Welcome to the Q&A Forum

100% in agreement with Alan here. Reconsideration request and the disavow tool DO work and we have used them on 2 clients with proof. It can take anything from 4-12 months for you to actually see the positive results, they do work. Try and get the links removed first BEFORE using the disavow tool because Google wants to see that you have made an effort to get them removed rather than just take the easy way around!

It is true that you won't get responses from them all, especially if it is article websites where the webmaster rarely does anything on the site itself. That is when you use the disavow tool, just make sure that you are 100% certain that the links are doing your website harm.

Be honest though and look at which links are spammy and do your up-most to get them removed first. It takes time and a lot of effort but it will work....eventually!

Hi Rahul,

Your meta needs to have a call to action in it as well as containing your main keyword for that page. In my experience, I would suggest having your call to action first and then a reason why they would want to visit your website.

For example, "Contact us today for your free IT assessment from a company with nearly 30 years experience".

I agree with Simon, GA is perfect for showing data. Just create a login for the client on the account so they can see their stats.

Hi Laura,

Just to add to what David said...if the company above you has a spammy backlink profile then there is a good chance that the Penguin refresh that is coming "in the next few weeks" will hit them hard and your client will be back to number 1! Keep building these high quality links and you will be fine.

Good luck!

How your website ranks for different search terms is based on many things. First of all, I get you at number 2 for "irish payroll online" in Google UK. Google will look at a number of things to determine what your website is relevant for. It will look at the optimisation of the website, so if you want to rank for "irish payroll online software" then you will need to find the relevant page on your website (which I'm assuming would be the homepage looking at the site) and include that term in the key areas (title tag, meta description, H1, Content etc).

Then once you have optimised the website you need to start creating some unique pieces of content and then use them to get in touch with bloggers, key websites that will help drive traffic and sales to the business. As Chris said, setup up your campaign in Moz and look it will explain ways of optimising your website.

Good luck!

One place to start is to see whether the suppliers of your products have "where to buy" section on their website as they are relevant links and are an easy place to start.

As Elias said, it is more about getting links on somewhere your potential customers will see it and be encouraged to visit your website and to buy your products. One good idea is to run some surveys or competitions that you will be able to use the results to create some some unique, interesting content.

Hi Geraldine,

Whilst revenue and profit are the clear priority for you, it is good to measure a variety of things. What I ask my team to look at is the bounce rate and conversion rate of certain category and product pages, it is interesting to look at these rates because it will show you what you need to do in order to improve the quality of the page. If you see that a certain product has a high/low bounce or conversion rate you can look at why that may be. Remember, it is easier to convert existing visitors rather than attract new visitors.

You can also monitor rankings compared to your main competitors, if you haven't been tracking this then start to keep a record of them. Look at mentions of your brand on social networks as brand building is all part of the SEO process.

Are you using PR websites to spread news or build links? If its the latter then don't waste your time. If its the former then you're better off finding bloggers that regularly talk about your company's services and send the PR to them (and tailor to their audience if necessary). Read this post http://www.seroundtable.com/google-press-release-links-16136.html which should tell you all you need to know about PR's.

Hi,

As Thomas said in his first comment...your competitors (and I do this when researching for our clients) will use this when trying to see what keywords you are trying to compete for so I always leave it out. There are obviously other ways of seeing this so it's not going to mean they'll never know what you are targeting but it makes them work a bit harder to get the info.

In short...leave it out.

Screaming Frog is quite good I seem to remember, it will crawl all your URL's then create the sitemap for you. You may need to change the "priority" of the pages but the hard work is pretty much done for you.

Hi Douglas,

Have you used the keyword tool to find the exact match figures? They may be industry standard terms but if the search volume is low then there may be less traffic than you think.

By highly, do you mean in positions 1-3? If so then it would point to the fact that there is little traffic to be gained and you would be best moving on to another keyword. if you are lower than that, it may be that the websites above you are very good at converting visits into sales.

"Google will slam you into a wall, pick you up, throw you on the floor, punch you in the junk, toss you out of a window, and then start dating your mom." beautifully put!!

Mike is absolutely correct. Whenever you are changing your website and the URL's are changing you should always make sure 301 redirect the old URL to the new one. Saves all the hassle of finding the links.

Hi Jonathan,

Lets deal with the disavow-ing first. I'd do a backlink analysis of the website and find ALL the links that look irrelevant and spammy and try and get them taken down first, if that fails then use the disavow tool but only if you are 100% sure they are doing you harm. It's a tricky thing the disavow tool but Google does urge you to try and get them removed before using it.

In terms of the website and the products in the footer...Why not create a section in the main body of the website such as "Customer Favourites" or "Most Popular". The reason for this is because, I'm not sure if users would scroll to the footer whereas if it is in the main body of the website, your customers are more likely to see it.

Hi Robert,

It seems like your strategy is right now and you were unfortunate to hire an agency that has resulted in the penalty. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I have seen websites that have never recovered from a penalty, even after having the reconsideration request accepted. However, looking on the positive side, and with the links you are/have built there shouldn't be any reason why you shouldn't start to see a recovery.

When you got them to remove the links, did they get them removed or use the disavow tool. The problem with using the disavow tool is that some agencies aren't sure what is a good link and what is a bad link so if they just got rid of everything then you have effectively started from scratch but with a penalty hanging over your head so it is going to be hard to rank again.

Look at your backlink profile again and compare it to what it was before the penalty (if possible) and then see if you still have any links that look suspect. Any article directores or poor quality directories that are still there, get them taken down.

No, this wouldn't work. I just looked at your backlinks in OSE and there are some really spammy links. You need to do a full backlink analysis and start to get rid of those directory links. Just look at some of the links that surround yours and you'll see why Google does not like these kind of link building techniques anymore.

Concentrate on getting rid of any of these types of links and start to create some engaging content that people will want to read. It takes a lot longer to create but it could be a source of links for many months and will help your website recover. However, it is imperative that you get rid of these links ASAP either by contacting the websites and getting them taken down (ideally) or using the disavow file.

We are going through the same thing at the moment and have opted to use the rel= alternate hreflang=x tag. There is more info on it on this Google page for you https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en

Whilst Cesar is right than Nike has a perfect link profile, they don't really need to do much link building because they get it all done naturally for them. 99% of companies don't have the social interaction (or the budget!) that Nike does so it isn't really that helpful to study their linking profile.

Saying that, the majority of your links should be branded because when people are talking about you they are unlikely to link your website via an anchor text keyword. You need to create some linkable assets so, for example, content based around the cities you have apartments in  and create some content that bloggers will want to have on their website.

Was "service apartments Bangalore" the keyword you pushed the most by any chance? Article directories have been seriously devalued and directories haven't been worthwhile for years now (unless they are really good!). I suggest looking through your backlink profile on OSE and Webmaster Tools and start to get rid of the article links because they will be doing you more harm than good.

Hi Peter,

As Martijn said, if you can supply us with more info then we can help out. What is the website? When did this happen? what link building activities have been utilised on the website?

Takeshi is right that newer websites can fluctuate at the beginning. You need to make sure that you are using the right type of link building techniques. Go for quality over quantity, find relevant websites that match your industry (so technology in your case) and strike up a relationship with them.

Go for branded links, keep an eye out for the percentage of brand links against anchor text links, too many anchor text links and Google will penalise you.