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On-page optimization

Create A Custom SEO Strategy For Long-term Growth

Establishing an effective, custom SEO strategy for your business is more important now than it ever has been. The global pandemic has created a strong awareness of the options that exist to people in a contactless environment.

Many people will continue to explore those options long after the pandemic is over. As online searches continue to surge, companies are experiencing a large increase in the demand for their products.

The benefits of SEO have never been greater. A top-ranking in the search results for important keywords can contribute to the largest source of leads and new clients your business acquires.

Many companies relying on the in-store experience have felt the impact, while those positioned at the top of the search results have experienced a boost in brand recognition and overall sales.

The bottom line is that your business needs to be prepared for more digital solutions in a contactless environment. A custom SEO strategy is one of your best solutions to ensuring long-term growth.

Why is SEO important in 2020?

Despite the inevitable end of a global pandemic, the behavioural patterns of the typical consumer has been changed forever. Online searches have surged creating massive traffic opportunities for companies to capitalize on to increase revenue.

So many have turned to online shopping for the first time. As people become more accustomed to researching and making purchases online the trend in online sales will continue to skyrocket.

Ecommerce is booming and will continue its rapid expansion of total sales. The numbers this year will break all records and extend past initial projections.

ecommerce predictions suggest increased importance of a custom SEO strategy
image source: https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-ecommerce-2020

How can you position your company to benefit from the inevitable shift in the way we do business?

Position your website to receive increased search traffic to capture more leads and new clients. Execute a custom SEO campaign designed to drive traffic from keywords that are important to your business.

What is an SEO campaign?

An SEO campaign is a process that improves your website’s search visibility through improved rankings in keyword searches. It results in attracting visitors who are a match to what your business offers in products and services.

An SEO campaign provides the blueprint for developing your site in the major keyword topics that surround the inner workings of your business. As you build content that answers questions and educates visitors, your site becomes increasingly relevant to keyword searches.

As a result, your website appears in keyword-related searches from users at different stages of the buyer journey.

The buyer journey details the different types of content that need to be created in an SEO strategy
image source: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/what-is-the-buyers-journey

The goal is to create a website that has the ability to drive traffic, educate prospects and convert visitors to clients.

How to customize your SEO strategy and build an effective SEO campaign

The main focus of an SEO campaign is on the keywords you target and the content you publish. The largest ranking factor is being the best result to a search query. An SEO campaign builds the relevance of your page to the keyword topics and targets.

Understand your audience by researching your target keyword

Establishing search intent is crucial to understanding what it is that Google is using to rank pages highly in a search result. Keyword research is the first area that establishes the foundation of an effective SEO strategy.

What is the user truly expecting to find when they type in a search query?

Whenever you’re considering a keyword to target, the first action is to use that keyword in a search. The SERP (search engine result page) contains a lot of information that will point to what is needed to rank for the search term.

Reverse engineer the way other pages have achieved a top ranking to provide clues on how your site will outperform your competition.

Perform a SERP analysis

For every keyword search you will find the following on the SERP:

  • The level of competition that competes for the first page
  • The type of content that is being used to rank
  • How pages are optimized to perform
  • How many links are pointing to the ranking pages
  • How Google displays the search result
  • The commercial value of the search term

Establish intent

The first assessment is whether this term is a perfect fit for your company. If the pages that rank are all competitors that are offering the same product or service it confirms the relevance of the keyword to your business.

If there is a mix of results, consider a more specific search term to avoid unwanted traffic that wouldn’t be interested in your content.

Assess the competition

Using software and keyword tools becomes necessary in order to establish the authority competing pages have built. By identifying the number of links each page has pointing to it, where those links came from and whether they will benefit your site is the first indication of how realistic your keyword is to rank.

Build a list of alternative keywords

A search result can display many different features that are clues to what users are searching for when they search for your keyword. Establish commonly used phrases and keyword alternatives to build a better understanding of what the bigger picture is to the user’s true intent.

