I`m just looking for advice from fellow SEOs.

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Ryan Hill: Hello all, ;
  
  It's my first time posting here so not too sure how it all works but I'm just going to go ahead and post my question. I've fallen headfirst into an SEO Manager role at a UK web design firm after graduating from university. I have been extremely lucky to find myself in this position but things aren't going so well. ;
  
  The previous SEO at the company (who was self taught herself and had only been doing it for a couple of years) gave me 6 weeks tuition before leaving. It just so happened that Penguin 2.0 hit our site a week before she left. I've now spent the past 7 months scratching in the dust trying to work out how I can return the site to its pre-penguin traffic levels. ;
  
  Anyway, to my specific question. Before I became the sole manager of the sites SEO campaign it was ranking around 5th for a key term. When Penguin struck it fell to about 10th and then the past couple of weeks it has fallen further and now sits about 15th. What can I do to get it back to its previous levels? ;
  
  I don't know if you're allowed to post links on here? If so just let me know and I will point to the site in question. (Note: Just seen that you can as long as they are disabled. So here you go: carleasingmadesimple(dot)com) I've been trying to focus on a content centric and social approach but this really just isn't paying off and is barely maintaining our post Penguin traffic levels. ;
  
  I'm not looking for a full SEO plan for free, I'm not that cheeky. I'm just looking for advice from fellow SEOs with far superior experience and knowledge to help me continue to build and improve as an SEO.
  
  Thank you in advance to everyone that replies!
  
  Ryan ;
• 
  Peter Lunn: Hi Ryan. Welcome! You are allowed to post links, just write them textually, e.g. bbcnews(dot)co(dot(uk).
  
  There could be many reasons your site and pages have been dropping in the results and not necessarily Penguin, especially given that the drops you have seen are gradual. Ongoing changes in the SERPS from more personalised results and the recent Hummingbird update have been changing the search results landscape.
  
  Anyway, post back more info and see what can be found. Peter
• 
  Ryan Hill: Hi Peter, ;
  
  Thanks for your response. I did notice that in the group guidelines after posting (Probably best to check them before posting next time!) ;
  
  The site is carleasingmadesimple(dot)com. What information can I provide you with?
• 
  Peter Lunn: Hi Ryan, you said it was ranking about 5th for a key term - what was that?
• 
  Ryan Hill: It was 'car leasing' Peter. 
• 
  Andy Wigglesworth: I've just seen a graphic on your company website showing the sudden rise in traffic - I noticed that it also showed it had some annotations on the timeline - what tatics did the previous guy use?
  
  Were other sites hit, did he have a pattern of destroying sites?
• 
  Ryan Hill: Hi Andy, ;
  
  Thanks for the reply. Yeah, that's for the site in question. ;
  
  Her main tactics were blog commenting and gaining .edu links via job offers and alumni discount offers etc. In all honesty I have abandoned that in response to Penguin. Maybe this is something I should look into again?
  
  No other sites were hit that I know of and no, the other sites that I know she worked on haven't seen any negative impact whatsoever. (Again, that I know of) ;
• 
  Peter Lunn: OK, thanks Ryan. I have taken a brief look. According my non-personalised SERPs check you are ranking 12th currently for 'car leasing' in Google UK SERPs. In that case, the right sort of changes to your site should help to push you back on to page 1 at least.
  
  Are you targeting the UK only market really? If so rather than having "Car Leasing Deals" at the start of your home page Title tag would be inclined to make it "Car Leasing UK" and then extend it. You rank 6th for "Car Leasing Deals" but that may not be so searched for.
  
  I would also try changing the content of the home page down the bottom. It doesn't help that it's near the bottom 'below the fold', but I guess there's not much you can do about that. However,  ;the article is titled "Why you should lease" could do with rewriting and breaking up visually a bit - bullet points can help that. But change it to something like "How car leasing works" to bring the phrase in there and focus the article on writing to answer that question.
  
  You said you have been trying to focus on a content centric and social approach which is good but I cannot find much car leasing related content on the site. There's lots of cars to lease, but not much information for someone who is searching but not quite ready to spend money. Your brand name is "Car Leasing Made Simple" so the site should reflect your brand, i.e. making it simple for people not just to buy but to have car leasing made simple for them. A blog of articles that answer FAQs would help your site.
  
