i’ve created a site - www.brightonhappy.com - and it’s not showing up on Google organic search in the way that I’d expect it to.
For example, if you search for brighton happy it doesn’t appear until page 22.
If you search brightonhappy it’s on page 2.
If you search brighton happy games it’s on page 1
I would have thought that ‘brighton happy’ on it’s own would come much higher up the rankings. Not necessarily on page 1 but higher than 22. Similarly, I would have thought ‘brightonhappy’ would have come up on page 1.
I don’t think I’ve done anything funny with the site. It’s been up for a while, re-jigged to try and address this problem between 2-3 weeks ago and from my limited knowledge of Google Webmaster tools there aren’t any errors being reported.
If anyone can shed some light on this I’d really appreciate it.
It’s surprising how lots of small steps add up to improved rankings. I would start by ripping out the keywords, since Google ignores them and Bing considers them a clue for spamming. How long has the site been there? It’s not unusual for rankings to bounce around for a while.
I’m afraid you’re suffering from the fact that ‘happy’ and ‘Brighton’ often appear together. I made the same mistake 13 years ago when I called my publishing company Tiger of the Stripe.
The original site was up earlier in the year @ashleykaryl. I then re-jigged it about three weeks ago. I know that Google doesn’t use keywords but I’d also read that they didn’t hurt your ability to rank. I’ve certainly used them elsewhere without any problems. If you search Bing for brighton happy it appears at the top of page one.
@peterdanckwerts - can you explain a bit? Simply that the combination of Brighton and Happy is something that people commonly search for? Even if that were the case, surely a domain called brightonhappy.com would appear earlier than it does.
… you get second ranking. This is a good sign that the search engine is reading your content and parsing it correctly.
I have to agree with @peterdanckwerts. The issue is not SEO but that “Happy” is a very common search term dominated by the theme song to popular movie that won all kinds of awards.
That stuff just has better organic rank than you do – your site will have to be very popular in order to float above all that other stuff.
Choosing simple common words is an uphill battle. My products are called “Stacks” and “Blocks” – I know all about this.
Are there any constructive ways to inch the site up the search results over time, following good practice? I feel I need to be able to go back to the client with more than just ‘tough - your business name is too common to rank’.
I can get him to submit it to local business directories, make sure that he uses the URL at the bottom of every email he sends. Creates a Facebook page and then links to the site and tweets using the business name. Convince him to add a blog page and write interesting, relevant blog entries about the business. Anything apart from that?
Be patient. Having chosen the worst possible name for my business, I now find that it usually comes out right at the top if one types tiger of the stripe.
The basic idea is that you need to do everything you can to convince google that you’re the very place on the web for those search terms.
“Brighton Happy” is going to be a tough row to hoe.
In the short term:
You could try to find a slogan or some other “hook” to associate with the brand that people will add to their search terms. You will naturally float to the top if there aren’t many other people there.
In the long term:
Google will rank your site higher if other sites link to it – especially if your search terms are in the link. So if there is a blog post that links to your customer’s site with those terms it will improve things. More blog posts. Yelp reviews. And so on… will help.
Here, I’m going to help right now. Brighton Happy
connecting people through play!