Read more on how to choose the perfect keywords for your site

Prioritize your target keywords

Keyword research will result in a large list of keywords, keyword synonyms and related search phrases. Prioritize your list in order of importance. Group your keywords based on search intent.

The result should be a keyword strategy that addresses the most important aspects of your keyword topic. This is the initial blueprint of a keyword strategy that lays the foundation for your content strategy.

Develop your Content Strategy

The approach you take on building content should be to provide as much information about your business by building a resource of information. The content you publish should answer common questions, provide insight and educate based on satisfying the intent of the keywords you target.

As your site becomes more successful in ranking for these terms, it increases the trust search engines place on your website for keyword related searches.

Map your content to match your keyword strategy

A visual representation of a keyword strategy is known as a topic cluster. Google ranks pages based on topical relevance. Connecting the ideas and concepts of your main keyword topic builds more relevance to your site and to the pages that are interlinked.

topic clusters concept to structure your content in an SEO campaign
Image source: https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/what-are-topic-clusters

The pillar pages of your site will target the most important keywords. The clustered content will target more specific searches that serve connect visitors to your business by addressing the various details surrounding your keyword topic.

Read about how to implement pillar pages

Publish content that performs

The content you publish needs to serve the user’s purpose. If there are massive guides that are published on the first page of results for your keyword, it indicates the level of detail that’s required.

The Skyscraper method is a common approach to making sure your content is 10 times better than anything that ranks.

Using this approach ensures you cover the topics and subtopics necessary to address the intent of a search.

Read about how to write SEO content that ranks highly

As a local business, publishing local SEO content is a strategy that enhances your local search appearance.

Optimize for traffic opportunities

When your page ranks at the top of a result, it ranks for a number of different keywords. People use a number of different terms in a search-even though they are searching for the same content. Part of your content strategy includes optimizing for additional terms as well as traffic opportunities that exist in Google features.

Featured snippets and PAA boxes, for example, are considered and traffic opportunities because they are features that attract a percentage of clicks on the search engine result page.

featured snippet and PAA box are traffic opportunities in your content strategy

Optimize to appear in these features for additional traffic to the same page for multiple related search terms.

Link building strategy

Link building is necessary to get votes of confidence in the quality of your content. Well-placed links to your content build credibility and authority in your niche and industry.

There are a number of different link building methods you can employ, but regardless of what you choose the strategy should appear as natural as possible.

A common tactic employed is to assess your competitor’s links. By identifying where their links come from, you can pick up on a few links for your site.

Not every link on a competing page will be good for your ranking. In fact, there may be links pointing to their site that don’t help them and are hurting their ranking potential.

Choose to pursue links from websites that have traffic and whose visitors will be genuinely interested in your content. This approach helps to identify the sites that have a strong relation to yours and also get more people on your site that has a strong possibility to become clients.

Reach out to similar niche and authority sites

Most SEO campaigns require some level of outreach. In order to get links in the most natural way, it’s common to reach out to website owners who publish similar content.

The success of your link building depends largely on the quality of your content. When you have good content worth sharing people won’t mind linking to it.

Achieve goals and benchmark your success with your SEO strategy

Every SEO campaign should end with the goal of driving traffic to your site from keyword searches that serve a role in your overall keyword strategy.

Creating content that ranks is a primary function of traffic generation. With the right keyword strategy, your website will thrive from the flow of visitors that convert to clients.

Customize your SEO campaign to achieve keyword related goals and drive traffic that converts.

50 Ways To Improve On-Page SEO [Infographic]

Almost everything we do on a daily basis is somehow integrated with a website, an app or Google search. For most companies, generating leads from Google is a major source for new clients. This article will show you how to improve on-page SEO on any website for any keywords in order to drive more traffic from Google search results.

The biggest ranking factors that dominate the search results are the content you publish and the quality of the backlinks that point to your website. Luckily for website owners, content is one of the things you have direct control over.

