WEB DESIGN PORTFOLIO

Massage Medicine SEO Problem

Getting back in Google's good graces after a site hack.

A client with an independent massage therapy business in Portland, Maine approached me with an SEO problem.  Their WordPress site had been pharma hacked.  They had done their best to fix it, but Google had black-listed their domain, and they weren’t showing up in search results.  The site wasn’t being indexed by Google.  Google Search is the most important resource for businesses looking for new customers.  This needed to be fixed ASAP.

The first step was to go look at all the files and remove all the backdoors left by hackers.  This was done with a combination of visual inspection (I know WordPress file structure like the back of my hand) and the use of the WordFence Plugin.  WordFence does a great job of scanning and finding files that don’t belong.

For SEO we added the plugin SEO by Yoast and got keywords, titles, meta descriptions, sitemaps, and social media meta tags all organized. The site was then connected to Google Analytics and Google Search Console.  The all-clear was given by Google and the website was off and running. All the pages were indexed within a couple of days.

To improve page ranking on search engine result pages (SERP) we developed a strategy of creating more incoming links via social media and customer reviews.  I recommended creating pages for Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google+ for incoming links.  I also encouraged the client to get more customer reviews for Google My Business, and Yelp.  Updating all the social media sites can be a chore so I also showed the client how to use the Buffer app as a way to add content with less effort.

My client can now watch as their page ranking improves over time in the very competitive massage therapy marketplace.