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Followed best practices, but page ranking extremely low. Why?

by DeanpXc
12 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello

I'm Dean and I run a small website with the aid of a commercial platform selling used video games that I setup in January. Using a commercial platform, the website design etc was all taken care off, so all I needed to do was learn about SEO and setting up webmaster tools. I read a lot and basics seemed pretty straight forward, but after including appropriate titles and meta descriptions for all my products, I feel half of them are missing from Google (or just extremely low ranked), and the rest ranked lower than other website pages that seems to have no relation to the search query.

I'm under no delusions that my pages will be on the first page of Google just yet, but I can't understand how ones that are with quite specific title rank lower that other pages with titles that have no relation to the search query?

Example 1
Title: LMA Manager 2004 Xbox Original Game - Buy at PixelClassics
Description: Buy LMA Manager 2004 Microsoft Xbox Original PAL football used video game, disc in protective sleeve at PixelClassics. Worldwide shipping & free UK delivery!
H1: LMA Manager 2004 - Xbox Original PAL Used Game - Disc Only
URL: LMA Manager 2004 Xbox Original Game - Buy at PixelClassics

Searched for 'LMA Manager 2004 Xbox' I've checked down to page 20 but no sign of my page, By this point the other pages titles do not match the search query at all with such titles as 'Preloved | second hand xbox in hull games consoles for', 'Second hand lma manager for sale - Electronics' to name but a few.

Searched for 'LMA Manager 2004 Xbox Original Game'. Strangely appears on page 4, but with the H1 title instead of title. I find this often to be the case, but why would actual title be ignored?

Example 2
Title: Final Fight: Streetwise Xbox & 360 Game - Buy at PixelClassics
Description: Buy Mystic Heroes Nintendo GameCube used game, complete at PixelClassics. Worldwide shipping & free UK delivery!
H1: Mystic Heroes GameCube PAL Used Game (Wii Compatible) - Complete
URL: Final Fight: Streetwise Xbox & 360 Game - Buy at PixelClassics

If I search for 'Final Fight Streetwise xbox', my page is nowhere. If I search for 'Final Fight: Streetwise 360', again nowhere, even though the majority of other results shown doesn't have '360' anywhere in their title. If I search for the exact title 'Final Fight: Streetwise xbox & 360' my page does at least show up on page 3, but as this is the exact title, or more of a match than all the other results, shouldn't it really be on page 1?

Example 3
Title: Mystic Heroes GameCube
Description: Buy Mystic Heroes Nintendo GameCube used game, complete at PixelClassics. Worldwide shipping & free UK delivery!
H1: Mystic Heroes GameCube PAL Used Game (Wii Compatible) - Complete
URL: Mystic Heroes GameCube

Searched for 'Mystic Heroes GameCube'. Again nowhere to be found in rankings.

Things I've tried...

1. From the beginning, within webmaster tools I have two sites listed, non www and www versions of the same site. I use www, so in both via site settings I set preferred domain to www version. I've only added sitemap to the www version.

2. Tried various different titles and while it appears my site is indexed correctly, the majority of my pages don't seem to rank anywhere near where they should, ie above other pages where titles have a less relation to search term and of my own titles.

I've yet to run adwords campaign as feel I need to get the basics right first, but simply cannot figure out what is the issue here. Can someone inspect my page elements please and see if you can spot any problems, or is there something else I'm missing here with regards to SEO? Any advise would be much appreciated thank you.

Dean
#extremely #low #page #practices #ranking
  • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
    That's just all meta data for the most part....

    What about the content and links?
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  • Profile picture of the author misshang
    Do you build any QUALITY backlinks to your sites? Is the page on your site or the platform? It's not very easy to rank a page on a platform compared with your own site. Why? Because if it is easy to rank then you won't buy their ads, and you don't need their traffic.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by misshang View Post

      Do you build any QUALITY backlinks to your sites? Is the page on your site or the platform? It's not very easy to rank a page on a platform compared with your own site. Why? Because if it is easy to rank then you won't buy their ads, and you don't need their traffic.
      There must be something lost in translation here.

