Will an SEO Audit Help?

by 13 replies
15
I have a video games website that was, prior to September last year, always in the top 1-3 for the terms I target in Google. Then the Panda/EMD algo change hit and I tanked to the 3rd or 4th page. The URL is an EMD.

Fast forward to about 2 months ago and I finally got back to around the 6th spot in Google (after a lot of work).

Then Hummingbird hit and I am literally NOWHERE to be seen. Not even in the top 10 pages.

I'm just not sure what's going on with this particular site to be honest. I have successfully done SEO for my other sites, it's just this one is giving me the $hits! My Bing rankings are fine.

I have a Moz subscription and am wondering whether:

1. An SEO audit will even help.
2. Whether it will go above and beyond what I can get using tools like Moz.
3. Who might people recommend to do an audit (if one is recommended at all).

Just not sure what to do really. Google seems to just hate this website/domain. The content is actually 110% legit and contains exactly what the people searching for the terms I target want.

Thanks.
#search engine optimization #audit #seo
  • Google Hummingbird is not said to have affected sites much. Can you say when exactly you found a drop in rankings?
    • [1] reply
  • Regular SEO audit is important for proper analysis of your site stats. You can do this manually or there are paid tools available form major brands like Moz.
    • [1] reply
    • I have a Moz subscription. What tools exactly? I can see my links and they look fine to me....
  • Banned
    Depends, I just found out the reason behind some sites being tanked and I was kind of stunned by it:

    - duplicate content on many pages
    - spun content on many pages
    - duplicate meta tags (leave it empty if you don't know what to write)
    - many 404 error pages

    That people still think they can get away with that, it's amazing.

    So yeah if you're unsure about your site an SEO audit can reveal a lot of things and isn't only restricted to the above mentioned things, some other stuff

    - back link analysis
    - anchor diversity
    - how many anchors do you have in total
    - onpage over optimization due to kw stuffing
    - onpage over optimiziation due to internal linking
    - cloaking of affiliate links
    - over monetizing pages, more important sites

    And there is a lot more that I can't think of right now but I think this are the most important things that let one site succeed and another one fail.

    I would never spend 100's or 1000's of dollars for an SEO audit though, I just did 5 sites in 30 minutes and found all the "obvious" mistakes so how much is it really worth.
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks of that list these are the only ones I am concerned about

      back link analysis
      - anchor diversity
      - how many anchors do you have in total
      - onpage over optimization due to kw stuffing
      - onpage over optimiziation due to internal linking

      I am not sure if I am being aggressive. The problem is, with the EMD, my brand is also my target keyword, so a lot of my anchor text is my brand/target keyword (and for which I am not ranking!!)


      • [1] reply
  • I guess it might be a little to early to say the recent algorithm change has caused all the drops. Just check to make sure your links are still in place, especially the older ones which have remained for months and years online because they could be the real force behind getting top positions sometimes. Make sure your links do not have the same anchors, this might be a little tricky issue sometimes. Many websites have been doing nice for a long time but very quickly, they get the hit because the system has found them.
  • Have a backlink audit done and see that there are no spammy links. If everything is all right there, hope that this is just a fluctuation in the ranking. Your site be back soon.
  • Can anyone make any recommendations as to SEO audit services?
  • It's good if you do audit for your seo, with this you can manage all activites related to your site seo.
  • Yes
    Not sure
    I suggest a warrior Fredbou
  • Game sites would seem like a logical "hit" from the Hummingbird, most queries related to video games are long(ish) in nature. I am a Gamer myself, and find that when Googleing something about any video game, I disregard my SEO knowledge and type like I am asking Jeeves something LOL. Your strategy should depend on what your site is about. If it is a ton of information about 1 Game, like Call of Duty, with info on the Black Ops series, Modern Warfare Series, Ghosts ect, I would start researching COD specific queries that are most typed in, and optimize some of your site for that. If it is broader, and includes many games from many genres, then I would focus more on broader content, like the latest video game news, new games, stuff like that, and get the most popular keyword searches for that kind of site.
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    Will an SEO Audit Help?

    I have a video games website that was, prior to September last year, always in the top 1-3 for the terms I target in Google. Then the Panda/EMD algo change hit and I tanked to the 3rd or 4th page. The URL is an EMD. Fast forward to about 2 months ago and I finally got back to around the 6th spot in Google (after a lot of work).