Wordpress SEO Expert

Improve your Google ranking with Peter Mahoney, 20+ years SEO & Wordpress experience

Why does SEMRush show my ranking change so much?

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Hello Peter, I have noticed on SEMrush that keywords do yoyo quite a bit. Any thoughts? Why do my search engine results rankings seem to jump around so much?

SEMrush is an ok system – but far from perfect.

Those 3rd party systems will show you a variety of different results – but it’s down to how they’re able to work from a technical perspective rather than anything really indicative of your own ranking position.

Think about how search engines personalise results. Different people see different results based on their search history, location, all kinds of variables.

One big issue was if you searched for the same thing a lot from the same IP address you might end up seeing your own site totally skewed. I would see mine too low (because I would often search for myself and never then click on the link) but some people see theirs too high too high (think about people that work in organisations who search for their own company site to find it).

These third party systems like SEMrush fell foul of that too. They had a few servers they used for all their searching, and ended up with very personalised results. Which were inaccurate.

Their attempt to resolve that issue is only mildly better – they now have lots of servers with lots of IP addresses, but in different locations, countries, and with a really varied search history.

So they are still wildly affected by personalisation.

I get all my data directly from Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools – which are the official stats packages those search engines offer. They give me an average ranking; so if 500 people found you in different positions through the month, it cuts through personalisation to show the most useful stat representing your rank.

Peter Mahoney
WordPress SEO Expert

Pages listed as Discovered – currently not indexed

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Looking at buying this offer. Quick question, just looking at Google search console and I have a bunch of pages listed as ‘Discovered – currently not indexed’. Not sure how to resolve this. Will the things you do in this package help or do I need something else?

Looking at that sort of issue is something that’s more suited to a bespoke job, or at the very least taking me up on the free month of my ongoing service I offer as part of this fixed price service – in that month I can have a good look through those things.

Notice I used the word issue in italics. Normally there’s very good reasons Google chooses not to index pages. Have a look at the list of pages it’s giving you in that report. Sometimes it’s ‘feed’ pages or or pages you won’t want scanned anyway. Ideally those would be marked as noindex (which prevents Google and other search engines from scanning them) just to clean up those reports. But actually what Search Console is telling you there is that Google has caught those pages you won’t want in search results pages anyway.

The most common reason Google doesn’t scan legitimate pages is simply how much text you have on there. If a page is fewer than 300 words of paragraph text* it’s very unlikely to get picked up by Google.

When they first brought that report in to Google Search Console I made a spreadsheet of all the posts I have that were listed there and they ALL had that in common. So as time permitted I went through each one and just fleshed it out to get to the 300 word mark – and then on resubmitting those specific URLs to Google they were all indexed without fail.

* – by paragraph text I mean the actual useful, article (body) content of the page. You shouldn’t count words in the menu, footer, that sort of thing.

I hope that helps! Cheers,

Peter Mahoney
WordPress SEO Expert

My enquiries are virtually nothing with no new clients

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Hi Peter, I’ve had a message from Google console saying you’ve taken ownership of my domain – please can you change it back to myself? I can then add you as admin.

With Google Console, Ive noticed that clicks and impressions are down compared to last period and same time last year.

My enquiries are virtually 0 with no new clients and keywords like:
medical website design have dropped massively to Avg. position is actually: 46.5 – Where I used to be third.

Is there anything you can do to help as my business is truly in financial trouble!

That whole ownership thing is a major misnomer on their part. I definitely haven’t taken over anything! I simply added myself as a full user to the Google Search property you set up. You are also a full user.

The way Google words those messages does freak people out–it looks like someone is essentially stealing their website, when really it’s just adding an extra admin user to look at the data.

So, here’s a few things.

1) Ignore average rank
That whole stat is a weird one, and sort of means the opposite of what you’d expect. The best way to explain it is this – because Google can index your site for any single word or phrase it has, as your site grows in popularity they will index you for more things – but a lot of those are not your core terms and in fact you’ll find your average rank appears to be getting worse.