On-page optimization is a crucial aspect of making sure your page targets the right keywords to attract the right type of traffic. You can enhance the ranking signals your site demonstrates for a specific keyword to maximize the potential your website has for generating leads.

The following infographic lists 50 different ways that your typical SEO company will improve your on-page SEO.

This infographic lists 50 different ways to improve on-page seo

Title optimization

Your title is the first thing that most people will look at in a search result. Include your keyword near the beginning of your title. Keep the length of your title at 60 characters to avoid it being cut off in the search results.

The title is the most important heading of your page and therefore should be wrapped in h1 tags. Most CMS software will automatically tag the title so you don’t need to worry about it if you’re using WordPress, Joomla, Wix or Squarespace.

Optimize your URL

The extension you give your page is an important descriptive detail for users and search engines. Use the postname option in your permalink settings and make sure your URL contains your keyword.

Users should get a sense of what your page is about by reading the URL. Limit the URL to five words to maximize the potency of your keyword description. Ideally, your URL should be kept under 90 characters to improve on-page SEO.

Use descriptive subtitles

Use your subtitles to segment your content into the most important parts of your page. Use h2, h3, h4 tags to signal to search engines the level of importance each heading represents.

When users scan through the page they should get an accurate summary of the content contained. What’s good for users is good for search engines.

Include your keyword and variations of your keyword at least once or more depending on the length of your article.

Publish keyword-rich content for users

Updates such as Hummingbird and BERT have allowed search engines to accurately extract the meaning from text. There is no substitute for descriptive, high-quality content. Despite this fact, it is still good practice to include your keyword in the first paragraph.

It would make sense that your target keyword would be repeated in a natural, conversational tone throughout your content. Your keyword should appear at least several times throughout the body of content.

Avoid over-optimizing your content by keyword stuffing. Any unnatural and forced use of a target keyword could trigger an adverse effect on the optimization of your page.

Content that satisfies search intent will rank highly. This means that when you target a specific keyword make sure you are covering the most obvious and most searched topics and subtopics that would satisfy the user’s query.

The goal is to make your website the last destination of a user’s search because you have adequately answered their query.

Images

Despite the giant leaps forward in a search engine’s ability to extract meaning, search engines still rely on your input to determine the meaning of an image.

Use keyword-rich descriptions in the image alt tags to give search engines the intended meaning your image represents and improve your on-page SEO.

Include your keyword in the filename.

Fill out captions and give your image an appropriate title to enhance optimization. This gives more information for search engines to properly categorize your image.

Outbound links

There is much evidence to support that linking out to authority sites improves the optimization of your page. Linking to a page that helps to enhance the user’s understanding of a particular topic adds credibility and signals relevance to your keyword topic.

Inbound links

The links that point to your page have a major influence on your optimization. Use descriptive anchor text to influence what keywords your page best represents for contextual links.

Guest posting is a popular method for optimizing the external anchor text links that point to your page.

Although keyword anchor text will enhance the optimization of your page, the overuse of keyword-optimized anchor text links will have an adverse effect on your ranking.

Webmasters should implement an internal linking strategy to achieve optimal on-page SEO. Use pillar page best practices for creating clustered content and an effective internal linking strategy.

Page speed

We are well into an era where page speed can mean the difference in making a sale-or even holding a user’s attention. Do you remember the last time you waited a minute for a page to load? Neither do I. No one waits for slow websites anymore.

If your page isn’t loading in under 3 seconds you are losing a percentage of the traffic that lands on your site.

If your site is super slow, then you’re facing a problem that is affecting your ranking because it contributes to poor user experience.

Keep your images compressed, reduce the number of HTML requests, inline JavaScript and CSS, use plugins and CDN’s to maintain an acceptable page load time.

Proper use of redirections

Whenever deleting or merging content it is advisable to use a 301 redirect to forward traffic from the old URL to the new. Avoid using 302 redirects as well as using redirect chains. Your redirections should take a user from one URL directly to the new page.