  I hope the above helps, Peter
• 
  Peter Lunn: +Andy Wigglesworth ;Where's that graphic Andy. I cannot see it - must be looking in the wrong place.
• 
  Andy Wigglesworth: edited, +Ryan Hill ;do you mind if I post the  ;company url?
• 
  Ryan Hill: Hi Peter, ;
  
  Thank you for all this. Yes we are targeting UK only so that would definitely make sense. Excuse my ignorance, but when you say 'extend it' what do you mean?
  
  Re-writing the homepage content has also been on my list for a while but became more important (in my mind anyway) after we found out about Hummingbird. Another question, do you think the way in which the content is written (robot like, keyword stuffed) would have a negative effect when it comes to SEO? ;
  
  I also feel that the site construction is extremely prohibitive which has been highlighted by the fact that you can't find much content. Unfortunately it is something I have inherited and have to work with until it is redesigned (which will be sooner rather than later hopefully) If you nip down to the sitemap towards the bottom of the homepage you can then find what content we have around car leasing etc. ;
  
  I have also been pushing a blog for the site. It was newly designed a few months ago now and is doing fairly well. Organic and direct traffic has doubled over the past month with no link building efforts other than social sharing. I am slightly concerned that the fact it is built on a news(dot) domain may be preventing or hindering any authority from reaching out to the rest of the site, is this an unfounded concern? ;
  
  With regards to the image Andy is referring to it can be found on the Google+ page for the company which is connected to my personal Google+ account. ;
  
  But yes, this is all extremely helpful +Peter Lunn ; thank you for taking the time to respond. +Andy Wigglesworth ;feel free. ;
  
  Ryan
• 
  Tim Capper: Hi +Ryan Hill ;
  
  First question is did you recieve a manual penalty in WMT. I suspect no, because a manual penalty would have removed you from the 1st 50 results at least.
  
  So, we are dealing with an algorithmic penalty.
  
  Just had a look in ahrefs and you certainly have been removing links, which is a good start. However you still have overoptimsed anchors above brand anchors.
  
   ;car leasing
   ;car leasing made simple
   ;carleasingmadesimple.com
   ;car leasing deals
   ;business car leasing
  
  Links like these certainly dont help
  http://goo.gl/900X4f
  
  Especially when they are called free link
  
  I would also say you have one hellllllllll of a lot of work to do cleaning up your link profile.
  
  saharareporters com  ; /column/homosexuality-and-nigeria%E2%80%99s-enochs-and-josephs
  
  You also have Optimised anchors coming from the blogspot
  carleasingmadesimple  ;blogspot co uk
  
  Although it is yours, I would clean that up, easy because it is under your control. Would be great to 301 to your news page but not possible with a blog spot.
  
  
  
  It is ok to link sites from a business partner site
  
  classiccarsmadesimple  ;  ;com/business-partners/
  
  But i would use the brand name and not split them out
  
  These have been hidden on page : ;
  
  <!--<li><a href="http://carleasingmadesimple.com/" title="Car leasing made simple&trade;">Cars</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://vanleasingmadesimple.com/" title="Van leasing made simple&trade;">Vans</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://minibusleasingmadesimple.com/" title="Minibus leasing made simple&trade;">Minibuses</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://busleasingmadesimple.com/" title="Bus leasing made simple&trade;">Bus &amp; Coach</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://truckleasingmadesimple.com/" title="Truck leasing made simple&trade;">Trucks</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://trailerleasingmadesimple.com/" title="Trailer leasing made simple&trade;">Trailers</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://motorbikeleasingmadesimple.com/" title="Motorbike leasing made simple&trade;">Motorbikes</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://fleetmanagementmadesimple.com/" title="Fleet management made simple&trade;">Fleet Management</a></li>
  <li id="header_more">more
  <ul>
  <li><a href="http://financeleasemadesimple.com/" title="Finance lease made simple&trade;">Finance Lease</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://classiccarsmadesimple.com/" title="Classic cars made simple&trade;">Classic Cars</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://carhiremadesimple.com/" title="Car hire made simple&trade;">Car Hire</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://deliveryplus1.com/car-insurance/" title="Delivery Plus 1 Car Insurance">Car Insurance</a>
  
  Join your sites in a proper business manner, not something that could be misinterpreted by Google.
  
