SEO - no visibility in Google search

Question
1

I am a graphic designer, a no-code-person, but pretty creative at solving problems. I have used Adobe Muse since day one, and are moving to Sparkle as this is the best option I found. Of course, there are things I miss, but also much that is better. I manage a lot of sites for clients and are now reworking them in Sparkle and at the same time building new ones from scratch.

One thing I struggle with is to get new sites visible in Google searches. The sites that I reworked are already out and have no problems, even though they are not linked to Google Analytics.

When launching new sites with Adobe Muse, except from a little patience with time they all showed up after some weeks. This is not happening with my new Sparkle sites. And I can’t find out why.

I know that many of the sites are not optimal when it comes to text and SEO, but my clients are mostly artists and the sites are mainly visual. Apart from this, all Suggestions from Sparkles SEO-assistant are followed.

Her are links to new sites that not are showing up on Google:

https://www.cathrineevelid.no
The site have been out for months

https://www.jennyalnes.no
The site have been out for months. There is a problem with the Norwegian letter æ, the artist name is Jenny Alnæs, but I have linked jennyalnæs.no to jennyalnes.no through the web hosting provider.

https://www.astridheimer.no
This site is recently launched

These sites ar reworked from Adobe Muse, and are showing up with no problems:

https://www.lucas.no

https://www.mariannebrekke.no

https://www.gryringset.no

All the sites are published using a Norwegian web hosting provider.
What have I missed?

2

As far as I can tell the sites are set up correctly. Can you look in the Google search tools if anything is flagged about https://www.cathrineevelid.no and https://www.jennyalnes.no?

3

When I check the sites on Google Transparency Report its says; no data available.

4

What about the coverage section.

5

Hello Marte, I had the same big problem :frowning:
recently I´ve tried to focus on the classical SEO tips but… the results are poorly.
That’s the only big issue that I´ve have with Sparkle, I really love it… but this is weird.
Anyone has found the trick to work right?

These are 3 sites that cries for visits haha


http://www.fumicorp.com.mx

and I have this one waiting for see the sunlight
6

(1) Your sites are showing unsecured. You need an SSL certificate for each site. All search engines penalize sites that don’t have an SSL certificate.

(2) Content, content, content. Classical SEO tips (including Sparkle’s) are meaningless with search engines today. It’s all about original, authoritative content. No stock images or videos. Don’t copy and paste from other websites. Use your own text, video, images, tables, and graphics.

(3) Sites today need to be updated frequently to stay relevant with search engines.

2 Likes
7

Thanks Jeffrey! Ill try to do that :smiley: Can you share the normal ratio of visits that you have in your sites with your tips? Because just before update fumicorp the ratio was 300 visits monthly and now it has like 30!. The old version of the website was made on Muse and without this recommendations that you said and still… 300 visits… so… I have no idea at all.

8

Hi Gustavo,

Great job with your sites on all 5 device breakpoints. Especially 320 and 480. Search engines penalize for lack of mobile, but not for your sites.

Also good to see your personality come through on your site. Love the quotes from your Wife/Mom/son. The selfie video will really connect with people.

About the underperforming sites in context of my three earlier points…

In addition to what I wrote about not having an SSL certificate - There are approximately 1.5 billion Apple devices in use worldwide with most using Safari browser. Safari will block an unsecured website without notifying the user.

When it comes to content your sites are static brochures. No blogs for example. Sites with a continuous flow of new content keep the search engines frequenting your sites for indexing. Every site should have a blog and video, updated weekly. The higher the quality of the content, the better the SEO. The best performing, most valuable websites (YouTube channels too) have high interaction between users and a site’s owner, thus creating a community.

I mentioned indexing - when you switched from Muse to Sparkle you remade the structure of the sites. Search engines can view restructured sites as new sites, which can take several months to get their ratios back.

Before I get to my ratios let me explain my workflow. I’m a content creator. I use Sparkle as a container and do my design work in other Apps. Building the website is the last step in my workflow. A website is the packaging I wrap around the content to tell a story.

My ratios…

When I take on a client site that’s static or not optimized for mobile I can immediately double page views and if selling, triple revenue. When I’m given full control of a site’s content it’s not unusual for page views to double monthly.

I don’t share client ratios as they are confidential. For my personal business website, travelhikelife.com, it went live in January this year and is averaging 40,000 page views per month, with a growth rate of 50%, for just 8 pieces of content. User’s average 28 minutes per visit and are from all over the world. Device breakdown is 40% phone, 30% iPad, 20% laptop, and 10% desktop. Traffic source breakdown is 40% search engine, 40% partner referral, and 20% unsolicited backlinks. When my YouTube channel goes live it will alter the traffic source percentages to the point where they become close to even - the ideal mix. It’s too early too monetize the site, so no direct revenue. Finally, I get emails from users everyday.

2 Likes
9

OMG Jeffrey! What a great answer.
I will work on the points that you mention, the thing that “worries me” is that my type of clients don’t have the time or the idea in the head of keep feeding their websites. They want to have a website that “only” works well jaja and that’s the hardest part, because they want results but they don’t want worry so much about the website, so they give me the info and then “do your magic” but the part of keep feeding… it’s not possible… they don’t have or want to give more info just because they are focus on produce and get out the urgent problems, the real problems and I get it. I completely understand. In México is like LIVING TO THE EDGE :laughing: So… I need to find a formula to get better SEO results without the part of keep feeding.
I really appreciate your answer and im really glad to be part on this community let’s keep with the good work!
Have a great week!