      I offer this up: "It's not very easy to rank a page on a platform compared with your own site. Why? Because if it is easy to rank then you won't buy their ads, and you don't need their traffic."

      ROTFLMAO!

      You seem to be on a roll today...

      Anyway, to the OP, you followed somebody's script or list, which for the most part, are junk.
      Forget about "best practices," and do some research on what really works, if it's possible,
      competition, etc.

      Especially do some research on title, description, and how google may or may not use them.

      Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    This really doesn't give us much information at all, except that 2 on page factors are focusing on specific keywords instead of keyword topics. You're also not including the content of the page, so we can't see how relevant it is or isn't.
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    • Profile picture of the author seocrawl
      I'm not an expert so take my advice with a grain of salt. Here is what I'm seeing...

      For the search term "LMA Manager 2004 Xbox" you have 151 exact matches out of the top 100 search results. The top 10 have about 8, top 25 have about 41 and so on. This really doesn't mean much.

      What is important is when you start looking at words that google has related to your search term which are...
      2004
      best
      cheats
      download
      football
      lma
      management
      manager
      money
      players
      review
      soundtrack
      tactics
      tips
      unlimited
      xbox
      xboxaddict


      out of those words you didn't use ...
      cheats
      money
      soundtrack
      tips
      unlimited

      and interesting enough you didn't use "lma manager 2004 xbox" in the article, you did use it in your title but in the article you used "LMA Manager 2004 - Xbox" which has the "-" in it instead. But this is not your real problem.

      It seems that you have a keyword that has been associated with "cheat codes" and not people looking to buy. Google see it as the people who are typing in "LMA Manager 2004 Xbox" are looking for cheat codes and not looking to buy the game.

      Another interesting thing I've noticed is that the warrior forum is ranking higher than your search result for terms like "buy". I guess my location could change what I see compared to someone else.

      I hope this was helpful.
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  • Profile picture of the author misshang
    Best practices differ within different context, so if you can be specific, you might get more help. For context, I mean your niche, keyword competitiveness, your aim, and competitors.

    My personal lessons learned is that I have PBNs in the beauty niche, education niche, and wordpress niche. I spent 3+ years doing everything manually and they ranked pretty well. To be specific, I ranked no 1s in the SERP on top of high competition 8M+ results. I sell physical stuff on ebay-like sites and I do my own SEO, distribute evenly my links from PBN to my own sites, my salespages in bidding platform, social bookmarking sites, and fanpage and g+ page. Results are my personal site, web 2.0 sites, social bookmarking sites all ranked above the exact page on taobao and other bidding sites.

    So in my senario, in the beauty niche, education niche, and wordpress niche, in Chinese,in high competitive keywords of about 8M search results , pages on other platforms don't rank as well as my own sites, they don't even rank as well as web 2.0 sites and social bookmarking sites. If someone has done experiments with different results, I would really love to know, now that I can't do all the niches myself..........

    BTW, no translation will be provided......I have work to do so this will be what you will get if you need one.
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  • Profile picture of the author misshang
    Correction: I didn't distribute links evenly, most links go to salespage on other platforms and I even linkwheeled back to those pages and manually built links over 3 months to those pages. Why? Process fees were much lower and with good tax deduction possibilities there so I diligently optimized those with whitehat, greyhat, and blackhat seos (I know my stuff and know how to escape, don't try if you don't know how to do it). That's one of the thing I really want to master and my 2 cents. Hope it helps.
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    • Profile picture of the author DeanpXc
      Hi all, many thanks for your replies.

      godoveryou & misshang
      The only current backlinks I have are from my own YouTube channel and various other places where others have linked, but still, in examples given shouldn't a search for 'LMA Manager 2004 Xbox' give priority ahead of those pages that doesn't have this in there titles, like for example 'Preloved | second hand xbox in hull games consoles for', and 'Second hand lma manager for sale - Electronics'? I don't expect to be 1st page, but at least somewhere, and ahead of these examples surely?

