6 Months of Consistent Steady Optimization

[momin90909]

I have been putting so much hard work on my website for almost 6 months. It was nowhere in google at start ofcourse. But slowly started to pick up. After 1 month of work it was almost on page 7 of Google. So I was able to rank it to top 3 positions in just 2 months. But the problem is that the Keyword has very high search volume, but I am getting very low CTR through Google Search queries. (<1% CTR from Google Search Impressions) and website is earning using Adsense. I need to ask:

1. Why is my website not ranking, even though I have been working consistently on it for 4 months and there is no progress.
2. Why is my website getting such low traffic even at number 2? Isn't CTR ought to be almost 13% for websites at number 2? My website is actually a spin-off of the website at number 1.

Can anyone help me with it? Because there is no side project I have been working upon. And almost all the time of my days have been spent on trying to get it to top. I haven't tried PBN's BTW. I have worked on link pyramids, manually making blog comments having low OBL.

 

[asap1]

1. Didnt you say its #2? Thats not bad at all, for #1 you might need some PBN links
2. You can try making your meta description better so more people click to your site.

 

[FNTK]

Yeah, improving meta tags should improve CTR... But it still doesn't add up. <1% for second place is too low.

How do you check your rankings? Also did you try to calculate approximate CTR for yourself? Accuracy of GWT is questionable...

 

[momin90909]

1. Didnt you say its #2? Thats not bad at all, for #1 you might need some PBN links
2. You can try making your meta description better so more people click to your site.

Thanks. I will try to make description of my site almost similar to first ranking website then.

PBN's! They are pretty much expensive for my current budget. I would have bought them in the 6 months if it did

 

[momin90909]

Yea. Its really low.

I track my rankings using SEMRush free package. Also I use http://whatpageofsearchamion.com if I am in real hurry.

I have also calculated CTR myself, it is actually that much. I caluclated it by dividing the total traffic by total search volume of my keyword and it was much less than 1%.

 

[FNTK]

Total traffic for one month divided by monthly search volume = CTR?

 

[momin90909]

Total traffic for one month divided by monthly search volume = CTR?

1% it shows in GWT. But we can calculate CTR by ourselves by dividing what we're getting with what is total search volume.

 

[FNTK]

I think your math is wrong mate.
CTR = traffic for particular keyword / search volume for that keyword * 100 (approximately)

Try doing it that way and see if it adds up. I really doubt that you would have <1% CTR on second place, it's way too low.

 

[FNTK]

Apart from all that, if you don't have enough money for PBN links I would suggest looking into this thread: http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...-pr3-high-quality-pbn-links-free-limited.html

It just might help you.

 

[momin90909]

I think your math is wrong mate.
CTR = traffic for particular keyword / search volume for that keyword * 100 (approximately)

Try doing it that way and see if it adds up. I really doubt that you would have <1% CTR on second place, it's way too low.

Apart from all that, if you don't have enough money for PBN links I would suggest looking into this thread: http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...-pr3-high-quality-pbn-links-free-limited.html

It just might help you.

Yup, did it. Its less than 1%

Thanks for the link. I will try to get one.

 

[laowai]

Are you sure that you didn't do rookie mistake and used broad match instead of exact match when you checked the search volume?

 

[cottonwolf]

did you try to share your site with people in 6 months?
on forums, reddit, social media and elsewhere?

 

[nutserious]

I suggest try installing some snippets, better on-site optimization. How many unique articles do you have? Have you tried targeting the long tail keywords? I suspect the guy in the #1 is getting loads of traffic from longtail ones. Which overall boost in SERP.

 

[lahpakam]

It wasn't clear, so like others said first you need to make sure that your site is really #2 for that keyword. Follow what others suggest. But if it's true that your site get so ridiculously low CTR then make sure that your title and description is click-baiting enough.

Your title must answer the keyword and your description must explain why it is the answer for the searched keyword. People who googling are looking for answers, they will always click if they think they find the potential one on the SERP.

 

[accelerator_dd]

Are you trying to rank for a brand name where the brand is #1 ? That would make sense if everyone finds exactly what they are looking for at #1, for example if you rank for "facebook" even at #2, I doubt you'd get more than 1% since #1 is what people are looking for.

 

[howard_hughes]

Your low ctr can probably be increased by.. Making the Title, Desc more Exciting/Appealing. Tried doing that?

Also, are there lots of ads for your keywords, sometimes they take away a lot of searches

 

[bartosimpsonio]

Try to find out which search term triggers the least ads.

Low CTR on Google with all that ad spam they place above the results is natural these days. Of course if you did the same they'd probably penalize you. Remember only Google gets to spam the WWW freely.

 

[momin90909]

Are you sure that you didn't do rookie mistake and used broad match instead of exact match when you checked the search volume?

Nope, I didnt. It actually is exact match search volume.

 

[momin90909]

did you try to share your site with people in 6 months?
on forums, reddit, social media and elsewhere?

I shared it on reddit, and also made facebook page for my website.

 

[momin90909]

Enter your site into SerpBook or SerpFox and see where you really rank. I suspect you're seeing personalized results.

I have checked using SEMRush and its 'actually' 2nd and 3rd position mostly.