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Hi

You may find this useful as a potential solution different to that above -

Install one of these contact form plugins on your site if you don't already use one of them:

• Gravity Forms
• Formidable
• Ninja Forms
• Contact Form 7

Then install this - http://helpforwp.com/downloads/campaign-tracker/ - it will provide referrer information - showing how the visitor arrived at your site as required.

There is a cost involved but this isn't massive and hopefully you should be able to install this and set it up yourself relatively easily.

Hope this helps

Matt

Have you tried http://www.link-assistant.com/website-auditor/ as it checks for broken links and can be scheduled to run automatically. You can sit it on your own server or something like AWS. We ran it on a free instance of AWS for quite a while before upgrading and never had issues. We upgraded as we run quite a bit of software on there - still isn't huge costs involved.

Hope this helps!

Matt

I tend to use the Panguin Tool and look for sudden drops in traffic at update times - http://barracuda.digital/panguin-tool/ - it maps your sites google analytics against updates.

Hope this helps

Hi

If nothing has changed other than the domain transfer, so your site is still the same on the same server with the same structure and no other changes have occured such as a sudden loss of links then there is a good chance this could be down to the Moz index update itself. You mentioned your DA was higher in February, however since then there has been updates, you can check more here for updates - https://moz.com/products/api/updates. I have seen others have a similar issue in the past noticing a sudden drop in DA since an update and this is due to the Moz index reducing the amount of URLs in it - it is currently at 139 billion whereas it was at 141 billion on March 2nd and 145 billion at the end of January. If the index is using less links this can lead to it using less links to calculate your domain authority and big drops can be seen in some cases.

In terms of your migration to Wordpress make sure that you 301 redirect the old html URLs to their new location/URL on WordPress.

Although very in-depth you may find some of the information in the post an interesting read - https://moz.com/blog/web-site-migration-guide-tips-for-seos

Hope this helps!

Matt

Hi Caro

Just before I directly answer your question can I ask whether you have done a backlink audit on their site? If not I would strongly advice it in order to make sure they don't have any penalties or links you don't want associating with your site. I like to work this way, yes it does take longer but you are going into it with your eyes wide open and avoiding any issues down the line, which will inevitably take up even more time trying to rectify. I would recommend further reading on the following:

Link Audit - http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2207168/how-to-conduct-a-link-audit

Link Removals & Risk Mitigation - https://moz.com/blog/link-audit-guide-for-effective-link-removals-risk-mitigation

As the others have already said I would look to redirect individual URLs to similar corresponding URLs on your site in order to get the best from this. As we know 301 redirects pass authority from the original URL to the new one.

However I would also take this one step further and look at the Google Analytics and Google Search Console Search Analytics Report for the other companies site if you have access to it and I would look at the most popular pages in terms of organic traffic. I would also look to analyse current rankings for that site and see if it is out ranking any of the corresponding content on your site. If so I would look to use it to improve my own content and then still do the 301 redirect. I have done this in the past and when moving across a popular blog from one site to yours I would look and see what are the most popular posts in terms of organic traffic as mentioned above but also other factors such as social interaction (I find https://socialcrawlytics.com/ ) and referrals. Then if my current site that I am redirecting too doesn't have some content that is on the same subject and very close in nature and popular I would look to migrate the content itself to a new post with the same content and then 301 redirect the original to that new piece.

Too many times you see people rushing this and just blanket redirecting things, however they forget that 1. you need to redirect to similar content to get the most benefit as a redirect is essentially telling the search engines the content has moved to a new location and 2 you won't always get close matches so why not take that content and publish it on yours if it is already working rather than trying to fit it somewhere it doesn't (basically don't force a square peg in a round hole).

Obviously I don't know how strong the site you want to redirect is but taking time over this now will pay dividends.

Hope this helps!

Matt

As Donald says you can rewrite content for each location and give it a location specific flavor.

One thing I would also recommend when working on something like this is spend the time trying to get some user generated content such a reviews and testimonials. This will give it a more unique local feel.

If each location has similar products but not exactly the same could you slightly vary product focus and weight of content accordingly.

I don't know you setup or budget but you could even look to get different writers for different locations. You may even look to get different business owners/franchise managers to have input on the content for their site. In some situations you may even have some keen to write some content that you can proof/edit.

Hope this helps

Hi Richard

Google has recently issued guidelines in relation to posts in return for products. They advise that bloggers should no follow links to the company that has given them a free product in return for a post and they should also disclose any such relationship. Here is a good write up on this - https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/03/11/google-issues-guidelines-on-bloggers-and-links-for-freebies/

Again no follow links are definitely not worthless as you must remember they can be a great source of referral traffic, If you get placed on a blog that has a lot of traffic and a highly engaged audience you can gain a lot of exposure from this in the form of referral traffic, social shares and even other links in some cases. Don't purely think of links value in terms of whether they can directly pass authority and help rankings.

