What is wrong with our site?

[EricWeber]

Hello Seomoz friends.

I've about to pull all my hair out and need to turn somewhere.   Our site, www.sightmax.com has been around since 2004.  We used to be ranked at the top of page two on google under the keyword "live chat".  We are no on page 4, heading to page 5.

Can anyone take a look at the site and see if anything jumps out at you?  The only way we have been able to get on the first page, is the pay for google adwords (which we've been doing every month for 7 years).

Again, the site www.sightmax.com and the keyword is "live chat".

Any help or feedback would be appreciated SO MUCH!

Thanks!

Eric

[shandaman]

Hey Mate,

Well first off your site is really nice (good job).

Your aiming for a very competitive phrase. You would be better off and probably convert more seeing as how your service is not actually for live chat but rather the back-end of allowing people to have live chat on there websites. I would go for terms like live chat software, live chat program etc... You would convert better and rank easier. When I go to google and type in live chat its because I want to chat with someone live. Not find a software to do it myself.

[ResslerMotors]

First off, I agree with Shannon.  There are some long tail phrases that would work better for you.  As for a quantifying reason for why you are slipping: the #1 website in that search has 2414 linking domains, compared to your 300.  Regardless of the overall quality, that is still a massive gap.

I would suggest two things:

1. Go after less competitive long-tails (which will convert better)
2. Either start, or get  more aggressive on link building

Although having visitors looks nice, and makes you feel good, your ultimate goal should be to convert visitors to customers.

[shandaman]

I concur here with Ressler.

You def need LOTS more quality links to gain front page exsposure but before you spend the time and money to do that (time is money) be sure that is the best term you should be going after.

You say you are using awords, I would split test which keywords (like i suggested before) actually convert clicks to customers (split testing will give this data too you).

You will then know which keywords are better for organic rankings. This is when PPC or CPC comes in handy!

[stefanok]

Ok, from my point of view your website title is a bit spammy.

I would of rather gone for the software name and then optimize each page/product accordingly with your chosen keywords and perhaps target more keywords than just the ones you chose as your site name.

Just a brief observation.

[EricWeber]

Thanks for all the answers so far.  Through all our analytics and conversion reporting, it does seem that the keyword is still "live chat" and not "live chat software" (or similar).

Link building will be tough since we are a commercial site and don't want to do reciprocal linking to someone that has nothing to do with SightMax.

The way the site is dropping, it feels like someone is duplicating our content on another domain name or some type of spamming.  Seomoz tools give the site a "A" grade for the "live chat" optimization that is in place on the site.

I'd be very happy to get this site back to page two somewhere on google.

Thanks for all the nice help folks, I'm really struggling with this and have for quite a bit of time.

[shandaman]

Hey man, email me at shannonlilly@rocketmail.com I have a link building technique I would love to share with you privately.

[ResslerMotors]

Websites linking to you is one of the more important SEO techniques, and actually offers the highest potential.  However, trading links with other websites will actually hurt you, and I would not advise doing that at all.

Link building comes from using various strategies in order to convince them to link to you.  This could be through writing very informative or controversial articles (Link Bait), emailing webmasters or hiring an agency that specializes in it.  These companies tend to have networks of websites that they use to build links.  Because of that, it's very important to ask for references.

I would also suggest listening to what Shannon Lily has proposed to you for a technique.  There is such an art to link building that any good tips will help!

[EricWeber]

Thanks RM.  I'm certainly considering Shannons proposal.  Have you used any link building firms, if so, any names that you would highly recommend?

Thanks again to everyone for their participation.

[ResslerMotors]

I've talked to a couple, but I've never worked with one.  Just make sure to ask if they are using multiple servers across the country you are doing business in, that they are correctly using C-Blocks and that your links will be put in relevant content.

Another factor to remember is making sure your link landscape is diverse.  Have both exact and similar keyword usage ("Live Chat" - "Chat Software" - "Live Chat Software"), a collection of both followed and no-followed links and websites with Page Ranks ranging from really low to really high.  This makes it look more natural.

If you wanted to use a link building service for the high quality links, you could then go after low quality links on your own.  Post on blogs about your topic, use social bookmarking, etc.

[shandaman]

Resslers tip here about varying the anchor text is one of the most over-looked factors. This is extremely important, as is the entire link profile being given consideration. You never want just one type of link vs another.