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Could not get the site to load, so I could not take a look at what you have going on. I'm guessing you are messing around with some redirects.

But I can help with the MOZ and Yoast graders. The tools you are describing are only tools. If you look at the report that MOZ gives you, its only there to point out any areas where there may be missed opportunities, or if there are any standout errors. If the report is showing the page to have an F grade, it most likely is not set to target the correct keyword, or is trying to check multiple pages for the same keyword phrase. People often have issues with the MOZ grader, but don't understand how to set it up. I hope that one of the Admins on here can direct you to a tutorial, as I did a few Google searches and didnt find any worthy results.

Yoast is a great tool and plugin. One thing you have to watch out for is again: its only a tool and will recommend best practices based upon the settings you enter. If you have followed its recommendations to a perfect degree, that may get you a green bar and a nice score, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the page is well optimized for that keyword. For most SEO-graders, as long as you stay with a set character limit, and make sure the URL is search engine friendly and all fields are filled out, you will get a high grade. This can have nothing to do with the content that populates those areas, only that you met the predefined requirements to get you a high grade.

Once you fix all these redirect errors, I would resubmit the entire site and sitemap to Google, as they probably have a mixed idea of what the real destimation URL's are after all the issues.

I have used this one for Joomla. Very simple and free, except that you cannot set the delay time from within the plugin:

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/style-a-design/popups-a-iframes/17214

Here is also a easy to use Wordpress plugin, which offers many of the same functions:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-popup/

Everyone talks about over-optimization of on-page content. If you are seeing a penalty, I highly doubt it is from something as simple as over-optimized H tags, unless you are just literally repeating the same things over and over across multiple pages.

Having the page title being the same as your H1 is fine, as long as it is well written, and highlighting what you are trying to rank for. We have even used our opening sentences as meta descriptions before. If the content is good, then you can use it wherever you like. Don't get so caught up in the finite details, that you overlook what is really causing your site not to rank / drop in rank. The rules of SEO have not really changed that much, except in the way that now Google looks much more closly at external factors to determine the rank and authority of a site. Read over what you have for your content. If it sounds spammy and unnatural, it probably is.

Without having a link, its hard to see what you have going on, or where your site could be improved. Based off of your description, this is the best answer I have.

If you want the most accurate traffic report possible, then I would set up a custom goal in analytics using your landing page URL. Depending upon what you are trying to do, you could set up a page that is targeted directly to your YouTube refferals, and focus on promoting conversions. Or another option is to just clone the home page to a different URL and set it to NO INDEX, NO FOLLOW and have them land on that when they click the link.

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1116091?hl=en

Do it through the menu items, rather than the main dashboard. Much easier. This will also allow you to add a custom title, and meta for each menu link you have, which will help your rankings if done correctly

http://imgur.com/IqZCvo9

If it will not let you over ride the setting, I would install RSSEO, which will allow the page title over ride. Out of curiousity, why is it required that you have that tag attached to the home page? Doesn't really offer you any benefit.

No problem! We like to think that we know St Louis fairly well, as we are one of the few companies to rank for St Louis SEO company, St Louis internet marketing, and St Louis web design companies all on page one, sometimes more than once

I hope that this information helps you with your local efforts, and gets you showing up. If you are already on page 2, chances are you are just missing a smaller piece of the puzzle. Page two is a sign that you already have a lot of the right elements in place, and something needs to be added or adjusted to bump you up a page. If we ever get a client in St Louis that offers the same local services as you do, we will be sure to see you on the battlefield! Lol

"The Problem I have is the links that are shown in webmaster tools are links I have already disavowed but they are still showing as links to our site, so I am unsure if there are any new ones."

True you disavowed the links, but did the link manually get removed from the offending sites? Did you possibly remove some of the good links with the bad? How did you determine what was good, and what was harmful?

Short answer is: you need to analyze the sites that gained in rank, and put you on page two. Run a link profile check for opportunities, look at their on page content and back-end optimization efforts, and check your own domain for errors such as 404's, bad redirects, additional variations of URL's (duplicate content), etc. By just looking at a few metrics and focusing so much on your own past linking strategy you will stress yourself to death trying to figure out how to fix it. With a few updates over the past months, I would NOT tie all of your existing ranking issues to just one update, because of the penalty you just worked your way through.

In the end, it will be best to have all of the pages redirect. You will have a higher page count, more internal links, better overall site authority, and more chances to rank for more queries.

The first thing I would do is see what traffic the poorly-written articles have, and if it makes sense to rewrite them. Not sure what you mean by poorly written, is that an opinionated view, or is there data and feedback stating the articles are bad? If they have zero visitors over a 3 month span, I would see why.