Broken links

When a user clicks a link and is taken to an error message it reduces their user experience. The accumulation of broken links will adversely affect rank. All links should take a user to a destination that enhances their user experience rather than undermines it.

Make site audits a regular routine to identify and repair broken links. Check both inbound and outbound links using software such as Ahrefs and Screaming Frog.

Use 301 redirects for the internal links that are broken. Replace all broken outbound links with new URLs to authority sites.

Accessible to search engines

Every page on your site should be accessed in less than 4 clicks from anywhere on the site. Your page should be able to be indexed by search engines, which can be impeded by the robots.txt file.

Site audits will identify what pages are indexed as well as those that are not indexable. You can also find this information on Google Search Console under the errors tab.

Incorporate schema

Use schema to make your page eligible for rich snippets. Using Schema better describes what your page is about to search engines and allows for a better understanding of the content.

Using JSON-LD is Google’s recommended script language and accounts for faster processing.

Responsive & made for mobile

Your pages should be made for mobile users-especially since the mobile version is now the first version that is indexed by Google.

Users should experience the same functionality on different screen sizes Your content should be easy to read and reformat its layout according to screen size.

Check your sites mobile score on Google’s Mobile Friendly Test and make any necessary changes listed in the report.

High-quality & shareable content

The term “high-quality” is a term we use a lot to describe how content should be written. The truth is that content should provide unique value and be compelling enough for users to want to share it with others.

We derive value from content that is entertaining, educational and informational. The use of images, video, audio and interactive media all contribute to a high-quality piece of content.

A high-quality web page is easily read by users at an 8th to 9th-grade reading level. The Fleischman scoring system scores content based on how difficult the page is to read.

In order for content to be shared easily, there should be social sharing icons that allow users to post to the appropriate social media platform.

Improve your on-page SEO

There’s no doubt that on-page SEO is necessary to rank your website on the first page of Google. As search engines continue to expand their capabilities, every aspect of optimizing your web page becomes less negotiable in order to maintain high rankings.

Incorporate each element of on-page optimization in your content creation. Create highly competitive, targeted pages that are built to last on the first page of search results.

A Guide To Small Business SEO Consulting Services

Getting started

This guide to small business SEO consulting services is for small business owners who want to undertake some of their SEO efforts on themselves. This is also for those who want an intimate understanding of what an SEO consultant strives to accomplish in order to drive more traffic. Throughout this document, you will learn the basic formulas for what makes a website rank and how you can do it yourself.

Local SEO

One of the first things that should be done to maximize the amount of traffic your site receives is to optimize your site for local searches. Claim and verify your listing on Google My Business and get your website on the map for searches that originate close to your location.

Maximize the strength of your GMB listing

Optimize your listing to trigger as many appearances in the search results as possible. You can do this by including every bit of information that is available for you in the profile.

  • Enter your address (if you service a large area and do not have a brick and mortar address you should leave the address field blank)
  • Upload images.
  • Add your logo.
  • Post content on Google posts.
  • Answer questions on the knowledge panel.
  • Include the most appropriate categories.

All of these little details may seem trivial, but they all contribute to a stronger local profile.

Encourage reviews

Reviews are a ranking factor that will contribute to where your company is displayed in the local finder. The more five star reviews your company receives the more likely you are to appear in the local pack (top three sites listed on the first page of search results).

Detailed, keyword-rich reviews will go a much longer way than short reviews. Encourage your customers to talk about their experience with your company to get the most of reviews as a ranking signal.

Add relevant citations

When search engines assess your site in a local search, they will confirm your name address and phone number (NAP) with trusted websites that publicly display this information.

Use the top local sites to confirm your address and build credibility as a local presence. Use Bing, Yellow pages, Manta, Foursquare and other well-known sites to list your business information. It is extremely important to keep all of your NAP details identical across all websites in order to build your credibility.

