Generic rank dropping

[Milo]

Hi all,
probably a very common issue, but for the life of me I cannot understand why our website Wedding Invitations and Designer Stationery - dizzi dezine does not rank better than our competitors in google.com.au generic results for "wedding invitations". OK probably sounds like a whingy story, but as a far as I can see, we're doing more SEO than the other. We have:
more backlinks, some of our competitors than are ranking better have 2 backlinks (probably the hardest to undestand)
loads of traffic
a website dating back further than them (competitors)
cleaner code, the other have hundreds of errors, we have 19 (World Wide Web Consortium)
lots of information
Meta keywords
alt tags
etc.

I have tried to change our homepages keyword density, writeup, tags, keywords, description so many times, but it never makes a difference to our ranking. WE have also been hit quite a few times with huge drops and then back to where we were, position 6, our competitors have not had this happen. Now I noticed that yesterday we dropped to 7?? I have done nothing drastic at all, just change the homepage every few days as we add a new product, but its not a whole page change, just a few words. But we are continuing to drop slowly. I notice a hige drop in traffic when we drop. Now most of my traffic is coming from PPC.
Any one have any input of where we are going wrong?

Those competing sites are:

kardella dot com
invitationhouse dot com dot au
trulymadlydeeply dot com dot au
beedezigned dot com dot au
weddingblog dot com
inkidesign dot com

Not looking for free SEO, just some help if I'm doing something obviously wrong.
Cheers.

[crankydave]

Hi Milo

Just took a quick look...

It appears all your page titles lead with the website name. Consider leading the tites with the key phrases of the pages. Unless you're trying to brand the name, the website name doesn't appear to helping you when it comes to ranking.

Took a quick look at your external links. At a glance, many appear to be reciprocal. If they are, work on getting links from a variety of sources/means that are not reciprocal.

Dave

[Milo]

Hi Dave,
thank you for your responce. I'll look into that. Seems that this new update has a few sites jarred. Any tips or tricks on acquiring good one way links
Regards.
Miles

[incrediblehelp]

1. Are you doing to much SEO, over optimized?
2. Are spamming in any way?
3. Are you buying links?
4. Are you selling links?
5. The number of back links has NEVER been important it is about the quality of the back links.
6. Do you have relevant high quality back links? more than your competitors?
7. Are you making to many changes at once and not evaluating what is working and not working?
8. Do you have any backlinks to the interior pages of your website?
9. Bottom line how do you think you better than your competitors exactly?
10. Tips on linking and social media:

Link Baiting and Social Media Optimization, Huh? - Jaan’s Search Marketing and SEO Blog from Cincinnati, Ohio

SEO Newbie thread:

Search Engine Marketing For Newbies - Jaan’s Search Marketing and SEO Blog from Cincinnati, Ohio

Also watching ranking will give you heart failure. The days are gone of stagnant or stable SERPs. I have been saying this for over a year now on WPW. With search load balancing on close to hundred G datacenters, localization and personalization of search...we will not see stable results anymore. As everyone can see it is just getting worse for those of us that run ranking checkers and use it as a metric for personal SEO gauges or for clients.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Also watching ranking will give you heart failure. The days are gone of stagnant or stable SERPs. I have been saying this for over a year now on WPW. With search load balancing on close to hundred G datacenters, localization and personalization of search...we will not see stable results anymore.
As everyone can see it is just getting worse for those of us that run ranking checkers and use it as a metric for personal SEO gauges or for clients.

I do not agree with you here. I do not have this experience with my sites or with the site of my clients either.
If your statement was true, then organic SEO should be already dead. But is not!

[incrediblehelp]

OK then John. Then why all the questions on rankings moving around?

Also you don't think personalization will effect the SERPs at all? Meaning what I see will be different than what you see in Germany? If you think rankings are the same for everyone then you are behind the times.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

OK then John. Then why all the questions on rankings moving around?

If the site is optimized properly, sites would not see any moving around. For example our site seoworkers.com is on-page optimized in a way that no matter what Google will come up with, it will still be compatible.

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Also you don't think personalization will effect the SERPs at all? Meaning what I see will be different than what you see in Germany? If you think rankings are the same for everyone then you are behind the times.

Jaan we first must no make a difference between personalization search and diverse datacenters search.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

If the site is optimized properly, sites would not see any moving around. For example our site seoworkers.com is on-page optimized in a way that no matter what Google will come up with, it will still be compatible.

John, would you tell a client that not only can you "guarantee" their rankings, you can "guarantee" they won't change no matter what Google does?

Dave

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

John, would you tell a client that not only can you "guarantee" their rankings, you can "guarantee" they won't change no matter what Google does?

Dave

If I monitor their site myself, yes.

[crankydave]

John, would you tell a client that not only can you "guarantee" their rankings, you can "guarantee" they won't change no matter what Google does?

Originally Posted by Webnauts

If I monitor their site myself, yes.

You really surprise me John.

You do know what Google has to say about this?

Dave

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

You really surprise me John.

You do know what Google has to say about this?

Dave

I do not provide in my quotes to my clients my monitoring services. But it is an obvious necessity, when you want to stay up-to-date with search engines.

What I am sure about is, that I can guarantee in terms of on-page optimization (if nothing will be messed up by the client), that the site will be doing well in long-terms.

About monitoring I met for example:

Google went against buying and selling links. That means a change took place on the off-site factors. And there is were they must be up-to-date.

Is that not OK if they wish this service? Why do companies employ SEOs?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

You really surprise me John.

You do know what Google has to say about this?