      With regards to site or platform, I do also use other platforms, but I find the reverse of what you experience where by the same product will often be ranked high, even 1st page sometimes, but again, the same product from my site is nowhere to be found. Sorry I don't know what 'PBN' means?

      paulgl - This is what I've tried to do, but not having much success. Perhaps I used the wrong term then, but point being is, I've not keyword stuffed, I've added content, written for humans instead of search engines, etc, but so far results are poor.

      iAmNameLess - I've included URL links above showing content.

      seocrawl - How do you find that data? I haven't included those words as my article/product has no relation to those words. You are right, this very warrior forum post ranks higher then my own page (which is nowhere to be found) when searching for 'LMA Manager 2004 Xbox' How can that be?? The search term matches my page far more than it does this post. This is why I think there might be a problem with the actual html code. As the title and meta data is all done via ecommerce GUI, I don't have access to the actual header code, so is it possible please someone can inspect code, so I can know that is at least as it should be?

      I guess at present I'm just trying to figure out the VERY basics. Things like...

      1. Have I set up webmaster tools correctly? From the beginning, within webmaster tools I have two sites listed, non www and www versions of the same site. I use www, so in both via site settings I set preferred domain to www version. I've only added sitemap to the www version. Should I also add this to the non www version?

      The non www version isn't showing nearly the same amount of data that the www version shows. Is there an issue, or can I simply concentration on the www version?

      Is there any one single thing that I should look at in webmaster tools to determine if there is an issue?

      2. Is the title and meta data html code as it should be within headers?

      3. Is the way my website setup an issue for search results? I originally had an opencart store hosted with Arvixe. I then switched to my current eCommerce platform, and followed the necessary requirements to forward domain (not sure if that's the correct term). Everything appears fine, but could the fact that domain is forwarded affect search results?

      As long as I'm confident that the basics are correct, then it's just a case of learning SEO, which I understand will take a lot of trial/error and effort as misshang has clearly gone through, but first I just want to establish that code, forwarding, webmaster tools etc are setup up correctly?

      Thanks again.
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  • Profile picture of the author starvedseo
    You have a long way to go in learning seo. Start with the basics and learn the different terms.
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  • Profile picture of the author jezter6
    Mistakes you've made:

    1) You're convinced that page TITLE and H1 tags are the end all be all of ranking. Sites with backlinks to specific game pages (like the ones with cheats, guides, etc) are going to outrank you, even without the same on-page optimization.

    2) You're trying to rank (theoretically) multiple pages for the same keywords using 95% duplicate content. You have at least TWO pages targeting "LMA Manager 2004" with only minor title changes ("complete" vs "disc only") and are using the same crappy content as 50 other sites using the outdated game description.

    3) You're just plain targeting the wrong keywords. You want BUYER keywords. What would someone looking to buy a used copy of the game search for? Chances are it's not the generic game title because you never know what you're going to get -- namely reviews, cheats, and other junk that isn't a place to buy a used video game.

    When targeting specific game titles only, you're competing with absolutely the wrong people for spots. You're getting places like IGN, CNET, and tons of other informational authority sites that just have plain ranking power over your website.

    4) Have you checked your keywords for actual searches? Is GWT showing that you're even getting impressions for any of these keywords on a regular basis? Not that I trust keyword planner, but I'm seeing pretty much no searches for any LMA Manager keywords (of any year, or "playstation/xbox" console names included). You could be on page 1 for that keyword, but if nobody's searching for it - you're still not going to get any traffic.

    Sure, if you add up 10,000 games worth of traffic and you convert well you might be able to make some dough, but I think you're going to end up spending lots of time and/or money chasing tiny keywords that aren't even buyers.
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    • Profile picture of the author DeanpXc
      starvedseo - That's exactly what I'm trying to do here with the above questions. Can you or anyone else answer any of those questions please?