Perform A Site Audit

Before beginning the process of ranking pages the foundation of your site needs to be like bedrock. Unshakable. You’re going to be running an audit to check for any errors your site generates.

Perform a site audit to identify and correct the problems that currently exist so they don’t haunt you in the future. It would be a shame to go through the entire process of ranking a page and you end up losing all your rankings to a pre-existing issue.

There are a lot of free tools available for running site audits so don’t feel like you’re limited to using the ones mentioned in this guide. Screaming Frog is among the most popular choices, which is what we’ll run in this example.

Download your free version of Screaming Frog

Simply enter your URL and allow the software to crawl your site. The end result is a report that will indicate the technical status of your site.

Plan & execute effective keyword research

Start your keyword planning by making keyword buckets to group ideas and topics that are closely associated.

Start with the main keyword that represents your service. List all of the topics or subtopics that are involved in providing that service. For example here is a keyword bucket for SEO services:

Main keyword: SEO services

Bucket ideas: Link building, On-page optimization, keyword research, content creation, local SEO, site audit, technical SEO.

Each of these bucket ideas is part of what makes up providing SEO services. The content on the SEO services page will address each of these items but because it is a conversion page, it would be about the benefits of each of these individual services.

The details of each service would then need to be explained on a separate page in further detail to provide a clearer understanding of how they work.

Pillar page concept
Pillar page links out to smaller related articles

This basic concept of bucketing ideas creates the hub and spoke structure on your website. By listing as many different topics that go into your main services you are connecting all of the potential aspects of your service and providing the depth of the topic by publishing separate pages to fully explain how it works.

Hub and Spoke Structure

Assigning value

You will need to work from a spreadsheet and use a keyword tool to assign value and generate additional keyword ideas. When you’re choosing the best keywords for your website you will want to account for relevancy as your top priority but target keywords that have volume, commercial value with lower competition.

Type your seed keyword in the keyword tool of your choice. Here is a list of the most popular tools:

  • Ahrefs
  • Moz
  • Google Keyword Planner

Export the results of your search into a spreadsheet.  You are looking for the keywords with the most volume and commercial value that will add depth to your main keyword topic as well as be able to rank these pages with the least difficulty.

Make a list of the keywords to include in the content of the main page. You will also build separate pages on major subtopics as part of the hub and spoke structure.

Choose the most relevant keywords with the best balance between the lowest values for competition, cost per click, and volume.

Grouping by intent

The list you create will be extensive. Using keyword tools you should be able to come up with at least 100 keywords that you could potentially include in the content you’re going to create. You will need to separate your list into groups that represent the different pages on your site based on search intent.

Long-tail keywords

Create a short term goal and a long term goal for every page that points to your pillar page by targeting long-tail keywords. Over 50% of all search terms are more than four words. By creating a longer search term you will reduce the competition that’s optimized for the key phrase. Adding more descriptive terms to your keyword will drive more targeted traffic to your site.

Create long-tail keywords by forming a question using your seed keyword. This will set the stage to optimize for featured snippets, PAA boxes (People Also Ask) and voice search. Over 80% of Google home results are displayed from featured snippets.

Ask your question in every form of “who, what, where, when, why and how.” You can make your own list or seek the assistance of Answer The Public. By typing in your keyword on the dashboard of this site it will return a list of questions using who, what, where, when, why and how.

Answer the public report on long tail keywords posted for the guide on small business seo consulting services

Additionally, Answer The Public will also produce reports on what words are most often combined with your keyword, what phrases are most typed and offers this info in as a visual display or in list format. You can export all of the results generated but keep in mind you have a daily limit for how many reports you can generate.

Another quick and easy way to find popular long-tail keywords is to use Google itself. The PAA boxes will list three questions to start based on your search. If these questions are in line with your content you can optimize to appear in the box for those very same questions.

By clicking on one answer, the box will expand and lead to more related questions in which you can add to your list of options.