But it’s really an indication that your site has more visibility and SEO authority.

I recommend people instead look at the top 20 search queries for their site (ordered by impressions) and find the average there. Then repeat when needed.

That gives a better impression of your average position for things that are important.

2) I’m surprised you have so few enquiries
Your site ranks really well, with 1,000s of impressions for competitive terms. So firstly, have you double checked your forms and enquiry lines work?

3) You need to consider how you target
I have the impression you sell yourself as a general web design firm that specialises (or used to) in the medial practice field. You mention that you’ve dropped for ‘medical website design’ but your content I believe also shifted. The word ‘medical’ doesn’t even appear on the homepage!

I also think, SEO aside, there is a confusing message for potential clients. People looking for, say, a GPs website are going to be put off because you don’t appear to be specialising in that anymore. But general website design clients are also likely to be confused because of how many of my clients clearly are in the medical field.

If ‘medical website design’ is a key term for you then the website needs to be focused on sites for people in healthcare. Not just that one page you have.

The extra thing to consider here is how well you are doing for general searches relating to your area and ‘web design’ )which is – very well!). It would be a shame to throw that away.

If I were you, I would split the site into two. One website for general site design, and a completely second one for the medicine focus.

That way you can make the most of everything you’ve got–including your potential, without confusing the message to potential clients.

Cheers,

Peter Mahoney
WordPress SEO Expert

Let’s make a video showing our search engine rankings before we start

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Could I suggest you take some good screen shots of ‘before’ with ranking and general state of my website.

I’d also recommend a video screen recording showing the rankings and where everything is currently.

Looking forward to working with you! Your feedback and reviews I’ve heard word of mouth are really outstanding. Let’s get this SEO going!

As we embark on the task of overhauling your site’s SEO, I would like to address a potential issue that could affect the accuracy of our data.

To ensure we are comparing “apples to apples,” we need to use Google Search Console. This is the official stats package for SEO, and it provides us with accurate and reliable data that we can use to measure the impact of our efforts. Unfortunately, if you have not previously set up Google Search Console, there will not be any existing data.

In most cases, I set up Google Search Console as part of my work, and after a month (assuming you take me up on my offer of a free month’s ongoing service), I use the first week as the “before” data and the most recent week as the “after” data. This allows us to compare the performance of your website before and after the implementation of our SEO strategy.

However, if you want more accurate “before” data, I can set up Google Search Console for you now and run it for a week (or maybe even nine days) to ensure we have a sufficient dataset before beginning the SEO work. This will provide us with a better pool of data to work with, resulting in a more accurate analysis of our results.

Of course, the downside of this option is that it will delay the SEO service. If time is a concern, we can proceed with the original plan and use the data available in Google Analytics. However, it’s important to note that the data from Google Analytics may not be as accurate as the data from Google Search Console, as it does not provide the same level of detail regarding the performance of your website in search results.

Ultimately, the decision is yours. If you want to proceed with the most accurate data possible, we can set up Google Search Console and wait for a week before beginning the SEO work. If time is a concern, we can use the data available in Google Analytics and proceed as planned.

Please let me know which option you prefer, and we can proceed accordingly. I look forward to working with you to improve the SEO of your website.

I’m glad to hear that you’re pleased with the options and excited to move forward with improving your website’s SEO. As we proceed with the project, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns. I’m committed to providing you with excellent service and ensuring that we achieve the results you’re looking for.

To give you a better idea of what to expect, once we have the data in place, I will conduct a thorough analysis of your website and develop a comprehensive SEO strategy that addresses any issues we uncover. This may involve optimizing your content, updating your website’s structure and design, and building high-quality backlinks to your site.

Throughout the process, I will keep you informed of our progress and provide you with regular updates on the results we’re achieving. My goal is to work closely with you to ensure that we achieve your objectives and deliver measurable results that help your website rank higher in search results and attract more traffic.

