Should I be concerned?

[Alan Hope Copywriter]

Good Afternoon Everyone

I wanted your thoughts on one of my sites called bankaccounts-for-badcredit dot com

I set it up about 18 months ago but stopped doing posts between Dec 2012 and mid September 2013. Since mid September 2013 I have done quite a lot of posts targeting specific keywords to try and increase the number of visits and they have risen from around 10 per month to about 30 per month.( peanuts I know but it is progress!!!).

Since the beginning of October I have been monitoring various keywords to see where my site ranks in Google and some have stayed constant, some gone up and some gone down.

For instance: -

bank accounts for bankrupts (not exact match) - was on page 8 in 8th place on 2 Oct and is now on page 8 in 5th place.

"bank accounts for bankrupts" (exact match) - was on page 3 in 8th place and is now on page 4 in 2nd place.

guaranteed bank account (not exact match) - was on page 6 in 7th place, on 16 Oct it was on page 11 and today - I CAN'T FIND IT!

"guaranteed bank account" (exact match) - was on page 3 in 5th place and is now on page 3 in 8th place.

bank accounts for bad credit (not exact match) - was on page 5 in 3rd place and is now on page 5 in 7th place.

"bank accounts for bad credit" (exact match) - was on page 2 in 9th place but now on page 3 in 4th place.

There are more but I have probably bored many of you already!!!!

Should I be concerned about any that drop in the page rankings over what you may tell me is a short period of time (3 weeks) and what can I do to improve the ranking of the keywords that have gone down?

What made me raise this was the fact that i can no longer find the guaranteed bank account one now.

Another question - should I be checking my keyword ranking for exact match phrases or not as surely very few people would key " guaranteed bank accounts" they would just key guaranteed bank accounts.

I have found a number of finance sites that are agreeable to me doing guest blog posts for a small fee with back links to my site so hopefully that will help.

Thank you in advance for your comments - it is a rapid learning curve for me.

Kindest Regards

Alan

 

[danieldd]

Hello, Alan!

I checked your website and I will try to help you with some suggestions.

First of all, your website looks too much like a blog. Being wordpress based doesn't mean you cannot get it to look like a business website. Have some more pages, little bit more images (create some original ones, not downloaded from the web).

Looking at the first several results on these queries, these are mostly established brands, with websites that offer various features - calculators, etc. Your site is pretty ordinary, not to disrespect your work, but it needs to provide any real value (other than text most visitors won't make the effort to read) to your visitors. I bet your bounce rate is more than 70%.

In this direction - have some more pages, create some tables, do something that will be valuable for the reader. After that you can think of a better template, some crosslinking, links from the blog.

As to the part with the guest posts, external links, etc. - at this point your website doesn't provide the visitor with what he/she is looking, so links won't have any positive effect.

Don't check exact match. I bet there aren't many people who even know the "" search even exists.

In general, these are some of the things worth putting your effort on.

 

[ZeroDouble]

Should I be concerned about any that drop in the page rankings over what you may tell me is a short period of time (3 weeks) and what can I do to improve the ranking of the keywords that have gone down?

I wouldn't be overly concerned, a couple of places drop here, and a page or so drop there, is nothing - most likely you've just lost some links and google has re-evaluated where it wants to rank you.

Just create/obtain some more links to strengthen up your link profile.

Another question - should I be checking my keyword ranking for exact match phrases or not as surely very few people would key " guaranteed bank accounts" they would just key guaranteed bank accounts.

No, as you say, no-one searches like that, so no need to check like that. I take it you are taking the usual steps to avoid personalised search skewing the results?

I have found a number of finance sites that are agreeable to me doing guest blog posts for a small fee with back links to my site so hopefully that will help.

Yes it will, especially if they are decent sites. Just don't go mad and only build links from guest posts, make sure you mix it up a bit and build a nice diverse link profile.

 

[Alan Hope Copywriter]

Hi ZeroDouble

Re your question?

"I take it you are taking the usual steps to avoid personalised search skewing the results?"

I have to be honest and say that "no, I am not"

I just look at the number of monthly searches and then check how many are from Redditch (although I live in Kidderminster about 15 miles from Redditch) and deduct that figure from the total number of searches.

Could you tell me if I should be doing something differently as it sounds like there may be an automated way of excluding my own searches from the results?

Apologies and many thanks.

Regards

Alan

 

[ZeroDouble]

Hi Alan,

Sorry I wasn't a bit clearer, but no, my comment was about personalised search skewing the ranking results in the SERPs, not the number of searches.

 

[Alan Hope Copywriter]

Hi Danieldd

Thank you for your helpful comments

Actually the bounce rate says 0% in my Google Analytics so I don't know what is happening in that respect.

What spurred me on mid September was that someone clicked on one of the ads, bought the product and I earned some money from it so I thought that if I could encourage more people to visit the site then more people like that one would buy from the site. However, I will take on board what you say about the look of the website and adding more pages etc.

I created the header myself which probably does not come as a surprise. I will have a look on Wordpress and see if there is a theme that looks more appropriate and, as I get more visitors, hopefully more will buy from it.

Once again - many thanks for taking the time to look at the site.

Kindest Regards

Alan