Google autosuggest is the drop-down that suggests search terms when you start typing in the search box. Add those terms to your list and use them to produce different results in new searches. The “searches related to” box at the bottom of the page will also provide similar results that are worthwhile exploring.

Check for SERP Features

The existence of a SERP feature can influence what long-tail phrase you use as your title. As a supporting article to your main keyword page, you will want to optimize for the featured snippet and PAA boxes by using a question that matches the search intent of the existing feature. An exact match isn’t necessary but the title must reflect the same search intent as the query.

Perform a competitive analysis

Most paid versions of keyword tools will give you an indication of the level of difficulty a keyword represents but you’ll need a more in-depth analysis of your competition before finalizing your decision.

Domain authority and page authority

Domain authority refers to a website’s ability to rank. The DA is based on the number of referring domains as well as the quality of the referring domains that link to the website.

Page authority refers to the ability a specific page has to rank. High authority sites will naturally have higher authority pages. If the page authority is not strong enough to rank on its own, backlinks are needed in order to increase the authority of a page and move the page up in rank.

The first assessment of difficulty can be made from a broad view by using the browser extension Mozbar. This tool allows you to see the page authority, domain authority, the number of backlinks and spam scores of domains when they’re listed in a search result.

If searching your keyword produces a list of domains that are way above your domain authority you will need to consider an alternative keyword to use. Some search terms would simply take too long to rank and would not be worth the effort. Use the Mozbar to give you a brief overview of what it will take to rank your page for that keyword.

Side by side comparison

If your keyword produces a list of sites that are comparable in authority, start an in-depth analysis to identify how you will outperform the ranking page. You will aim to outperform the page in authority, content, on-page optimization and technical performance.

Competing with page authority

To get the complete picture of the authority of the ranking page, run a backlink analysis on the URL. Explore every linking domain to see whether these links are obtainable or whether substitutes can be found to match and exceed the quality.

There is no exact formula that will give you a magical number of how many links you will need, only common sense and persistence.

Export the backlink report to compare the DA of the linking domains.

If the ranking page has a few high authority links you will need to aim for more of the same types of high authority links to match credibility.

If they have medium DA sites linking, you may only need a few high authority links to beat them with a link strategy.

What counts the most in your link strategy is that the backlinks you acquire are an excellent match in relevance.

What type of links your competition has acquired? Are they from guest posting sites? You can acquire the same.

Are they on a site in an unrelated niche? You can use their mistake to your advantage by ONLY linking to related sites in your niche.

Keep in mind that a backlink report will not tell you which links are hurting their credibility-you will need to decide that for yourself.

Assess the depth of the topic

A complete analysis of the ranking page will give you an idea of the level of quality and the type of content that needs to be produced. This isn’t an excuse to copy what they’ve done but if two out of the three top-ranked pages are “how-to” guides that count over 3000 words it’s a sign you need to produce something comparable.

Word count is not a ranking factor, but it does provide a good benchmark for aiming to achieve a specific level of depth in your content. Aim to go beat the word count of the top-ranked pages by large margins. If they have 1000 words make your page 2000 words.

Identify alternate keywords

Are there any alternate keywords the page is ranking for? Ahrefs provides a tab to get an overview of the number of keywords a specific page is ranking for.

Identifying alternate keywords your competition is ranking for will indicate the related topics that should be included in your content. Your keyword research should have produced the related subtopics to your main page. Compare the keywords you’re trying to rank for to see whether you’ve missed anything relevant that could contribute to satisfying search intent.

Match the media

Content is one of the largest ranking factors search engines use to display the top sites in a search. Part of producing quality content is including media such as images, video, charts tables, podcasts and anything that enhances the user experience.

Create better engagement by including more media in your content. If your competition has a video, make yours longer or possibly include two. The decision is ultimately yours to find a way to make your page outstanding. Originality goes a long way with your visitors. What’s good for your visitors will equate to positive ranking signals for the search engines. Create the best experience imaginable by making better use of media to convey your message.