Thank you again for choosing me as your SEO consultant. I’m confident that together, we can achieve great things and take your website to the next level.

 

Cheers,

Peter Mahoney
WordPress SEO Expert

How much would you charge to SEO lots of sites?

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Thank you for your detailed explanation about the danger of buying links, I really appreciate it. I thought to myself that buying links doesn’t sound like a great idea, but I’m no expert!

So, what would you suggest? Is there a package we can offer my client instead, where we focus on gaining them real, quality backlinks? They’re a big company, so budget is very flexible.

Also, I’ve got a client with 14 websites so far, we’ve worked with them for years and they’ve asked about SEO and the following:

  • Full SEO Audit and SEO Overhaul
  • Keyword Research
  • Google Search Console and SEO Tool Setup
  • Local SEO
  • 20 Keywords
  • Content Optimisation
  • Technical SEO (Robots, XML, Sitemap)
  • Monthly Report

I think they have just got that from an SEO package on Google, but roughly how much would you charge to do this for 14 sites? They’re a restaurant group, so adding new locations and websites every couple of months.

I definitely do the overhauls, local SEO, search console, keyword research, usually up to 12 keywords that I report on (but could do as many as 20*), technical SEO and monthly reports.

I make recommendations for content but don’t make those changes directly.

* = if when they say 20 keywords they mean “we want to be optimised for 20” then I recommend reading this article – because that’s not really how things work anymore:
https://peter.mahoneywebmarketing.com/how-many-keywords-do-you-include-in-seo-reports/

And in terms of pricing for multiple ongoing sites, how’s this sound (this is the absolutely the lowest I can go, it’s my top tier agency rate). Usually this rate is reserved for people who come to me through my website too, because PPH charges me 20% on all sales which makes it hard to offer this rate here.

But here it is:

SEO overhaul is always £100+VAT
Monthly SEO campaign is usually £100+VAT per site

So essentially, we have a series of units of work that cost £100+VAT each.

With this rate I’d charge the first ongoing unit per month at £100+VAT, then each subsequent one at 25% off: £75+VAT.

So if you have me do two initial overhauls and we’ve got three ongoing clients on the books in a given month, you’d pay:
100 x 2 (for the initial overhauls)
100 x 1 (for the first ongoing client)
75 x2 (for the other two ongoing clients)

= £450+VAT

basically, the first ongoing job in a month is full price, then the rest have the 25% discount.

I’ve probably over-explained that. Let me know what you think!

 

Cheers,

Peter Mahoney
WordPress SEO Expert

Don’t just search for yourself!

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This is actually a stock answer I send people pretty often. I’m regularly asked about the difference between where a client sees themselves in rankings, or their friend, kid’s football coach, etc.

You shouldn’t search for yourself as a way to measure your ranking

Google does all kinds of personalisation on your search results (based on your network’s IP address, if you’re logged into any Google accounts, even your location) and the more often you look for your own site, the more skewed those results will be.

To give an example, most people searching for “seo expert peter” see my site on the first page. But I see myself on the fourth. Essentially because I’ve searched for myself so often, but then not spent much time on my site or even bothered to click it, Google has “learnt” that I don’t like it and therefore ranks it down for me, uniquely.

The right place to get Google’s official rank for your site is their Search Console system., which is where I get my stats.

Their stats are actually an ‘average’ of your rank which is the statistically most useful approach. Because of personalisation, not everyone sees your site in the same position. Where someone is searching from geographically for example has an impact. So the average rank is the best indicator of where you rank.

There’s a commonly held belief that if you use a private browsing window somehow you’ll see the proper rankings in the search results. But all that does is prevent Google from knowing your account – they still know where you live, your IP address, in some cases the unique code for your network card – there’s plenty for them to skew your results with.

Prices are quoted exclusive of VAT unless expressly stated.

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