Website Ranking Well But Few Hits

Blindside87

Hi Folks,

Have a website in a competitive industry that is usually ranking in the top 6 for the top keywords but not getting many hits at all.

The site is about 6 months old and I have a company doing SEO.

I just don't understand how there are so few hits (less than 50 a day), my market is competitive but I am out ranking a lot of established sites.

Any input welcome.

Thanks

blue4ever

Briefly:
1) The URL in your sig is a redirect to another website – so why promote the former if it’s a redirect.
2) The latter website has a look and feel of a site designed circa 1991 and lacks user experience and, IMO, trust.
3) That page also has 134 Errors and 21 HTML warnings
4) You have 400+ links to the redirected domain. 44% of the backlinks are using the same anchor text and some are for fairly low par sites and not related to your business. Many are what can only be described a linkfarms
5) Big chunks of 'hidden text' - seriously!
1 – is silly and confusing
2 – is, well up to you if you want to make a go of a bisuness – look at at redesign.
3 – see 2
4 – puts you in the crosshairs of the panda and EMD penalties which will heavily penalise your site in the long term
5 - No comment - ask your seo company for your money back.

blue4ever

Finally... you're asking for visa/billing information on http and not https???????????

TsuDhoNimh

I haven't even looked at your site and given the reply you've gotten from blue4ever I'm pretty sure I don't want to.

Everything he says can be summed up in "The sites not good enough and the SEO you're paying for isn't SEO it's spam".

Blindside87 wrote: »

Have a website in a competitive industry that is usually ranking in the top 6 for the top keywords but not getting many hits at all.

What do you mean by "top keywords"?

Is this what you know is a valuable keyword, one that gets search volume, one that displays customer intent for your product/service and one which will convert? Or is this some random keyphrase that your SEO provider has lead you to believe is important? (going on the feedback you've already gotten on the SEO provider, I'm guessing it's going to be the latter)

If these really are competitive phrases (I have to doubt it, even at a relatively low position like 6 for a competitive phrase you should be getting better traffic) and you're ranking highly, then there's something wrong. While all of the issues blue4ever mentioned are very important and need to be tackled, it isn't really the reason behind such a low traffic volume from relatively high rankings (though they are enough for you to lose those rankings very very quickly).

Blindside87 wrote: »

The site is about 6 months old and I have a company doing SEO.

The obvious solution here is to ask the company you've employed what the strategy is and why it's resulting in so few visits.

It's possible that at the moment the site is targeting highly focused keywords that aren't that competitive but will convert well and in the future the strategy will begin to target head terms with far more volume (but lower conversion rates). However if this is the case they should be making you aware of it and be able to answer a question like you've raised with very detailed specifics.

If the company providing you at the moment can't answer a very basic question like that (you shouldn't have to ask that type of question being honest, it should have been laid out clearly from the start as part of managing client expectations), get rid of them. If they're responsible for the issues blue has mentioned, get rid of them. If they're not responsible for the issues but haven't made you aware of them and how they might hurt your site, get rid of them.

fc2060

Hi blindside
I am sure you are a bit upset by the no holds barred advice above but it is excellent advice. These 2 guys know what they are talking about.

Are you using Adwords. If not try it. Amongst other things it's a great way to test headlines.

Also check out google analytics to see where visitors are going. Where are they leaving your site. Etc. it's fascinating to see this. For example only 8% of my visitors see the home page so every page has to sell to the visitor. Also 15% of my visitors are from the philippines and they don't buy so maybe most of your are from far away with no chance of buying etc.

Keep trying

Fred

Blindside87

Hi All,

Thanks for any input.

I have HTTPS being done at the end of the week.

As regards the keywords targetted they are the most searched according to keyword search tool (phrase match).

I am ranking 6th for one and 5th for the other along side an adwords campaign.

I don't understand why so little hits, I'm not expecting any mad traffic but thought it would more substantial by now.

Thanks

Shzm

You should ideally be using exact match when looking at keywords, and are you looking at searches for Ireland, or worldwide?

TsuDhoNimh

Blindside87 wrote: »

As regards the keywords targetted they are the most searched according to keyword search tool (phrase match).

If they genuinely are the highest search volume, then it suggests that they're just not that high volume. In fifth or sixth place you'll be getting a small % of clicks, so the obvious answer is that you need to push into the top 3 (or even to first) in order to gain the value in those SERPs.

It's also worth noting that a term can be low volume and still competitive (if the sites that do target it do it well) and can be high volume and non competitive (if the sites ranking for it aren't targeting it or at least not doing it well). So even if they are the highest search volume of the terms you're targeting, it doesn't mean they're truly competitive.

Blindside87 wrote: »

I don't understand why so little hits, I'm not expecting any mad traffic but thought it would more substantial by now.

The best advice I can give for the moment is to forget about your visitor numbers for the moment. The issues highlighted in blue4ever's original post are far more of a concern. Focus on sorting those out (especially 4 and 5) before you get hit with penalties or de-indexed.