Compare on-page optimization

If a page is ranking in the top three spots for your keyword check to see if they are using the right optimization signals for search engines to place them at the top. You will need answers to the following questions:

  1. Is the keyword in the title?
  2. Is the keyword in the URL?
  3. Is the keyword in the image alt tags?
  4. What keywords are in the H2 tags?
  5. What LSI keywords and keyword synonyms have they used throughout their content?
  6. What pages do they link out to?
  7. What internal links are relevant to the page?
  8. What anchor text has been used in their inbound linking strategy?
  9. Are there bolded keywords?

If your competition is missing any on-page elements of optimizing for your target keyphrase, you may have an opportunity to outperform them in this category.

Create content to satisfy user intent

One of the advantages of effective keyword research is that it sets the stage for your content creation. The keyword clusters you’ve created represent the basic foundation for the structure of your website.

Build a pillar page that represents your main keyword. This page will include every aspect of your keyword. This page will inform your readers about the benefits of your product and service.

Create content to represent every subtopic that can be broken into a narrower focus. Use the subtopic pages to explain the details of what your company provides.

You now have the basic requirements for what your website needs to explain your services using the keywords that are closely related. The depth of the topic is demonstrated by providing detailed posts on the subtopics that go into your main keyword.

From your competition analysis, you also know what type of content you will need to acquire backlinks. The pages you build will meet and exceed the standards of what is already ranking.

You will also have an idea of what articles you needed to build links from guest posting efforts.

Connecting with your readers

The quality of your content will contribute to higher rankings by providing true value to your readers. High-quality content goes beyond industry knowledge.

Know your audience to get to the issues in which your readers are most interested. Increase engagement and value by publishing original, insightful content that a reader can apply to their lives after reading.

Find relevant topics your prospective clients are interested in. Go to the places that they go when seeking answers to problems they are having in their lives.

Identify pain points and common questions people are asking related to your keyword topic by researching forums. Forums can produce large volumes of traffic in which you can find a gold mine of insight. You can type into Google “[your keyword] + forums to come up with a list of forums related to your topic.

Scan through the discussion boards for questions or topics that have a lot of responses and engagement. You can pick up on the issues that affect people the most by looking for questions that consistently come up. Take note of what they are saying and what is motivating them to seek out information on your keyword topic.

Another way to dig up issues that resonate with your readers is to research frequently asked questions on big brand sites. When a brand that has thousands of visitors going through their site on a daily basis publishes questions on their FAQ page, you can bet that it’s because it’s a question that everyone is asking and that the answer to that question will attract some interest from the visitors of your site.

Reddit has grown so much in popularity that you can find a subreddit on literally any topic. You can see what people are responding positively to by the up-votes that serve as an indication of popularity.

User-generated content is among the most valuable resources for identifying topics, pain points and worthwhile discussions. Being aware of the responses to specific issues or commonly asked questions will provide some of the best clues on how to create content that resonates with your readers.

Optimize your content

Your on-page optimization enhances the ranking signals for the keyword you’re targeting. Search engines will gather the meaning of your page through semantic analysis to determine whether your content satisfies search intent for specific queries. Optimize your page for the words you want your page to rank highly for by placing your keyword in the expected places that summarize your content.

Optimize your title

Your title is one of the most important parts of the entire page because it provides the quickest most obvious summary of your content. This is the main selling feature and the first thing people see in a search result. Most people will make a decision on whether to read your content based on how enticing and how relevant your title is to their search.

Placing your target keyword in the first section of your title will insure the keyword doesn’t get cut off when it’s being displayed in a search result. When users see the keyword they are searching as the first thing in the title they are automatically drawn to your page. This fact alone will promote a higher click-through rate to your content, which is a positive ranking factor.

Optimize your URL

Include your keyword in the URL as part of a summary of the contents of the page. By default WordPress sites will show a number that makes no sense to humans or search engines following the domain name. Examples of a WordPress generated URL would look like this:

You can switch the default settings by going to the settings tab in your WordPress dashboard.