      Any question - should I add canonical for each individual page? For example 'NFL Fever 2003' appears in various different pages such as...

      http://www.pixelclassics.com/products/xbox-games
      http://www.pixelclassics.com/product...l-games?page=2
      http://www.pixelclassics.com/products/xbox-sports-games
      http://www.pixelclassics.com/product...ever-2003-xbox

      Many other games will have even more pages if they fit into two different categories. If I do need to set canonical to actual game page, how would I go about doing this because it's not an option within my eCommerce platform? It does create a sitemap automatically which is linked to GWT, but that sitemap doesn't including canonical URL's.

      Here's a snippet of my feed. Does the fact that 'title' and 'name' being non www version have any effect?



      jezter6 - Thank you for your input, and it is very clear that I'm making mistakes and assumptions here, but this is my first website, so my first venture in to trying to understand SEO. Believe me I have already spent a lot of time reading all I can, and experimented with various different things.

      I'll address your points, and I'm in no way defending here, but rather merely stating my thought process...

      1) You're convinced that page TITLE and H1 tags are the end all be all of ranking. Sites with backlinks to specific game pages (like the ones with cheats, guides, etc) are going to outrank you, even without the same on-page optimization.

      No doubt, because this is what I've read, at least for the basics. I have 1000's of games/products, so would have no idea how to create backlinks for each individual page?

      Can anyone explain how this very thread can rank higher than my actual game page already? This thread contains just snippets of info that my page already has and then some, but my page also includes the keywords within Title and H1. I know I know, title and H1 isn't everything, but surely this thread has no game specific backlinks, and if my page matches the search query more than this thread (due to title, H1 and more relevant content), how is this thread ahead? This is why I think there is a problem with code or something else (can someone please look at the code)?

      2) You're trying to rank (theoretically) multiple pages for the same keywords using 95% duplicate content. You have at least TWO pages targeting "LMA Manager 2004" with only minor title changes ("complete" vs "disc only") and are using the same crappy content as 50 other sites using the outdated game description.

      This is true, but that IS the only difference between the two (complete & disc only), so not really sure what else to change without then being spammy? With regards to the content, that is the official game fact sheet. Maybe not for this game, but often other sites do not include such details, and I often go to great lengths to find a game fact sheet so there is relevant content. Other used game sites will often just has a picture of the game and short description saying 'used game' and that's it.

      [I]3) You're just plain targeting the wrong keywords. You want BUYER keywords. What would someone looking to buy a used copy of the game search for? Chances are it's not the generic game title because you never know what you're going to get -- namely reviews, cheats, and other junk that isn't a place to buy a used video game.[/

      This is what I tried to by including things like 'Xbox Original' (to distinguish from 360) and 'Buy' in the title. If a game is recent, it makes sence to include 'new' or 'used', but as these are old games, I doubt anyone will search for 'used' because they know new will no longer exist. The data within GWT seems to confirm this...



      I understand it can be frustrating trying to teach a newbie something that seems so obvious and easy to you, so very appreciative of all your help guys.
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      • Profile picture of the author jezter6
        Originally Posted by DeanpXc View Post


        No doubt, because this is what I've read, at least for the basics. I have 1000's of games/products, so would have no idea how to create backlinks for each individual page?

        Can anyone explain how this very thread can rank higher than my actual game page already? This thread contains just snippets of info that my page already has and then some, but my page also includes the keywords within Title and H1. I know I know, title and H1 isn't everything, but surely this thread has no game specific backlinks, and if my page matches the search query more than this thread (due to title, H1 and more relevant content), how is this thread ahead? This is why I think there is a problem with code or something else (can someone please look at the code)?
        There's no good way to create backlinks for thousands of individual game products without using crappy software to spam thousands of comments or forum garbage. And quite honestly, considering the keyword research - again I think you're barking up the wrong tree. A quick keyword tool search says not only is nobody really looking for those specific game names even in a generic manner (to get info about the old game OR with intent to purchase).