Dave

On my homepage I state:

According to Google's own Webmaster Help Center, they stress:

No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.

"Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a 'special relationship' with Google, or advertise a 'priority submit' to Google. There is no priority submit for Google."


If no one can guarantee a #1 placement, why use SEO Workers?

Because search engine rankings and conversions are crucial to every business. Our search engine optimization company can drive targeted traffic to your web site utilizing search marketing techniques that are the most effective in todays online advertising industry.

[crankydave]

This is what Google has to say...

Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings,...

Noone can guarantee what Google can or will do. Short term, long term, any term.

Dave

[crankydave]

John...

As I'm sure you are well aware, clients love to check their rankings.

Everyday... several times a day... all the time.

They LOVE to "show them off".

The very first time they do that, with a friend, colleague, during a meeting or presentation, and their site doesn't show up EXACTLY where they bragged it would show up, verbal written or otherwise, you are toast.

Dave

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

This is what Google has to say...



Noone can guarantee what Google can or will do. Short term, long term, any term.

Dave

As I am doing exclusively ethical SEO, and you know that better than anyone else here, I never said and will never do, that I guarantee rankings. But I always show my clients sites (portfolio) with their successful results in long terms, and all that tells my potential clients how things went and still go on.

My clients so far have perceived those facts as a guarantee, and I always denied and still do, to give them a guarantee if they require that.

These are no excuses. Otherwise, I would not publish on my own homepage the quotations of google and an article about ethical SEO.

Am I more clear now?

[Milo]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

1. Are you doing to much SEO, over optimized?
2. Are spamming in any way?
3. Are you buying links?
4. Are you selling links?
5. The number of back links has NEVER been important it is about the quality of the back links.
6. Do you have relevant high quality back links? more than your competitors?
7. Are you making to many changes at once and not evaluating what is working and not working?
8. Do you have any backlinks to the interior pages of your website?
9. Bottom line how do you think you better than your competitors exactly?
10. Tips on linking and social media:

Link Baiting and Social Media Optimization, Huh? - Jaan’s Search Marketing and SEO Blog from Cincinnati, Ohio

SEO Newbie thread:

Search Engine Marketing For Newbies - Jaan’s Search Marketing and SEO Blog from Cincinnati, Ohio

Also watching ranking will give you heart failure. The days are gone of stagnant or stable SERPs. I have been saying this for over a year now on WPW. With search load balancing on close to hundred G datacenters, localization and personalization of search...we will not see stable results anymore. As everyone can see it is just getting worse for those of us that run ranking checkers and use it as a metric for personal SEO gauges or for clients.

Thanks for the input guys. Jaan, to answer your questions
1. I am doing as much subtle SEO as I can, the usual keyword, meta, articles, information, forum submissions, but quite frankly, find the time hard to come by, so never at risk of doing too much on that front.
2. I don't spam in any way that IU know of, but some of my products do have the same descriptions (example, papers are all the same size.)
3 & 4. I don't sell or buy links at all.
5. The quality and quantity of my backlinks are much better than my competitors in my opinion. On checking, all the sites above me have links listed from their own sites, have paid links and non relevant links, none have a free listing from another relevant site to our industry. Our website has more relevant links from within the industry that we are in, only a handfull, but more than them.
6. I make small changes to layout and some wording from time to time, but mostly concentrate on my homepage. It changes every few days as products are added and to keep the information fresh and informative to my visitors. I have played around with different keyword densities, layouts, even the coding, and this has never made a diefference, neither good or bad (so now I just write what my customers need to read and not worry too much about the SE side of it, within reason).

What I have found is that for the last 3 G updates, our site has been effected the most. We have dropped off the first page and do come back eventually, sometimes quickly, othertimes after a week or so. That is fine, but the sites above me are not affected at all. I was the only one effected during this current update. My problem with all this is, I cannot put my finger on the reasoning for it, it even seems as though, my competitors are doing some SEO no no's (some hidden text, paid links). Anyway, was hoping it was something obvious. There must be sometihng I'm doing wrong. Might be time to hire a pro

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Milo

Anyway, was hoping it was something obvious. There must be sometihng I'm doing wrong. Might be time to hire a pro

Well if you did all above and it did not work, it is obvious that you need professional help.
Good luck.

[incrediblehelp]

I do see you ranked #6 for "wedding invitations" on Google Au. Is that where you were?

The websites above you out rank you because of the back links they have.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

I do see you ranked #6 for "wedding invitations" on Google Au. Is that where you were?

The websites above you out rank you because of the back links they have.

How can you tell that Jaan? Did you do the search through an Australian proxy server adding in your browser their IP? Otherwise what you found can cannot really be accurate.

[Milo]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

I do see you ranked #6 for "wedding invitations" on Google Au. Is that where you were?

The websites above you out rank you because of the back links they have.

Jaan,
yes, I am back to #6 now, so you are accurate with that. I would also have assumed that the backlinks the other sites had would be the cause of my position, BUT, when I look at their backlinks I cannot justify that statement. No1 site has 7 links (2 from within their sites pages and 5 non industry related links), no2 has 4 links (1 from within their site and 3 PAID links), no3 has 5 links (1 from within their site and 4 PAID links), no 4 has 2 PAID links and no 5 has 5 non industry related links.
My site has 11 backlinks, 3 related to our insdutry and 8 non related (no PAID links either), hence my not understanding that link philosophy. Can I aks how you are seeing their backlinks, I am using the link:www......... search in Google. I get a whole lot more in Webmastger tools, but can't see theirs from that interface.
Cheers.