Forum Moderators: mack
I have a website that performs well in yahoo and msn for my one main industry term, however Google begs to differ.
It was never great in Google however was at one point in the top 20ish (albeit a year or more ago). I presume therefore it is not simply a case of the site not hitting the right buttons but more likely a penalty of some sort.
My question really is what process should one use to identify the particular wrong doing? Is it as simple as changing one factor at a time and looking for any change (hopefully improvement) in the serps?
Many Thanks,
Kate
i was thinking...about romantic sense of layout and color of google and there fathers lary and...
wait for some one to comment on your actual query..i am just foolish onto this SEO
Is it as simple as changing one factor at a time and looking for any change (hopefully improvement) in the serps?
Afraid not. It's nearly impossible to discern cause and effect. For starters, let's say you change something and three weeks later is there no improvement. Is it because the change you made didn't help, or because Google hasn't re-evaluated your site yet? Impossible to tell.
On the other hand, let's say your rankings improve a bit after the change. Was that because of the change, or because Google changed its criteria, or because Google counted some more of your backlinks, or because your competitors worsened their sites or got penalized somehow? Again, almost impossible to say.
I know this isn't the answer that you wanted to hear, but I don't think there are any shortcuts. You can certainly try changing things on your site, but you just can't assume that you'll see a change or that you'll be able to correlate the change when it happens.
What to do? No good answer. If it were me I'd continue to try to make the site as good as it could be, add fresh content regularly, and seek backlinks from relevant, high quality sites.
I also agree with MichaelBluejay's suggestion, "I'd continue to try to make the site as good as it could be, add fresh content regularly, and seek backlinks from relevant, high quality sites."
I'd recommend reading up on some classic posts:
Beginner's Guide to Website marketing
[webmasterworld.com...]
Newcomers Guide: [webmasterworld.com...]
Building the Perfect Page: [webmasterworld.com...]
Brett's Successful Site: [webmasterworld.com...]
Have a good christmas all,
Kate
It looks as though the best route may be to simply cut my losses and use a 3rd party to do it for me.
No, there are no shortcuts. It'sunlikely that a third party can't implement what I suggested above any better than you can -- and they certainly won't do it cheaper. No one can wave a magic wang over your site no matter how much you pay them.
This, I believe, is still your best plan of action:
If it were me I'd continue to try to make the site as good as it could be, add fresh content regularly, and seek backlinks from relevant, high quality sites.