If I were working on your project here are some tactics that I would follow:

I would look at identifying influencers in your niche and start to form a relationship with them. Then I would look to get them to write some relevant content on your site, with the aim of giving it exposure to their audience. This is a tactic that I have always found pays off, as it builds traffic and exposure for your site. Ultimately this will lead to lots of opportunities apart from having some good content created for your site that people will see.

I would also look at what your competition are up to that are ranking top for the keys terms you are after. What is there link profile like? What is the content that is ranking like? And what are the social likes and shares to their site and ranking content. This leads nicely into the skyscrapper technique - http://backlinko.com/skyscraper-technique. I would also then look at going a step further with your analysis and evaluate this content very deeply as Rand speaks about in his excellent White Board Friday last week - https://moz.com/blog/category/whiteboard-friday

When you ask whether blogger outreach is dead I don't believe it is - it all just depends the angle you approach it from. I would look to create my own content that can be placed on their sites rather than the quick win of a free product for review. I would still look to get some product reviews but for the reason I mention above. Again I would also look to entice influencers, which quite often are bloggers, to place content on your site to build the authority of your site.

My final note as why I mentioned above, forgetting blogger outreach I would be creating link worthy content and I would be spending a significant amount of time (at least as long as it took to create if not more) to get it placed in different communities on social networks and other sites remembering this is for exposure and not for links. If you create great content that people want then they will share it and they will link to it - it just takes time and commitment (this is why I highlighted the skyscrapper technique above).

Hope this helps!

Matt

Hi John

I think Patrick makes some very good points in relation to your questions and I agree.

Focus you efforts on building one strong site rather than diluting things with multiple sites.

Again you may wish to keep some of the 500 domains if they are brand or product specific to protect them from competition leverage. Otherwise I wouldn't worry about others picking them up if you let them go. I have been in a similar situation in the past and I let most go and never regretted it.

However I would also check the 500 domains in order to see if there are any gems hidden among them. I would do this by using URL profiler (http://urlprofiler.com/) and dropping the list of domains into it once hooked up to Moz etc - this would give you a good overview including elements like domain authority. If you happen to have several domains with high domain authority you may wish to keep these. As Patrick says you would need to be careful and preform a relevant backlink audit once you have quickly narrowed things down with URL profiler.

Hope this further helps you

No problem Kerry - just wanted to check you managed to do it and it fixed things?

Matt

Here you go - https://springmerchant.com/bigcommerce/how-to-add-home-page-banner-your-mobile-templates/

I believe this should help

Hi Kerry

I have had a look and it appears that you do have one link on each page that is causing this - the link with the anchor text permierdoorco.com which I believe is in the address block in the footer of each page - it isn't properly declared but has a href on it which is premierdoorco.com rather than http://www.premierdoorco.com/

Here is the copied element from your source code -

premierdoorco.com

just login and make the change to the link and all should be fixed.

Hope this helps

I would definitely say that your site is over-optimised and that you are having issues as you have built a lot of landing pages for locations which are very similar just with postcodes and location names being the main difference.I know you have tried to write unique content and specific location information but it still feels very similar and over-optimised purely written as an aggressive way to rank in all these London locations. I would say your site could be classed as being full of doorway pages for all the locations and this is definitely something Google doesn't like and falls fowl of their guidelines thus hurting your ranking ability. You also don't appear to have physical locations in these places so they are more of a service area. As you aren't ranking at the moment I would personally cut everything back focus on ranking for your actual physical location then you may want to choose service areas and build some pages around these, but you don't want to overdo this and you definitely don't want a cookie cutter approach. Look to build pages that really are unique. You also need to look at building the main service areas you cover into your main navigation not at the bottom of your page.

Here is an article on Search Engine Land which addresses this very well and gives you lots of points to consider in order to help you get your site sorted and hopefully ranking - http://searchengineland.com/local-seo-landing-pages-2-0-222583

Have you also looked at how others have ranked for the main terms you mention above? Competition that is successful is always a good place to look

Hope this helps!

Matt

Hi

For quick one off ranking check on just a few terms I tend to use one of the following:

http://fatjoe.co/fat-rank/ -  has a free extension for Chrome - came across this along time ago on Twitter and think it's great.

https://serps.com/tools/rank_checker

As for a platform I tend to use Moz for tracking rankings weekly.

Hope this helps!

Best

Matt

Hi

Are you using an international domain such as .com or are you using a country specific domain as this is one obvious way Google can determine your location other than in Search Console. If you are using an international domain Google looks at several factors to determine your location including IP Address, any address listings on your site, Google My Business and even links to your site.

Have a look here - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en

Hope this helps!