Second, look at why the better written articles do so well. Is it the way they are written? The way the page visually is laid out? (prettier is better) Is the topic more heavily searched for? Did you share or market those posts or pages differently than the other ones? Spend a bit of time in analytics and webmaster tools to analyze some of the less-quality pages, and you might discover a trend.

If you choose to redirect, I would make sure to test all the redirects when you are done as Biron29 stated. The slightest variation in the URL will cause the redirect to fail. Screaming Frog seo spider is a great resource for testing for 404 errors, and its free up to a certain number of URLs.

Having worked with multiple companies in St Louis for rankings, it can be difficult.

I agree with Jeff that people search for things adjacent to their exact neighborhood, as metro St Louis is a very small portion of the "city". There are also people that search for items using the STL, Saint Louis, and St Louis (St Louis being the local lingo and the most popular)

Before you begin modifying anything, I would manually go and check that your keyword reporting tool is working correctly (AWR, MOZ, or whatever you use). Go to Google and see that your suspicions are correct. If they are, then proceed to do the following. Also double check in Bing and Yahoo to see if there are any trends. Chances are if you suck at ranking across all search providers for St Louis, you need more local authority.

1. Manually track what keywords and phrases that rank low. Look at competitor keyword phrases and SEO for signs of what Google is giving the authority status to, and then look for why.

2. Look at the backlinks of those sites. Having worked with a lot of local companies, most high ranking sites are pretty good about doing their citation site and local optimization. Being a larger focused company, you will have to think of ways to get your St Louis-specific content to become "more valued" and authoritative than the local sites that offer the same services. For example: If a local provider has a 100 backlinks from local St Louis citations, all stating that he does "KEYWORD in St Louis" you are going to have to prove that your St Louis content deserves that spot.

3. Look at avenues within the local area where you can distribute content and get people linking back. Easiest and fastest way? Most likely a few Press Releases from one of the larger companies with a wide distribution network that can hyper-focus your content to St Louis. Look for openings or opportunities from The St Louis Business Journal, St Louis Post Dispatch, Local Channel 5, STLtoday.com and any other major news outlets. All of these sites have very high page ranks, and domain authority. Link these releases back to your local St Louis content in various ways and formats, but "St Louis" will most likely be your best bet since most locals type it that way.

4. "My question may be more related to on-page optimization. We rank pretty well when adding the various keyword modifiers at the end of the regular keyword" The on page optimization will have to cover the St Louis area (unless you use those pages to rank in multiple areas under the main keyword phrase), for all of the reasons mentioned above. I know that you are trying to use the local setting within Google, but that is only so accurate as your physical IP is going to be from a different place. Might be worth it to set up a few localized pages on your site to see if it makes a difference in your placement.

5. You also may be seeing this change as a part of the algorithm updates, that do more to separate local and nationwide search. Seems like they are going away from using the IP and location information as one of the most important factors, as users search queries often include the location if they are looking for local. People's search habits change, and Google responds.

Hope any of this helps, and best of luck!

• Dave

I would try it anyway, but maybe I'm just stubborn, lol.

http://searchengineland.com/google-weapon-listings-shopping-search-126487

Perhaps since you are selling casings, and not "ammunition" per say, you may be able to get your ads showing. Either that or just spend 5 minutes on the phone with Google adwords help. I'm sure they would be able to let you know what your are eligible to advertise. 1-866-246-6453

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=used%20shell%20casings

There has to be a way. If you search for used shell casings on Google, other sites show ads and product feeds. What was the exact error message you received when trying to submit your ads?

Its cool, we're still bros lol. I understand what you mean, I was just giving him an example of what to look for, or how to optimize for his search audience. Honestly the best way would be to run an Adwords campaign for a month, and look at the Dimentions>search terms to see how people are searching for his products. Could also use the keyword planner, but I have found that to be...lacking in some areas.

I agree in that one of the most important areas to look into would be the backlink profile, as it seems that he is losing authority to his competition.

It could be, if the redirect was not done correctly. Also it can take time for Google to realize a change has been made. I remember when we redesigned our whole site, and saw a ranking drop for about 2 months, then we came back stronger than ever. The one thing you don't want to do is freak out and change a lot of things at once when you are still unsure what caused the drop. It might be a good idea to take a hard look at the competitors sites that ranked up for your keywords, and do a backlink profile on their domains. It's one easy way to see why Google is ranking them so well.

I would make sure that all the old pages have a place to go, even if that means going through the site search in google and clicking on each URL. This will tell you if you have any dead or 404 pages not covered by a redirect. I know that people are changing to the SSL to try and rank since Google announced it could help, but you still have to make sure your pages redirect properly. Drop this in your URL bar and see what pages dont go anywhere: site:eastcoastarsenal.com/

Depending on your location focus, I would also look and see what citation profiles your competitors have.

