Where did I go???

[realestate]

Not sure what happened as of July 1st, but all of my Yahoo traffic has dropped and I can't find myself in the directory anymore. I was #1 as of June 30th for this keyword "bee exterminator", but cannot be found anymore. And I didnt make any change to the site. Any one have an idea? I have a PR of 5 or 6 on google if that helps.

The site is:
http://www.locate-contractor.com

[ronniethedodger]

You are number 11 at Yahoo for that term in quotes. Perhaps you need a little push to make it onto page one. It appears that the term is being pulled from your Meta Description (or the Keywords).

You are #47 for bee extermination (without quotes). This is probably because that is how it appears in the content of your page. I would rework the content and try to work in both words (exterminator/extermination) in some manner.

I looked at this page http://www.locate-contractor.com/exterminator.html which is where you mention "bee extermination" (not exterminator). Although you have it in your keyword and description metas, you do not have it in your Title for the page.

A check for anchor text links with "bee exterminator" does not turn up any links pointing to your page.

If you want to hit well for that term, you will need some inbound anchor text links to that page with the term in it. At least some links on your site will help.

One thing I have seen sites of this type do is provide an alphabetical index of services with links to the internal pages. On this list you can cover every possible term you can think of. It will also be good for your visitors to find specific contractors.

[realestate]

Thanks Ron. I see your points on hitting those exact keywords. I was just suprised that we somehow dropped significantly for not altering any content, after being #1 for months.

When you mention anchor text links, do you mean having text links pointing to my site using those exact keywords? Like having a text link on another site using the words 'bee exterminator' pointing to this page:http://www.locate-contractor.com/exterminator.html

Or do you mean having a page anchor on the page, and linking to it with a href= "#anchor_name"?

Thanks
Ryan[/url][/b]

[ronniethedodger]

You were probably number one for such a long time because nobody could challenge you is my guess. Then Slurp slurps up a few more hundred pages on the subject and you get buried under them.

As to the anchor text, yes, the first method you mentioned by having the text of "bee exterminator" (which is visible to the reader).

I think having the index that I mentioned which lists all possible contract services individually would help a lot. This is something you could do internally and with very little effort, and quicker and cheaper than going after external links.