More important than the '50 per day' is how many of those go on to convert for you? If you're getting a high conversion rate it means you're gaining high quality traffic and the low number is to be expected. You're filtering out users at the top of your sales funnel rather than having them drop out later in the process.

Obviously you do want to increase the numbers at the top (and then using CRO retain as many of them as possible going forward), but if the current visitors are providing value then that's the most relevant point (especially for the PPC traffic, that should be providing a visible and meaningful ROI).

tricky D

Blindside87 wrote: »

I have HTTPS being done at the end of the week.

Really not acceptable (to put it mildly) to be taking orders without this.


Apart from that there are some fundamental design issues eg. confusing navigation, empty pages, trust and credibility, sales and conversion techniques, and more, are sorely lacking.

Blindside87

I appreciate all criticism but how are design flaws relevent when the problem is I am not getting many hits...it's not like I'm not getting hits because of design flaws when people who haven't been on the site can hardly see the design..

TsuDhoNimh

Blindside87 wrote: »

I appreciate all criticism but how are design flaws relevent when the problem is I am not getting many hits...it's not like I'm not getting hits because of design flaws when people who haven't been on the site can hardly see the design..

To call some of the issues raised as 'design flaws' is a huge understatement. They're fundamental business requirements that are being ignored. To put your business and potential customers at risk asking for such valuable information on a non secured page is far more than a 'design' issue.

I've a cold draft coming in my window making my house cold > Dude, you don't have a roof on your house. Get that sorted > How is building the roof going to sort my window?

There's no point in having any traffic (never mind any 'more' traffic) if you don't address some (or many) of the points that have been raised.

Blindside87

I have addressed some of the issues and have sent an email to my SEO company for answers on some of the above. I have taken everything on board and expect to have my SSL cert either later today or tomorrow.

Many thanks for everyones input by the way !:)

I guess I just need to get a little higher in the rankings!

blue4ever

You could be looking at the wrong keywords.You maybe ranking 5/6th for certain keywords - but they could be low volume

blue4ever

You are spending good money on adwords and some of the ads are not the best or not great at instilling confidence. You have two lines to use, use both. Try a few ‘call to actions’ in the copy.

Use your reports to see which are giving you the best CTR (Don’t really worry about your conversions at the moment as I think you should look at the site). You’ll probably find that some ads are performing and some are really not 9realtive to the performing ones).

I’d also hazard that your quality scores are not great and you are therefore possibly paying a slight premium. Again that down to some user elements on the site, SEO issues, Page speed, keyword stuffing.

Take this as it is – if you’re investing in Stock, free delivery and related overhead. Then in SEO (Questionable at best – but still a cost), in Adwords and in time – I’d stop: Get the website in order, with an off the shelf CMS system as the site is not that complex, get the https sorted, get the site primed for seo, then reinvest in the adwords with the revamped site in mind.

Blindside87

Can you recommend any more tips with regards my SEO?

I am trying to use descriptions, photo alts, keyword urls etc. at the moment.

Anything else I might be missing with regards to on site seo?

Thanks again

The Apprentice

I worked with a client .. he had a less than one half of a percent in a conversion ratio ..

He complained and moaned about his keywords, after all it was his product range that he was selling there is only so many keywords that can be mustered and captured with a site of 300 odd products ranging from baby - gardening.
His product range was all over the place and his site was abominable... he after a while started to get iffy about why his revenue was not increasing and he eventually came down with a Previous SEO companies site analysis of what was fundamentally wrong with his site from the previous year which leads me to believe he doesnt seem to take advice from anyone. He had lots of issues that could not be fixed from a Seo perspective on site that ****ed up a lot of things (CMS) and he could not be told black from blue, was offered a free website redesign and decided to NOT go with this as part of the package.

Granted he was paying a lot of money, the work was being done and probably after some time we told him straight out - were virtually pissing against a 30 mph wind and expecting miracles. It boiled down to fundamental Design issues and without even seeing your site, this could be one of those situations. You look at this site day and night and you cant say honestly that you havent become emotionally attached to it.
Some of the issues, such as credibility can double your conversion rates in minutes but you still havent them sorted.. credibility again is a major trust factor with online shops.. SSL cert is a must..

The one piece of advice is i can say is to get an independant review of what needs to be done design wise and then pay for Seo, it most likely cant be done the other way around effectively. It will get to a peak and your frustration with the company will only end badly if not already..
Your keywords may not be super, and may need a refresh.. Need more traffic just get some more long tail keywords.

You also need to be innovative and the site needs to be User Friendly, Clean easy to use and Credible.. A perfectly acceptable reason as to why your seo doesnt work any more is the panda/penguin update i suggest you go have a quick look as to how these updates have "Done in" many a site just like yours..

TsoDoNimh speaks with experience and you should got on his points asap..

Best of luck with it either way bro