If you are moving it to have them host the domain, you should not see any issues. I thought you were speaking about having a .weebly domain, in which case you could see some negative effects from that. Out of curiosity, is there a reason you are wanting to move it there?

Not a problem! I'm aware that you sell more than one type, I just used the rifle casings as an example. Also, looks like the SSL redirect is working now. Once you get some of the items fixed and resubmitted in webmaster tools, you should see some fluxuation in your rankings. Glad I could help

The grader is just a baseline report generated to give people starting out an idea of why or where their site could use improvement. If you are having issues with a site or URL, I would post it and see what people on here can help with.

Perhaps you didn't do anything wrong, but didn't do anything right..?

It's really important to look at ALL the factors as you mentioned. I looked at the site, and here is what I found in about 5 minutes.

1. IMPROPER VISUAL CUES: The site is about * removed per member request *, correct? On the home page, nothing immediately pops out at me and says * removed per member request ! Visual engagement can be the first thing that makes a user interact, or leave your site. Look at analytics to see where people are leaving, and see if there is a trend.
2. UNCLEAR TARGETING: What is your goal? Are you trying to rank locally, (since you mention the location) or nationwide? Perhaps since it is unclear on the site, search engines are also unsure.
3. BROKEN REDIRECTS: Notice that you can access the site from multiple ways, both with www. and without. Doing with prompts a security error which I'm guessing is a incorrect setup cpanel redirect or SSL, given the visual cues. Does a search engine even know what version to index? (www. vs. non-www) To word it better: have you told them what version to index, and submitted that version to the search providers? Don't just do an SSL because an SEO says it will improve your ranking. Make sure you understand how to implement said redirect, and all website pages to the proper version.
4. IMPROPER KEYWORD TARGETS: We hear people say every once and a while, that they don't show up for keywords. But we also see that they get a ton of traffic and leads. Targeting what people are actually searching for vs. what you think they are searching for can be a huge difference in perceived success and failure. What keywords have you seen improve? What keywords have you seen drop off since you mention you went to a lower ranking? How is this tracked? What keywords fell off? Did you gain in rank for any keyword variations?
5. IMAGE SEO: Went through and checked some images. Noticed that none of them are titled specifically what you want to rank for. You never know what a user will type in, as there are many thousands of variations, but you can be sure to cover your bases from the very base level. A user might search in the web view, but could also use the images tab to see what they are getting. I can assure you, * removed per member request * will rank better than * removed per member request * almost every time. 
6. H TAG MADDNESS! Might want to see how your site renders out in the eyes of a search engine: removed per member request *
Lots of H tags make it hard for a search engine to determine what your page is about. Sure, lots of things have changed since the introduction of HTML 5, but the basics remain in place. Think of the pages on your site like a document you would write for college. You would have a header, secondary header that elaborates your opening header statement, and so on. The page layout in the eyes of a search engine is confusing, and needs to be cleaned up a bit. Contact your coder or CSS person to have some of the headers render out as

text rather than <h1, h2="" h3,="" h4="">tags. 
7. PROPER ROBOTS SETTINGS: Did a site search and found 99 results. Might want to check and see if 99 URLS are how many exist for your site. if not, you may have other links from server and database generated wordpress pages. Overall, the pages of results I looked through looked legit, but most were a bit generic in terms of basic SEO. Example:

• removed per member request *</h1,>

This is just a basic analysis, and there are plenty of other places to look/ data to analyze. I hope this helps to give you a wider scope of where to start. I have this thread on auto-alert so any reply you post will email me.

• Dave

No problem! Glad I could help. Once you get an idea of how your campaigns work and how people search for your business, this can in turn help you figure out how (and what to focus on) organically.

Think of it like this: Google says "We could show them the search terms for free in analytics"

Intern says "But, we could make them pay for the data, possibly through adwords"

Google says "Brilliant! Promote this man."

Make them pretty to look at, and informative. People love articles that are well laid out, pages that are pretty to look at, and helpful / fun to read. If you make your articles snore-worthy, your user response will be.

Also make sure that your users can easily share the articles. If you rely on a user to manually copy and paste a link to share it, you will be waiting a long time. For marketing, think of what audience would be searching for your articles, and where they would go looking for it. Putting content in place where users are actively searching for it = blog success.

It can take a while, sometimes up to a few months. Google doesn't work fast, and it looks like you have already resubmitted the sitemap and fetched the pages. When we launched our new site, we saw a drop for a month, then we started to come back. Now after 6 months, we are higher than we ever were.

"Normally a traffic drop like this is because someone failed to do 301 redirects of the old pages to new pages"

Agreed.

Was the new site launched on the same domain?