Jobs website review

[NickC]

Hi Guys,

Just wanting some constructive criticism on one of our recent projects and a little advise based on SEO.

www.sheffieldjobs.com

one issue we seem to be having is the main keyword "sheffield jobs" keeps showing in the serpes on page's 7-13 for 24 hours then leaving.. The sites been live for 3 months, domain been keyword rich and 12/13 years old, backlink profile minimal but quality. Tried numerous things but cant put my finger on the issue if any.

I understand the competition on this keyword is tough but within the top 30 pages which i'm checking theres websites not even related to jobs and inner pages seem to be ranking semi decent.

Any advice would be appreciated

Thanks in advance

 

[alex]

Hi Nick,

Only had a quick look through, but the following stood out for me:

- URL structure isn't great. There is no logical taxonomy, i.e. /jobs/education/job-id. Instead you've got seemingly random (from a user perspective) numbers and parameters in there and If you try browsing by category you're in a completely different sub-directory, which I don't think is so logical. I'd have all of these together so /jobs/ is job search /jobs/category/ is the individual category and /jobs/[category]/[job-id or unique slug] is the listing. Or at least something similar to this. Similarly, URL parameters that define pages are not a good idea: http://www.sheffieldjobs.com/add-listing/?listing_type_id=Job

- I can't find much content. Again when browsing I'd add a paragraph of text for each category explaining what it's all about. That'll improve the prospects for these pages ranking. Also think about adding a blog or resources section so you can increase editorial content.

- Your meta titles have not been optimised. Each page should be different and include the most relevant keywords for that page. There are lots of resources available for help here so I'll just point you to http://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag Just make sure you're not adding in random keywords, they should reflect what is actually on the page.

- You're using meta keywords. Aside from these not being used for years, search engines can even use them to detect spam. Put it this way, if the keywords were correctly used on each page, why would they need to be defined? For not just remove all meta keywords, then look to implement them as natural text on each page.

- The site isn't responsive. Not really any excuse these days, you need to consider that people will be using mobile, tablet and desktop in many different sizes. Google considers responsiveness in its algorithm. Having a 'mobile site' version is not the way anymore, and in fact Google actively recommends against this because you're essentially creating two URLs for the same thing. Plus it's really annoying for users.

- Where's your privacy policy. Not Google related as such, but I was once blocked on Bing for not having one. I don't know the specific rules, but if you take personal info such as through a form or registration, you need to include a privacy policy.

- Your registration and forms are not on SSL. This is not a good idea as you're compromising security. Google are now even advocating completely securing entire sites. Also, your SSL is self-signed so users get an 'unsecure' message and must manually confirm the exception.

Hope this helps.
Alex

 

[NickC]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for the overview.

We haven't yet concentrated on the URL structure of the inner pages, however most of the them are ranking in the top 8 pages as they are currently - yeah we can better improve this, which we do plan to do in future.

We have plenty of content about 15 articles of 500-1000 words -
http://www.sheffieldjobs.com/news/ - could add some on categories pages though yeah

(Meta tiles, descriptions and urls structure for inner pages are automatically generated we need to edit the script to change these - planned )

Using meta keywords - We have a hand full of websites some with / some without meta keywords added i really don't think it makes much of a different personally if there added or not, maybe if theres lots of keywords added that could be classed as spam, some searches engines still use this factor so i think its more ignored than sandboxed by google?

However these points are primarily for inner pages which are ranking without any issue - granted could better with the above point you've mentioned

Privacy is agreed upon sign up with T&C's - maybe should separate these so visible on front end - thanks

SSL can be added - thanks

Still baffled why the homepage is coming and going - if inner pages are ranking with current structure, meta data then shouldn't effect the homepage from ranking for the EMD, wouldn't have thought so anyhow!

Thanks again for your time - any more comments regards to homepage ranking issue's are most welcome.

 

[alex]

Hi Nick, no problem. I was looking at the site as a whole as it's not really about 1 page, Google considers over 200 ranking factors, many of which concern the entire site. Sub-pages are likely appearing higher because the terms are less competitive (I haven't checked). By improving the site as a whole, the homepage may be given more weighting and therefore may be less likely to jump about. Of course that doesn't mean there aren't things that can be done on the home page specifically, but what stood out for me was that the site as a whole doesn't really conform to what Google recommends.

EMD doesn't really mean anything these days. Very little weighting. It's far more important to get text content on every page that accurately reflects that page. You should then seek to build the authority of each page and careful choose your wording of content to optimise for relevancy to the search terms people use when looking for what it is that the specific page is offering.

And with the keywords, both Google and Bing (and be default Yahoo) say not to use meta keywords at all. I know of a few experiments where the meta keywords have shown up in Bing, but that's only been because of very low returned results - it concerns relevancy not authority where the keyword was the only instance of a made up word appearing on a site, therefore it was returned. I don't think you'll necessarily be penalised for having meta keywords, I'm sure it's situation specific, but equally I don't think they will be helping you and it is certainly a possibility that they'll count against you. SEO is really about following search engine standards and if the big players say don't use them then I tend to listen to that.

 

[NickC]

I know the URL structure could be better and would have its benefits but as a rule if they're already ranking in stable positions considering the current DA/PA and MOZ i'm not overly concerned about them at this point (however it is on the list to edit the script for custom permalinks)

Looking at the big boys in the job site sector ALL of them use meta keywords, NONE of them have content on the category pages just jobs with related content so i'm following suit there - I don't think that would be harming the site but granted could help it with more content.

These are the only negatives i can see with the website but I'd be very surprised if these factors was the reason the homepage is bouncing back.. I've fetched as google and submitted the homepage in webmaster tools today and the rankings are back again, no doubt will go again .. could be the competition or maybe i'll have to delve a bit deeper on this one!

From past and present experience, Sorry but i'm going to have to agree to disagree with regards to EMD's

Thanks again!

 

[philiporchard]

Content on the relevant pages is critical and forget the meta keywords. I think Alex's advice was spot on.

Also, if you get get some quality links related to Sheffield jobs, then that will most certainly help too.