyanKent]

There are simply too many factors to evaluate in a general Q&A. A professional SEO would be able to perform a complete evaluation of your site, your on-page SEO, your competitors, your keywords, etc.

I understand your frustration. I don't think our taking guesses will offer you any assistance. In case I am wrong, a few more ideas are:

• take every step to improve your on-page performance. Improve those "B" grades to "A"s, build your internal links, add relevant sidebar links to similar topics, etc.

• let the world know your articles exist, keep social buttons near the articles, accept user generated comments on your articles, etc.

• perform a crawl test of your site. Make sure your navigation is solid, you don't have duplicate content, etc.

EDIT: I just noticed the link to your site. There is plenty of improvements which can be made to the site.

1. Home page title "The Catholic store for First Communion Gifts, Confirmation Gifts, Catholic books, Catholic bibles and rosaries." It reads more like a meta description then a title. Pick one or two keywords to target. A preferred title would be something like "Catholic Store | Aquinas and More"

2. Your URLs are long and unfriendly. Example: http://www.aquinasandmore.com/category/2467/fuseaction/store.BrowseCategory/productsperpage/24/layout/grid/currentpage/1

A preferred URL for that page would be http://www.aquinasandmore.com/ebooks/

3. You are using 302s on an internal link. Don't use any 302s! If you ever choose to use a 302, it is meant for a very temporary use such as 7 days or less.

4. You have multiple redirects. I choose "ebooks" and it was first 302'd, then 301'd, then it landed on the final page.

Your site needs proper SEO attention from a professional. If you understand enough about your site's software and HTML to make these changes, you can tackle them on your own as well, but there is a lot of work to do.

[EGOL]

Keep in mind that since 2009 that google has many new initiatives- especially universal search.  They have gotten much more aggressive with product search, brand suggestions, video, image search.  They have become better webmasters and now keep a lot more traffic on their own site.  Also in the past two years more and more people are using Adwords and they are getting much smarter.

So, it is possible that your drop in traffic is because of google's improved webmastering..... or, it could be a drop in your rankings... or both.

A #1 position in the SERPs brings less traffic now than it did in 2009... and a #4 position brings a lot less.

[IanTheScot]

Thank you for pointing out the 302 error. That was an easy fix. Do you have any recommendations for someone who we can hire to look at the site? I saw that you are currently all booked up.

[RyanKent]

The official answer I provide is to check the SEOmoz resource directory.

Based on a bit of feedback I have received it seems many are not happy with that direction. I understand as basically it is a listing of thousands of SEO companies without any particular endorsement.

In an effort to not ruffle any feathers I have been offering the recommendations in e-mail but I will go ahead and make one attempt at offering these publicly. In no particular order:

1. Distilled SEOmoz partners with Distilled for SEO consulting.

2. Keyphraseology Lindsay used to lead the SEOmoz consulting team.

3. Alan Bleiweiss Alan was doing SEO before Al Gore invented the internet. He often shares his knowledge and experience here at SEOmoz or speaking at various SEO conferences and his blog.

As for me, yes I am presently booked up. I expect to have limited availability beginning in September.