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SEO Help with WP small business site
Posted by on February 14, 2026 at 4:04 amHi there. I'm a guitar teacher with a busy lesson practice. I'm not really struggling to find students right now but I want to make sure my business keeps ticking along.
My site used to rank on the first page for "guitar lessons (my city)," now I'm on the 5th page for that phrase?!
Lots of people are still finding me through google maps results (I have a ton of 5-star reviews), but I'm worried about my big slip in rankings for that keyword.
I don't know how recently this happened because I keep getting students so I just assumed everything was good.
I had aimed to rank highly for that keyword phrase by making it the stated KW for all of my blog posts, and by trying to slip it into each page and post somehow. (I have an old blog that I haven't updated in a long time.)
Questions for anyone with the patience and kindness to answer them:
- Is making "guitar lessons (my city)" the keyword for blog posts that are generally guitar related A. spammy, B. maybe therefore penalized by google, or C. outdated?
How can I improve my ranking for that keyword combo, or any specific phrase?
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Is having a blog even worthwhile anymore? Is it worth updating? I started this business a long time ago, and I created the blog based off knowledge I gained from a stint I did as an SEO copywriter, but I don't know if it even does anything these days.
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I love my WordPress theme but it's really old. Like 2012 old. Apparently it's still being updated, but I haven't updated mine in years. Is it hurting my SEO?
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Moz domain authority checker gave my site a spam rating of 14%. What did I do to earn that?
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My arch-nemesis (the guitar teacher who I set my sights on beating when I started, and was fairly recently smoking in search ranking for that kw) now ranks higher for it than I do, despite the fact that his site contains the keyword not even once. WTF?
I appreciate the help. If I can repay you by answering any guitar questions you have, I'm happy to. Thank you.
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1 Reply
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Check the page ranking for this kw. And try updating it . Along with your blog posts
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Personally I don’t really care what third party vanity metrics tell you, but if you want to increase your search engine ranking start adding backlinks with your keywords including your town in your anchor text.
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I’ll do your SEO for free in exchange for guitar lessons 🙂
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Putting keyword city on every post is the problem is my bet. Canabilization
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What is your home page optimized for? And are you using the same keyword everywhere?
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If you’re still getting students from Google Maps, you’re not in crisis. That’s honestly the main battlefield for a local business like yours.
Forcing “guitar lessons + city” into every blog post is more outdated than dangerous. Google’s smarter now. One strong, well-written service page for “Guitar Lessons in [City]” will do way more than sprinkling the phrase everywhere.
Your old theme could matter if it’s slow or clunky on mobile. That’s worth checking. And your competitor ranking without the keyword isn’t weird. Google looks at overall local trust, reviews, links, and site quality, not just exact phrases.
If it were me, I’d focus on one killer local page, keep your Google profile sharp, and maybe modernize the site a bit. The fact you’re busy is a good sign.
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If you’re still getting students from Maps, you’re not in trouble.
Stuffing “guitar lessons + city” into every blog post is outdated. One strong local service page will do more than repeating the phrase everywhere.
Your old theme could hurt if it’s slow or bad on mobile. And your competitor ranking without the keyword is normal. Google cares more about overall local authority, speed, and trust than exact wording now.
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You need content and you need links, for SEO. Helpful content and links with the anchor text being “guitar lessons my city”.
From you speaking about maps, you have a Local SEO question. Local SEO and organic SEO are 2 different topics, but they do compliment eachother.
For Local SEO, it is a good idea to have {service} + {location} pages. In your case, you will have service “guitar lessons” and “private guitar lessons” as examples, and for location you will have “my city”, “my neighbourhood” and “my county”.
So you will need (2 x 3) + (2 + 3) = 11 pages, to accomodate for this. This can be achieved in WordPress with what is called Custom Post Types. Personally, I use JetEngine for this, but ACF should work too.
Blogs are to be used for just that… blogs… you can write about other keywords there.
As for reviews, ask your reviewers to use the keyword you want to rank for in the review. They should not say “John is awesome”, they should say “John offers the best GUITAR LESSONS in MY CITY.”
Thats content covered. As for links, ask local businesses with websites to link to your website, in return for something you can offer. Links have a currency, so say a vehicle wrapping company with lots of website traffic’s son has lessons with you, offer him a discount on the lessons if he blogs about you in his blogs. That or buy links, but this is against Google policy, or exchange links like the rest of us.
Happy ranking.
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