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Rising this fast in the ranking - normal?

by honed
15 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I changed the website on our bricks & mortar store to Wordpress so we could *actually* use it, instead of neglecting it. It looks a lot better, works better for our potential clients and since it is easy to use, we update it with info and inventory etc. I added some plugins to help me with the on-page SEO.

Here is my question: Is it normal that out of 12 keywords, we are ranked in more than half only 2 weeks later? Nothing else had been done than the on-page work. We have one #5, two on page 2, and 4 others that rank in the top 100.

Since then, I bought the services of a few people here and I expect I'll improve my SERP. Still, I am wondering how we rank so fast when for years, we never were in the top 1000. Could it simply be the work that the plugins helped me do?

To balance this out, I'll say that we aren't in the top 1000 in our top keyword, but there is a LOT of competition on that one.
#fast #normal #ranking #rising
  • Profile picture of the author Bryan V
    Did you have zilch for on-page optimization before the change?

    You can definitely rank for stuff on page 1 with just on-page optimization. No one could tell you what happened without checking out the site + competition though.
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    • Profile picture of the author honed
      I don't know if it was zilch, but we weren't in the top 1000. The competition for some keywords range from moderate to extremely difficult. Of course, the moderate ones ranked fastest and first, but we have a #5 ranking for a pretty tough keyword.

      Since my post, I've checked using several tools, and I now have 2 of my keywords on page #1. Also, I'm not complaining, I just want to have a better understanding, as I am relatively new to SEO/SEM. 3 keywords are on page 2, 1 one page 3 and one on page 6.

      3 weeks ago, out of 12 keywords, 0 were in the top 1,000. I know that we are moving up in the ranking still and I had some backlinking done and other similar work, but that was only just completed in the last 24-48 hours.

      My results are really good on the new organic traffic. The bounce rate is low ~25%, they stay on the page 2x-3x longer than PPC and they view 2.5x more pages. I see this in the small amount of traffic from Yahoo and Bing as well. I have increased the organic traffic to 17%, now PPC traffic is 65%. Overall traffic is up as well, about 20% as well, and climbing.

      I read how hard some people work to get ranking, so I'm just curious. I didn't know that on-page optimization could help you rank highly on its own. We do work at it to make a good site and to provide the site visitors with a good experience.

      All I did was read up on a few things, decided on using WordPress, built a decent site, used SEO plugins to make on page optimization and three weeks later, here we are.
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  • Profile picture of the author netw6000
    Hello:

    Yes... it is possible and very likely. Google loves unique useful content that is updated often. That's what ranking is all about these days. They love Wordpress blogs too. And most blogs naturally do all the on page SEO for you automatically.
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  • Profile picture of the author honed
    Good to know! The last guy that worked here made the site on MS Frontpage and loaded the meta tags with everything, as he thought that would bring traffic. : /

    There was decent, if not good content, but it was wrapped in a horrible site.

    I really was just curious as I am new to all this and it just seemed wrong to have a decent ranking so fast. Now I have to keep boosting it! If I were doing a marketing site, after my experience, there is no way I'd do anything but Wordpress.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by honed View Post

      Good to know! The last guy that worked here made the site on MS Frontpage and loaded the meta tags with everything, as he thought that would bring traffic. : /

      There was decent, if not good content, but it was wrapped in a horrible site.

      I really was just curious as I am new to all this and it just seemed wrong to have a decent ranking so fast. Now I have to keep boosting it! If I were doing a marketing site, after my experience, there is no way I'd do anything but Wordpress.
      Back in the day, the meta-keyword tag actually worked, before it was over spammed. Sounds like an old site (frontpage), could be it worked for seo when first built If the site is really old.

      Things have changed now...
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  • Profile picture of the author jacked
    Yes, it probably had to do with changing to Wordpress, your On-page SEO plugins, and your domain age.
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    • Profile picture of the author honed
      jacked,

      I had a look at your site and I'd like to figure out if it is safe to take on more backlinks now or if I should wait until next month?

      The site is 9 years old, so hardly new. But someone just ran 5,000 backlinks for me a few days ago, but I was told it will take a few weeks for Google to see them. I'd like to use you for other keywords that I didn't target for the first run of backlinks. I can order and wait unless it is safe to do it now.
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  • Profile picture of the author honed
    jacked,

    The domain is 9 years old and that has to be it; I did *nothing* else. I have plenty of work cut out for me as my competitor has 12,500 backlinks. So I'll need to get moving.

    Yukon,

    Yeah, it was old. The guy before lived and breathed anything MS. And the first site was in 2002. It was never re-written, just added to. It was pug ugly.

    Now meta tags are useless, but does that include meta description as well?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by honed View Post

      jacked,

      The domain is 9 years old and that has to be it; I did *nothing* else. I have plenty of work cut out for me as my competitor has 12,500 backlinks. So I'll need to get moving.

      Yukon,

      Yeah, it was old. The guy before lived and breathed anything MS. And the first site was in 2002. It was never re-written, just added to. It was pug ugly.

      Now meta tags are useless, but does that include meta description as well?
      The meta-description still works, most times the description tag in Google SERPs is the same text from the sites meta-description tag.
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      • Profile picture of the author honed
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        The meta-description still works, most times the description tag in Google SERPs is the same text from the sites meta-description tag.
        Thanks Yukon! Good to know! I'll pay a little more attention to them now.
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  • Profile picture of the author InternetMarketingIQ
    There is no "normal".

    Google is constantly trying to rank the most relevant content per search.

    Look at your Google Analytics account... and if you don't have one get one. This is how you know where your traffic is really coming from and what is actually causing a surge in traffic that can correlate to sales.
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    • Profile picture of the author honed
      Originally Posted by InternetMarketingIQ View Post

      There is no "normal".

      Google is constantly trying to rank the most relevant content per search.

      Look at your Google Analytics account... and if you don't have one get one. This is how you know where your traffic is really coming from and what is actually causing a surge in traffic that can correlate to sales.
      I do have a GA account and saw some interesting data. The orgainc visitors are better across the board and the same from Google, Bing or Yahoo. They stay longer, read more pages and bounce half as much.

      The annoying thing is that I can't connect the Adwords with Analytics, as there is an old account in the GA that I can't delete and that is attached to AW. I can't figure out how to delete that one and until I do, I can't see all the data that I would if it were joined properly.

      When I started learning SEO, I thought it was all dirty tricks and now I know the foundation is good content. So, along with SEO/SEM, I also work to make the content better as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author William King
    Well if you know how search engines work than you will may not be that surprised like you are looking.
    When a query is entered in the search engine it searches all the pages which have used the query very frequently in the title and description and body of the website. By installing the plug ins they might have helped to make your keywords more visible to the search engines and your site is now ranked in top 100 results.
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    • Profile picture of the author honed
      I know what you mean and I think you're correct, but as you can see, I was astonished how well it worked!

      I'm sold on the offering good content on a site, using WP and SEO plugins.

      Soepressor, worth the $47, I'll say.
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  • Profile picture of the author honed
    I asked as I join WF when I was asked to get things moving on the site. Then after reading for a few weeks and then making the site, I had a different expectation of how ranking would work. When the 7 and now 8 keywords ranked, I was more than surprised. Happy, but surprised. Now many of you have helped me understand the reasons why this is.
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