Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Nirdieb,

I would remove the canonical tag to the inner page. This was obviously a mistake. The home page is the most important page. Is that inner page a duplicate of the home page? I would think not.

Thanks,

Don Silvernail

Dandelion,

This would be my suggestion, Turn those posts into pages. 301 Redirect the posts into the new pages you have created. This way the link juice loss will be at a minimum.

Then put together a content marketing strategy to compliment the pages you have created.

Thanks,

Don Silvernail

I would advise against a virtual office as it is against google guidelines https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en

What type of business are you? Are you a service area business or do people see you at your office. My business is run out of my home as well. I use my home address for my business on google. So that is the physical location for me. You cannot have a po box or remote location to get a business verifies so you will need to set it up as a service area business. There has been some studies to suggest that google is bias to these type of business listings. However, I handle a couple custom home builders websites and this has not been an issue.

I have also set up custom local landing pages for these businesses to help them rank in towns that they want to be found in. Maybe you could do the same.

Thanks,

Don Silvernail

Hi Roman,

I get that, I am just not seeing why moz crawler even found links such as these to throw a 404. I donot think these rss feeds existed on my site at any point. So i would like to find why they are coming up as 404 and fix it properly without redirects.

Thanks,

What you need to consider is search intent. Can you inform or educate the potential customers with bullet points? Do the bullet points answer all questions. If not then use full sentences. Shortened page may see a dip in SEO if the content no longer answers the users search intent. Be very careful when changing content or shortening content. Make sure you express all the reasons why the searcher landed on the page to begin within the shortened content. Are you shortening to remove fluff?

Thanks,

Don Silvernail

Moz tells me I have 16 404 errors. They are all on paginated pages and end with rss. I checked all my settings and i do not know why it is doing this. https://sharlinlaw.com/author/ben-sharlin/page/7/rss the page 7 exists but not the rss feed on page 7. it also exists https://sharlinlaw.com/author/ben-sharlin/rss

Just on pagination it is throwing 404ss. It is my understanding that this is a custom rss structure. I built this site and i did not set it up this way but moz crawler is flagging these, what should i do.

I do not need rss to exist on pagination.

Thanks for any responses to this issue,

Don Silvernail

First i would make sure to have a google my business listing for each location. Then i would create unique local landing pages for each location a gym resides in. If a location offers yoga, make sure to include yoga descriptions on the landing page.

This would be just a start but can go along way. Make sure those local landing pages are unique and do not have the same copy on each page. Make them location specific.

Thanks,

Don Silvernail

There is no set word count that will help rank. It is the quality and depth of the content you are providing. Keep the searches intent in mind when developing content. Be engaging and educational, answering the searchers query. i have pages on my website that rank with as little as 300 words and as much as a1000. so as you see its not the word count. its the quality.

Thanks,

Don Silvernail

I would 301 redirect the product pages to the hero pages they best represent. I would not let them 404 you could loose valuable traffic that way.

You could disavow links through google search console.

DA is not just based on backlinks but the quality of backlinks. Also the longevity of the domain plays apart in authority. So if your competitor has been around awhile and has a few backlinks from high quality websites then he very well could have a higher DA then you. Maybe their backlink profile can shed some light on some backlinks you might try to obtain.

Thanks,

Don Silvernail

WordPress does not use templates it uses themes. These themes can be customized as necessary including best SEO practices for your brand.

There can be many issues for your SEO when switching themes, however they may not be realized until you adventure into the theme. For instance custom post types that might be available in one theme may not be available in another affecting possible urls causing 404 errors or any number of issues.

If you use Yoast for WordPress SEO plugin you can customize your SEO titles and descriptions. This should stay current between themes. A rule of thumb, stay away from themes that have a lot of bloat. Many themes found on theme forest are designed to cover a multitude of businesses and niches causing bloat. Bloat causes site slow down and can hamper SEO rankings. Choose a theme that is light and does not have as many bells and whistles. If you need these things you can always ad on later with plugins.

Thanks,

Don Silvernail

Hi RuffHaus,

Search visibility is a combination of your tracked keywords and where they rank on google, not your complete search visibility on google.

What i mean is if you only track 1 keyword and it has a number 1 position on google Moz will show your search visibility as 100% the more keywords you add that do not rank will lower your search visibility ranking. So if you have 10 keywords tracked an 1 ranks #1 on google but none of the other keywords rank at all your search visibility will be 10%.

Squarespace has some limited ability for technical seo but it is real hard with that platform to optimize completely as you are limited to what you can do.

Thanks,

Don Silvernail

Hi genevieveagar,

So, have your designer make the H2 text smaller. this is a simple css edit or use tiny mce which will give more control over text size. You should be using H2 for main ideas and the keywords in the H2 can help you rank. H3 should be used within the H2 or for less important headings.

Your WordPress default font sizes should not keep you from using your headings properly. It is a very simple fix.

Thanks,

Don Silvernail

Hello Janki99,

While I cannot recommend a system to track those metrics, I will suggest building backlinks to the content that your competitors with higher DA are now beating you at. If they have higher DA, one of the reasons is because of the number and quality of back links. They may even be able to garner more backlinks on the articles they wrote that displaced your ranking. So i would personally start a backlink campaign. First analyze the hanging fruit, then your competitors. Use OSE to find what backlinks to oyur competitors may be valuable to you.

Thanks,

Don Silvernail

Hi CathyWix,

I would check the backlinks going to the negative pr articles. It may be the new articles and links you built are not good enough to overpower the articles that are negative. Are the negative pr backlinks of editorial level or higher? You might need to get some good press, there may not be enough good pr articles or the good pr articles are only generated by you. Generally if you are looking to get good pr you will need others to write articles in high ranking editorial publications to overcome bad pr.

Thanks,

Don Silvernail

Hi Sandra,

So, this is a tough question because there is no other content on the page. If i was in your shoes i would use an H2 for the sub categories, especially if they are keyword based. This would show that the sub headings are important. Don't forget to use the alt tags for the images on these sub heading pages as well.

Hi Miriam,

It does not add up to me either. However, you bring up a good point about the client trying to do something spammy. I do not think that it is my client that would do something like that. I have spent much time discussing this issue with her. She did have a previous SEO person work on the site which has left me with a lot of work to do. That person did some spammy type work on the website which will be some questions i ask on the forum later.

That email address is not the client. I have sent out mail.

The manta listing has been removed at the request of my client directly to manta.

I have called the number too. It just does not make sense to me either. There seems to be no direct reason for the spam.

I have to think it was the old seo who worked the site before me.

Thanks

They did not take the google listing.

They took the business listing. Created a cloud based contact form and a multitude of business listings not google. They guy is using content from the site on business listings.

I have a new client and I discovered that someone has ripped off the business and established it in Texas (business resides in New Jersey)

My client is ssscustomclosets.com/ the hijack artist has created forms and business listings such as this https://wirykanaird.wufoo.com/forms/zivaxni09ew6nb/

There is no google listing for Texas however, I have to think that this is causing some seo issues.

Any ideas how to rectify this? I have never come across this situation before.

Thanks,

Don Silvernail