I couldn't rank a website.

[CrispyChips]

It's difficult to diagnose the real issues without actually checking the website & It's competitors.

But I think it could be somewhere between branding & the pharma hack issue you mentioned in OP.

I have got few questions:

Are all the top spots taken by similar local business websites?

How are you & your competitors in terms of authority, what's Ahrefs DR, RD, BL counts?

How old are you & your competitors?

How are you & your competitors in terms of branding like gmb, review platforms, local listing sites?

First 2 are taken by Home Depot and a camera manufacturing company itself (both ranks for DIY content).

After that all the competitors.

Competitor	Position	Moz DA	Moz PA	Ahrefs DR	Semrush Authority	Domain Age	GMB
#1	3	18	39	11	9	4 years	Can't find
#2	4	10	17	0	8	6 years	Can't find
#3	5	20	29	5	8	4 years	27 Reviews - No posts - 5/5
Me	Not in Top 100	22	27	26	20	2 years	32 Reviews - Regularly posted till 24th August - 4.9/5

All of them have less backlinks than us.

 

[zippyants]

What's the age of the site you're trying to rank in comparison to those competitors?

 

[CrispyChips]

What's the age of the site you're trying to rank in comparison to those competitors?

Competitor	Position	Moz DA	Moz PA	Ahrefs DR	Semrush Authority	Domain Age	GMB
#1	3	18	39	11	9	4 years	Can't find
#2	4	10	17	0	8	6 years	Can't find
#3	5	20	29	5	8	4 years	27 Reviews - No posts - 5/5
Me	Not in Top 100	22	27	26	20	2 years	32 Reviews - Regularly posted till 24th August - 4.9/5

 

[zippyants]

Sorry I missed swiping right on my phone . So age could (could?) Be an issue.

 

[CrispyChips]

Sorry I missed swiping right on my phone . So age could (could?) Be an issue.

Usually I would say, it can be.

But in my case, few of my keywords (0 Search volume - 10-20 search volume) are already ranking on 1st page.

Some keywords are ranking on local search pack as well (top 3). But these exact keywords aren't ranking on the 1st page.

 

[zippyants]

Usually I would say, it can be.

But in my case, few of my keywords (0 Search volume - 10-20 search volume) are already ranking on 1st page.

Some keywords are ranking on local search pack as well (top 3). But these exact keywords aren't ranking on the 1st page.

Yep that's a strange one. You can share (PM) your link and I'll take a look - can't promise anything but a pair of fresh eyes.

 

[BigAda l]

Local SEO is a different animal completely from standard SEO - but it’s much simpler when you get the hang of it.

A well optimised Google Business Profile is massive for local SEO. Choose carefully categories that reflect your business. It’s vital you build pages on your money site that exactly match your GBP primary category and other categories. Very important: ask customers to leave reviews with targeted keywords. Add regular posts with geotagged images (these do still work today) Add products and regular updates. Use the Q&A feature too.

Build powerful local citations with consistent NAP’s and opening hours, build links from local directories

While doing this build thousands of backlinks for general SEO.

All this can take 6 months although local SEO success can be much quicker.

Job done.

 

[MKSKS]

Competitor	Position	Moz DA	Moz PA	Ahrefs DR	Semrush Authority	Domain Age	GMB
#1	3	18	39	11	9	4 years	Can't find
#2	4	10	17	0	8	6 years	Can't find
#3	5	20	29	5	8	4 years	27 Reviews - No posts - 5/5
Me	Not in Top 100	22	27	26	20	2 years	32 Reviews - Regularly posted till 24th August - 4.9/5

Are you in the camera niche?

If so that's a broad & competitive niche.
I guess it's either the content gap or the topical authority where your website is getting pushed back, since in terms of link profile your website looks superior.

Still I may be wrong, as I am just speculating based on the info I can see here.

If you're comfortable you can dm me your website I can have a look.

 

[1SEOWarrior]

How many years you are in business compared to your competitors?

 

[Godzillion]

It all boils down to a good seo in page. Answer search intent, do a good keyword research, have a strong interlinking structure, don’t use different anchor tags for the same URL. And since you’re in the camera niche I’m sure you can use some SILO link strategy by brand or something similar. Also if you aim for informational or mixed intent do comparisons. Check if you can answer some FAQs and push them into the rich snippets, if SERP shows any of them. SEO is not about finding the golden nugget, but putting all the little pieces together, everything adds up

 

[yuukojp]

My team builds some backlinks for the blogs posts as well (social bookmarking, using secondary links in article/web 2.0 and guest posts).

All of that (except for guest posts) is useless or harmful. If you have a large amount of junk backlinks and no good ones, that looks bad to Google.

 

[CrispyChips]

Are you in the camera niche?

If so that's a broad & competitive niche.
I guess it's either the content gap or the topical authority where your website is getting pushed back, since in terms of link profile your website looks superior.

Still I may be wrong, as I am just speculating based on the info I can see here.

If you're comfortable you can dm me your website I can have a look.

yes

Keywords on Semrush shows difficulty level low and have low SV. My boss only sees that.

Easy to rank + low SV = still can't rank = no use of doing whatever you do

 

[CrispyChips]

How many years you are in business compared to your competitors?

We are since 2021 and the competitor are older (2019, 2017...)

One more thing, my owner is having one more business (ecommerce website) with the same name.

By same I means,

His ecommerce website is since 2018 and let's assume its name is - ABC
His services business is since 2021 and its name is - ABC Tech

Now, can that brand name - ABC conflict?

Tagging others as well - @MKSKS @zippyants Deleted member 1501362 @Dj Co2 @tazarbm

 

[MKSKS]

Keywords on Semrush shows difficulty level low and have low SV. My boss only sees that.

While these tools are helpful at most times but they aren't 100% accurate that's why I always say to look at the serps.
I still feel it's either the content gap or the topical authority you will need to look into and improve.
You're not in top 100 that smells something is wrong with content, structure, link profile or maybe due to the hack.

No offence but your boss needs to understand how things change in the SEO space and how a messed algorithm focusing on EEAT can be unpredictable.

Going through the other posts I realized I missed this point:

First 2 are taken by Home Depot and a camera manufacturing company itself (both ranks for DIY content).

Both these are authority websites.