I have a website focused on a local service (like 'plumbers new york' - but its not that.) I know what keywords are relevant and have some SEO done on the site. The site is 10+ years old. It has a good number of backlinks with many from good domains. We are being outranked by newer, thinner sites with fewer backlinks. Why......
Things I want done / questions I want answering..... Competitor analysis - what keywords are they using that we are not? What backlinks do they have that are causing them to outrank us? Backlink Analysis - Analyze the current backlinks. Tell me if there are any issues with the backlink profile (does it look spammy etc). On-page SEO - Any suggested changes. Is there something about the site or its structure causing poor ranking? How does it look in the crawlers? Off-page SEO - What changes would you make Internal linking structure - any suggested changes? Look into the HTACCESS to see if thats causing any issues....
After all this is done I would like to know why certain sites are performing better (their backlinks? Their site speed?), and some action steps I can take to improve rankings for my main keyword or keywords.
When quoting - I ask you to bear in mind that, while this reporting piece is a once-off project - we will likely need help in implementing your recommendations....