10

I have clients like that too. The websites are all secure (https). I have entered the domains in the Google Search Console and verified ownership. But they are not showing up at Google at all. The sites have been out for months. My Adobe Muse sites all showed up after some weeks, and gradually climbed up. My clients are not happy, and I am frustrated. Good advice is welcome;)

1 Like
11

For me this is the absolute main issue with Sparkle :frowning: Because my clients want results beside the aesthetics of the website… Fingers cross that soon we found the key for get to the next level!

12

Sparkle’s own site is on Google, as are many other Sparkle-built sites. I don’t see how you can pin the issue on Sparkle.

13

For what it’s worth, I have two Sparkle home made sites (and I’m not a professional) and both were visible in Google rather quickly.

14

@marte, There is so much little things that get overlooked when it comes to setting a Sparkle website up for organic SEO…

The Sparkle Team gave us recently a fantastic tool to help with this - the SEO Assistant.
If that is followed and all the recommendations it suggests is corrected then that is a massive leap forward to get Google and the likes to be happy with your site!

Also asking Sparkle to generate Search Engine Metadata is also a great help!
Then there is the importance of the mobile device. If the layout is not touch-friendly then nowadays Google and the likes massively penalises the site and the ranking drops in the bucket!

So there is so much more to this search engine ranking than just putting it down to Sparkle being the problem! :frowning:

15

Hei Greenskin
Thanks for replying.
I know it’s a complex question. I did not mean to blame Sparkle. I’m just a little desperate to solve the problem. I have built and published about 20 websites with Muse that have climbed up after som time. But the Sparkle sites that I have published for the first time are not showing up at all. This can be accidental and have other causes.

The excellent SEO Assistant are followed on all the sites.
The sites are all secure
Search Engine Metadata are generated

There are links to the website at the top of this topic.
Sincerely, a frustrated designer

16

Please get in touch via email and we’ll do a deep dive on the your websites. feedback@sparkleapp.com

17

Hello.

A note about the page https://www.cathrineevelid.no

I am not a Google expert, but there is virtually nothing on the page (i.e. text) that Google could read. And the links lead to other websites. Google needs content, content and more content.

I’m not surprised that Google doesn’t show any results.

Mr. F.

18

@marte, I’ll use your Cathrine website as an example…

They say that content is king and that is what Google and the likes need which makes them business. So having a quick look at the Cathrine website I can see the reason behind why Google hasn’t ranked you well…

  • most of the text on your site are images
  • you have titles to these images but not alt tags which search engines use

And a few other things, but from what I see I can tell you Google and the likes won’t rank your site within the first 25-30 pages, sorry…

PS: Ha I just saw @Mr_Fozzie say the same thing… I concur!

19

Sorry I had missed you listing all the sites.

So my question is, what does “showing up in google” mean to you precisely?

There’s no such thing as “being on google”, there’s just the concept of which keywords (umbrella term to mean key-phrases/search queries/search terms) you are aiming for, and how far up you get.

In general for a new site it’s hard to rank highly for a variety of topics, because the site hasn’t accrued the necessary reputation, so you need to focus a page of your site to a single query, and make the damn best answer to that query on the whole web.

This sounds hard, and it is hard if you have the expectation to do so for “hotel in new york”, but it’s not that hard for something that’s specific to your site.

Please pick one of the sites you can share details about, share what keywords you are aiming for on each page, then provide screenshots of the relevant pages in the google search console (searches, average rank, etc).

Happy to do this over email if you prefer, or discuss it here.

20

So a quick evaluation of https://www.jennyalnes.no.

  • I assume the search you are looking for here is “jenny alnæs” or “jenny alnaes”
  • your site verification is wrong, you entered google-site-verification=Lp0bMG1ySd74NPDURt3LbqKjpZaYFUbXtsG47t6derQ, it’s just Lp0bMG1ySd74NPDURt3LbqKjpZaYFUbXtsG47t6derQ (Sparkle should be more helpful here probaly), so unless you have used the DNS-based verification you won’t see the site in the search console, where Google gives valuable information
  • http://jennyalnæs.to doesn’t work
  • https://jennyalnes.no does work but should be a redirect instead of the same content (even though Google knows the difference because of the site address metadata stating https://www.jennyalnes.no is the “canonical” one
  • you have set the “jenny alnæs” text to have tag H1, but you also have the text links as H1. Two things here, 1) Sparkle associates an HTML Tag with an entire text style currently, so you need to have a distinct style for the title (the default styles are like this), 2) I think Sparkle doesn’t warn about having multiple H1 on the page, though it should

With all that said, the site has barely any text on the page for Google to work with, I’d suggest adding the “Jenny Alnæs er en norsk kunstner som arbeider med fotocollager, lysinstallasjoner, skulpturer og malerier” text (home page description) to the home page content.

Try making these changes and report back on the google search console.