Hi there,

I'm really hoping someone can help.

Since building our site on Wordpress we have noticed images on our site are performing strangely within Google SERPS and im assuming its something to do with our build.

We run a photo booth company in the UK. One of our search keywords are "photo booth hire Croydon". When we click on Google images we do see the images listed from the page https://myfunphotobooth.com/croydon-photo-booth-hire.html which is correct and when clicked they do go to that page. However as you will see form the picture where it should say our root domain or website name it states "photo booth hire Surrey".

 

Could someone please help me diagnose this issue please.

Warmest regards and thanks in advance 

Paul 

I'm going to hazard a bit of detective guesswork, I say hazard as I'm not going to check every page. I'm guessing that Google has mistaken "photo booth hire Surrey" as your company name in a way and I think it's due to the navigation.

View source on brighton-photo-booth-hire.html, croydon-photo-booth-hire.html and photo-booth-hire-sutton.html. When you search for the term it appears twice, both as;

<a href="https://myfunphotobooth.com">Photo Booth Hire Surrey</a>

... all the other navigation links go to their correct location, it's just the Surrey ones that link to the home page. If you times each page you have by 2 links (min) per page then site wide it's not inconceivable they think your brand name is "photo booth hire Surrey".

Hi BrowserBugs,

Firstly many thanks for looking at it your a legend!. I can see what you are referring to. I don't understand why I appear to have two separate /lib or menus in the source code for the navigation menu or am i reading this incorrect. I only have the one menu structure. 

In relation to the architecture of the menu, our homepage unfortunately has always been our Surrey page and the business grew from there.  Do you think it would be best from Googles interpretation that i simply don't have drop downs in the menu and just link to the Areas we cover page? or remove the counties Surrey, Sussex, Kent and London and just list the all towns?

 

Thanks again buddy your the best !

Paul  

TBH no idea why you have two either, that's something @fisicx would be able to tell, it's WP at the end of the day lol.

Although you started in Surrey you've grown, and now essentially the site is Surrey heavy, I'm not sure how well you do in other areas searched. IMO the home page should be a company / service overview, and then the areas we cover should introduce them, Surrey should be equal with London, Sussex etc.

By introducing Surrey as an area covered rather than the home page the search engines will understand more, especially if the breadcrumbs confirm their assumptions.

Home | We Do Photo Booths etc

Areas Covered | Here's the areas we will deliver the units to.
Crumb: Home > Areas Covered

Surrey | We will deliver the units to Surrey.
Crumb: Home > Areas Covered > Surrey

Epsom | We will deliver units to Epsom which is a town in my parent section Surrey
Crumb: Home > Areas Covered > Surrey > Epsom

By establishing this structure you're essentially training the search engines (and helping users) what to expect below and above each step in the breadcrumbs. Should you decide to branch into Hertfordshire then the minute you add it to Areas Covered the search engines already know what to expect based on Surrey, London, Sussex etc; they know it will be about Photo Booth Hire (from home page), it's a new Area you cover so Hertfordshire must be a region just like Surrey.

Hi BrowserBugs,

I completely agree and would implement this immediately. My only concern is we have been trading for a good few years and have backlinks with anchored text like "photo booth hire surrey" looking at our homepage. Essentially now restructuring Surrey to a fresh page potentially could be quite damaging to its Google SERP rank (currently 2/3). Maybe this is something worth doing though for the greater good as the site will be layed out better and should avoid Google confusion.

mmm 🤔

Thanks again

Paul