  
  From the quick look, you need to clean up your links. ;
  
  Your news section is Brilliant, keep that up whilst you clean up the rest
• 
  Peter Lunn: +Ryan Hill ;To answer your questions Ryan:
  
  > "when you say 'extend it' what do you mean?"
  - sorry I meant as it is now with other keywords, so something like: "Car Leasing UK | Business & Personal Car Leasing"
  
  > "do you think the way in which the content is written (robot like, keyword stuffed) would have a negative effect when it comes to SEO?"
  - I don't think so much negative but not positive. If it's re-written to answer a searches question then it will add much more value to the home page.
  
  > "If you nip down to the sitemap towards the bottom of the homepage you can then find what content we have around car leasing etc."
  - OK that's good content, but tucked away like that just accessible via a sitemap means its not going to be read, so low visit rates to those pages are not going to help your SEO. It would be better to have an "Car Leasing questions answered" type link from the top menu or somewhere on the home page to take you to an index of all of these articles.
  
  I hope that helps, Peter
• 
  Ryan Hill: Hi +Tim Capper ;thank you very much for your reply. No we did not, it was more us suspecting it was the case. ;
  
  Could I please ask what the shortened Google link was/where it was pointing? It is broken for some reason. ;
  
  The blogspot is dead and something we don't use anymore and haven't used for a while. Removing it may be the best course of action? ;
  
  Could I also please ask where you found those hidden links to our other domains? We did have a link bar across the top of our site that I had removed due to the fact I was concerned it would look like a link network to Google. I wasn't aware we were still linking somewhere else though. ;
  
  I am aware we still have some poor links in the style of sahara report and that is something we are currently working on. ;
  
  Thank you for the positive words on the news section, we are seeing rewards from it it's just unfortunate that they are not currently outweighing the negatives. ;
  
  Thanks again Tim! ;
• 
  Ryan Hill: +Peter Lunn ;Thank you for your response. ;
  
  That all makes a lot of sense and really just confirmed my suspicions, particularly with regards to the content being accessible via the sitemap only. These are all points I'll take away with me. Thank you for your fantastic help and input Peter, it's highly appreciated. ;
• 
  Tim Capper: The Google tiny was to a directory listing anchor as Car Leasing
  
  It was an example and then i found loads more.
  
  The simple fact is you need to clean it up, most of those links should be listed in your WMT.
  
  Download and work through all of them. Contact by whois or on site contact us pages.
  
  Make a note of who replies, who does not and who wants payment for removal.
  
  Then the remaining links need to be added to disavow tool. I would not bother with individual URL;s just disavow root domain.
  
  Instead of getting rid of the blogspot. tranfer the articles to the current site and canonicalise the links on the blogspot to the new url.
  
  Then after all have been indexed and transferred then get rid of the blogspot.
  
  Pick any page on site, view source and all the hidden links are in there.
• 
  Ryan Hill: Thanks +Tim Capper ;those are all fantastic points, particularly with regards to the blogspot! ;
  
  In all honesty I was aware we had a few bad links still hanging about but I was under the impression the previous SEO had done a pretty thorough link audit, it seems this wasn't the case. ;
  
  With regards to the hidden links neither I nor one of our development team can find them in the page source. This is very strange. ;
• 
  Tim Capper: view-source: http://  ;classiccarsmadesimple  ;com
  
  Starting line 30
  
  "In all honesty I was aware we had a few bad links still hanging about but I was under the impression the previous SEO had done a pretty thorough link audit, it seems this wasn't the case. "
  
  You need to download from WMT and mark all that are live and then work you way through
• 
  Ryan Hill: Fantastic +Tim Capper ; I was looking on Car leasing made simple. Those links can be found on all partner sites as well. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. ;
  
  I will follow your advice with WMT as well. ;
  
  Thank you for all your help. ;
  
  I would also like to thank everyone that has replied to this question. You have all been a massive help and I am highly appreciative. ;
  
  I will let you know how it all goes! ;
  
  Ryan
• 
  Tim Capper: No problem +Ryan Hill ;