Matt

Hi Azael

I would say you need to get an overall strategy of how to increase the authority of your site, which will involve lots including earning high quality links (don't just go an start grabbing any links you can get a strategy and go for earning quality related links). In order to understand Page Authority I would have a look at this https://moz.com/learn/seo/page-authority. I would also ask what you current on-page strategy is and how or if you have optimised on-page factors - for instance are you starting with targeting long-tail searches? These are less competitive and you would be surprised how a new site can gain ground with targeting this type of keyword.

I would start at the beginning with https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo and then make sure all your on-page is optimised and in place. Then start with working on a strategy on how you can start to drive traffic to your pages - are you active on social media? This sort of traffic can lead to links.

You can test if your pages are powerful or not by running them through Opensite Explorer - https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/  to see what page authority is assigned to them. This will give you a good indicator. Don't forget in terms of relevant links you should consider doing some competitor research - run their site through OpenSite Explorer and see if there are any relevant quality links that could apply to your site. I often see people over looking things such as links from suppliers sites if they sell products for instance - often a quick win. Also are there any industry sites that you could potentially start to build or already have a relationship with - if so do it and start to try and get pieces published on there. This isn't purely with the idea of links it is about gaining referral traffic and building your own authority which only leads to positive things for your site.

I know this is broad advice but I think from your question you need to start at the beginning and work from there. I would also ask what you are currently targeting - national or local rankings? If you are targeting local rankings you want to start optimising for your local area and start gaining relevant local citations and so on  - Moz Local SEO - https://moz.com/learn/local - local is a good place to start if it fits with what you do. I specifically mention local citations as they are often easier to gain as you are likely to have existing relationships in the community in which you are based - be sure to take advantage of these...

Hope this helps!

Best

Matt

Hi Stephen

Since signing up have you seen this - https://moz.com/learn/local/local-search-data-uk

You may also find this useful - http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/definitive-local-search-citations/#uk

Hope this helps!

Matt

Hi Mike

On the watermark question I would personally remove the watermark as I believe you will find that whether watermarks impact your ranking or not putting people of clicking and interacting with your images is a negative.

I would also do it from a quality point of view and I would draw your attention to Google's Guidelines on Image Publishing

"Similarly, some people add copyright text, watermarks, or other information to their images. This kind of information won't impact your image's performance in search results, and does help photographers claim credit for their work and deter unknown usage. However, if a feature such as watermarking reduces the user-perceived quality of your image or your image's thumbnail, users may click it less often in search results."

I imagine you have already had a look at this and I would recommend you go with your findings on this.

Here are Google's guidelines to Image Publishing - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/114016

I would also remove the watermark from you images in terms of wanting people to use images and then doing a reverse image search to find sites that use them. I would then request attribution if you haven't already been given it - great way to get exposure.

I would also try to simplify your folder structure as 9 levels deep is very deep and likely to make Googles crawl of your images less efficient. I don't understand the reasoning of an individual image per folder - something more like images segmented by subject or even month like default WordPress would make more sense.

Do you have an image sitemap in place? If not here is some more info from Google - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/178636?hl=en

Hope this helps

Matt

I think Moosa and Andy both make great points which I agree with. I would definitely give it more time and it would be easier to give input with your domain. In terms of the content you have added in the form of new pages are these targeting new keywords or ones you were already ranking for? The reason I say this is because I have seen people cause themselves issues by creating new pages targeting terms that current pages were ranking for and this lead to keyword cannibalization. Jon Earnshaw gave a brilliant talk on this at Brighton SEO earlier this year - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASsxh8ZwseQ

I just thought I would mention it on the off chance

Best

Matt

I also agree with Moosa - out of those mentioned my preferred tool for getting an idea of competitors Adwords strategy and budget is SEMRush, but as you say you have used this. Unfortunately without actually seeing your competitors Adwords account there isn't an accurate way to find out their spend - there are too many variables involved in a campaigns spend.

This is an older article but you may find it interesting whilst researching this topic - http://www.stateofdigital.com/track-competitors-ppc-spend/

I think you will also find this useful as the author of this article tested tools to see their accuracy around spend - http://seattlesearchnetwork.org/2013/comparing-sem-tools-estimate-competitors-ppc-budgets/

and finally for a whole load of competitor research tools for different aspects of their online presence check this out - https://blog.kissmetrics.com/james-bond-of-the-web/

Hi Rob

The difference is one of your results is paid impressions and the other is organic impressions. So you are seeing two reports for separate things - keyword planner will give you an idea of the overall potential.

Essentially your site appeared in the organic results 4500 times (remember this is the number of times a page from your site appeared in the results for that term and was seen by the user/searcher not the total amount of times it was searched).

Paid ads appeared 14253 times.

Hope this makes sense

Matt