Google no longer listing my site for primary keyword. What gives?

[ndoherty13]

Hi all,

My first of what I expect will be many posts on here. I have a lot to learn!

I'm doing some SEO work for my brother. He designs and builds high-end staircases in Ireland, and I'm trying to get him to #1 for the keyword "Stairs" on Google.ie (NOT Google.com).

Here's his website: ajdstairs.com

I've been tipping away at it for a few months now, tweaking some things on-site and building a few links via article directories. I was making steady progress, getting the site from page 39 of Google.ie, all the way to a high of page 4 early last week.

And then, some time last week, the listing disappeared. It's still showing up for other keywords, but it has disappeared completely for the "Stairs" keyword. I just looked through all 66 pages of results again and it's definitely not there.

I changed just two things on-site last week, listing them here to be thorough, though I can't imagine any of them being related to the issue:

1. Found that I had two description tags, one added by SEO plugin and the other by my theme. Removed the latter.
2. I discovered that my keyword density for “stairs” was way too high on the homepage, at about 16%, so I reduced it to 7%.

Anyone have any ideas what might have happened? I'm at a loss. I suspect I may be missing something extremely obvious.

Many thanks in advance for any advice.

[Richard Van]

Hi Ndoherty13,

One thing that hit me immediately was the way you're targetting "Stairs", that's very generic and covers any kind of stairs, your brother doesn't do any kind of stairs, he sells quality high end stair cases.

I'd target words like bespoke staircases or something more relevant to what he's doing, it'll also be easier to rank for.

First I'd check to make sure the sites still indexed, I can't see why it would be deindexed for making those changes.

Nice looking site though and I know where to come if I need some nice fancy stairs, they look excellent.

[Mar]

Hi - nice looking site - fabulous stairs!

I checked google.ie - and for the term "bespoke irish staircases" - you're at No 2. For bespoke staircases, I find you at No 3.

I checked out the No. 1 site on google.ie for the term stairs and found stairs.ie - and, looking at their site, see that they have managed to get more content into their site - so there's probably more meat for the search engines to love.

I'd try to expand your site by explaining about the different handrail finishes, the different trims, how you create the floating staircases ..... how to care for the wooden finishes, what quality carpets you use, how you work with architects ...... If you've got great customer testimonials, that would be good as well.

I'd also alter the title tag on your main logo image to just "stairs" instead of "visit the homepage".

Good luck with your quest.

Mar

[ndoherty13]

Thank you both for the responses, and for the kind words on my brother's work. He definitely deserves to be number 1 on Google.ie, don't ya think? :-)

Originally Posted by Richard Van

One thing that hit me immediately was the way you're targetting "Stairs", that's very generic and covers any kind of stairs, your brother doesn't do any kind of stairs, he sells quality high end stair cases.

I'd target words like bespoke staircases or something more relevant to what he's doing, it'll also be easier to rank for.

I agree that "Stairs" is pretty generic. The thing is, it shouldn't be too hard to rank for that on Google.ie. Google's keyword tool shows that there are only 1000 searches for that term per month in Ireland. "Bespoke stairs" meanwhile, gets less than 10 searches per month.

Plus, it's evident that the sites that are already ranking at the top of Google.ie for Stairs haven't done much SEO work. The majority of them have either been around a long time, or they've gotten lucky. I should be able to beat them out with a little strategy and persistence.

Originally Posted by Mar

I'd try to expand your site by explaining about the different handrail finishes, the different trims, how you create the floating staircases ..... how to care for the wooden finishes, what quality carpets you use, how you work with architects ...... If you've got great customer testimonials, that would be good as well.

I'd also alter the title tag on your main logo image to just "stairs" instead of "visit the homepage".

Thanks for that, Mar. I just went ahead and changed that title tag. Nice catch.

I get what you're saying too about expanding the site. I hope to get some testimonials on there soon.

However, the biggest issue for me right now is not that the site isn't ranking at #1, but that it has completely disappeared from the Google.ie results for the "stairs" keyword. As noted, it was showing up on page 4 last week, but then it vanished (not even showing in the top 66 pages now) and I have no idea why. If I can just get it showing up again in the results pages, then I can work on moving it up in the rankings.

Any more ideas on why it's no longer listed? Anyone had something like this happen to a site before?

[zoobie]

Originally Posted by Richard Van

Hi Ndoherty13,

One thing that hit me immediately was the way you're targetting "Stairs", that's very generic and covers any kind of stairs, your brother doesn't do any kind of stairs, he sells quality high end stair cases.

I'd target words like bespoke staircases or something more relevant to what he's doing, it'll also be easier to rank for.

First I'd check to make sure the sites still indexed, I can't see why it would be deindexed for making those changes.

Nice looking site though and I know where to come if I need some nice fancy stairs, they look excellent.

Many beginners or clients don't understand this, they want to target everything and this is wrong! But the suddenly disappearing may caused by Google Dance or something, don't worry, it will finally show up again.

[Matt.Lake]

To answer your main question, I imagine Google is just re-evaluating your site, causing it to bounce around a bit. Especially as you removed that tag and changed the keyword density.

Give it a couple more weeks before worrying. You should be fine.

[ndoherty13]

Will do. Thanks a mil everyone! I'll report back in a couple of weeks and let you know how this progresses.

[kiranraj19]

Keyword is very generic , try to get more keywords related to your websites. & then try to promote it with SEO

[markowe]

This does seem to happen when you overoptimise for a particular keyword - if you are pummeling the site with "stairs, stairs, stairs" I wouldn't be surprised to see this effect. Whether this is some sort of "penalty", or just some kind of revaluation, who knows, but these things often last for a suspiciously "round" period, like a month, two months, three months etc.

The good news is that this does TEND to be temporary, especially if you are still ranking for other keywords. I would relax, take the long-term view, throw some other keywords and subpages into the mix and not get TOO hung up on the one keyword. I have a feeling that a one-word keyword like that will inevitably be tough to get results for, just because it's "been around" so long, if you know what I mean. Some of the sites on page one have been there a while, I expect, even if they are not all very high PR, and will take a good while to shift.