        Worrying about ranking for those terms is likely just going to frustrate you. You'll spend time, money, or both ranking for something that isn't profitable.

        This thread ranks well because WF.com is an authority, this post is linked to from the SEO forum section main page, and what link juice flows is hitting this post nicely. Once this goes off to the 4th page of the SEO section, I doubt it will rank nearly as high. Also factor in freshness, which Google gives a short term tiny boost to new pages, and also the fact that you may be signed into Google in your browser and hitting this page multiple times will increase it's rank in your personal search based on your visits here.



        [quote=DeanpXc;9748679]
        This is true, but that IS the only difference between the two (complete & disc only), so not really sure what else to change without then being spammy? With regards to the content, that is the official game fact sheet. Maybe not for this game, but often other sites do not include such details, and I often go to great lengths to find a game fact sheet so there is relevant content. Other used game sites will often just has a picture of the game and short description saying 'used game' and that's it.[/QUOTE[

        Not knowing keywords relevant to used games, it's hard for me to tell you exactly where to go here, but I would imagine it would be easier to try and rank ONE page for the game, and hopefully your eCommerce solution would allow you to have users choose "disc only" or "full package". Ranking individual pages for games in various states (disc only, disc + manual, disc in box w/o manual, full package, etc, etc) is only likely go destroy your brain trying to rank a bunch of pages for specialty keywords that just don't get any searches.


        Originally Posted by DeanpXc View Post


        This is what I tried to by including things like 'Xbox Original' (to distinguish from 360) and 'Buy' in the title. If a game is recent, it makes sence to include 'new' or 'used', but as these are old games, I doubt anyone will search for 'used' because they know new will no longer exist. The data within GWT seems to confirm this...



        I understand it can be frustrating trying to teach a newbie something that seems so obvious and easy to you, so very appreciative of all your help guys.
        I'm not sure what the length of your GWT screenshot is, but I see a few things that stand out:

        Your biggest searched term "007 nightfire ps3" only has about 20 hits. If your GWT settings are default like mine, that's a month's worth, right? How much effort do you want to put into search terms like that which might only generate 5-8 hits a month in top positions, and then try to figure out how to convert those 5 into maybe 1 sale every 2-3 months (depending on how good your conversion rate is...) ??? On an item that costs about $5.50 US. If you make 10 sales a year and make your $55 or so, how much is it worth to spend time and money to make those sales?

        And quite honestly, that visitor and conversion rate is probably 10x higher than I would expect. Someone searching for just a game title could be searching for ANYTHING. Walkthroughs, cheats, FAQs, whatever. What are the chances that all 20 of those potential searches are people looking to BUY? Chances are, half those potential visitors (or more) aren't even buyers. Meaning you might get 1-2 buyers/mo, and with even a decent 25% conversion rate, you're talking 2-3 months per $5.50 sale.

        The math on profit vs effort for using SEO on THESE keywords doesn't add up at all.


        You also have to consider how many of those "searches" are even human. I get almost exactly 30 searches a month in some of my GWT keywords for a local search term. I'm almost 125% sure that's from a local competitor using a rank tracker on a query that no humans are searching for in a given month.


        Not a single term in your GWT shot is necessarily a buyer keyword. You have "disc only" and "original" or whatever in your titles and H1s...but apparently it's not really doing anything because nobody is searching for these terms. You might rank well for them...but never get any hits because they're just not searched.

        Quite honestly, I think using your Ebay stores (I see that someone has 'pixelclassics' so I assume it's you) and hijack any authority they have will probably be a better option based on cost/profit.

        If anything, I'd say that you should research bigger keywords and find ways to incorporate those into categories and rank those. Or separate your eCommerce store from your domain, use your domain to rank some keywords with articles or whatever would work, and then link to your store or advertise games for sale in sidebars or something.

        Something more generic... "used xbox games" - is a 390/mo search term. The competition on the first page is a bit tough, but some of the pages on there are vulnerable.
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