Choose permalinks and select “post name” from the available options.

Click save settings.

You now have the option to include a short summary of your page in three to five words following your domain name.

Optimize your images

Every image you load on your website requires an alternative image description for search engines to understand its meaning. Images and pictures are somewhat left to interpretation and in order for search engines to understand the meaning they will look at the name of the file, the title, the alternative description (alt image tag) and even the captions will contribute to a search engines understanding of the image.

The alt tags are used to tell search engines exactly what the image is about. Use your keyword within this description to optimize the image to your page.

Include a meta description

The inclusion of a meta description will count towards being an optimized page, however, Google doesn’t count the keywords within the description. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t include them-actually it’s best practice to include your keyword at the beginning of your meta to improve your click-through rate.

In a search result, users will see your title first but the secondary selling point of your page is the description underneath. Using your keyword near the beginning will reinforce the relevance of your page and entice more users to click through to your site.

Optimize your H2 tags

The list you’ve created in your keyword research with all of your grouped keywords will serve as a guide for what words to use throughout your content. Use related keywords and keyword synonyms in your subtitles to enhance the optimization of your page by connecting ideas and related topics.

Use structured data mark-up

Whenever possible use structured data mark-up to improve how search engines read your page. It may not apply to all content but adding a mark-up to images and pertinent information will make your content stand out to search engines.

Optimize for featured snippets

If there’s a featured snippet associated with your keyword you will need to optimize for it specifically. To be eligible for selection your page needs to rank in the top ten results on the first page.

Identify the type of snippet that exists on the first page to determine how you will optimize.

For a paragraph snippet, include a paragraph summary of approximately 50 words directly after the header that represents the snippet.

For a list snippet, there are two HTML formats you need to use to give yourself the best opportunity for selection. Use an ordered list following the headline that represents the snippet.

The second is to tag your subtitles (h2 or h3 tags are most common) and make sure that when in list form your subtitles provide an accurate solution to the query that the snippet represents.

Strategies for white hat link building

Once your content is optimized and you’re done making changes, building links will get your page authority moving up as well as your ranking for your target keyword. Never risk the well being of your website with risky link building strategies such as paid links, PBN’s (unless they’re really, really well-disguised) and any unnatural linking patterns. Google only endorses natural links that enhance the user experience. The following are among the safest link building practices commonly used.

Outreach link building campaigns

Many of the tactics that will be discussed are similar in nature because they involve reaching out to people who are likely to link to your site. Each of these approaches requires you to have good content to link to, otherwise, your success rate will be very low.

For a typical outreach campaign make a list of the websites, authors and influencers who have linked out to similar content to yours.

Use the backlink report from your competition analysis as a list of potential candidates.

Craft a personalized email to each of the sites and use a format similar to this:

Hi [Use first name],

I just wanted to reach out to thank you for the inspiration you provided in your article [insert URL]. I was able to convey a much clearer message in some of my own articles, which has helped me become a better writer.

I noticed you linked out to [insert similar link] and I just wanted to let you know that I’ve published an updated, really informative article on [your topic].

If you wanted to check out the page and use it as a resource the URL is [insert URL].

Thanks again and keep up the great work,

[your name]

Keep in mind that you absolutely don’t need to use my words verbatim. Keep the template similar by:

  1. Letting them know about an article they wrote that inspired you (compliment them and set up the conversation about who they linked to)
  2. Giving them the URL of the link they used to link out to related material
  3. Giving them the URL of your page
  4. Casually mentioning linking to your page
  5. Thank them for their work (complete the compliment sandwich)

The strategy in this method is that you establish yourself as a supporter of their work and as a person who also has content to offer as a resource. You’ve also given them a link to a page that if they like-they can replace it with the link you previously mentioned.

Unlinked brand mentions

Quite possibly this strategy has the highest rate of success because you are contacting people who have already mentioned your brand but haven’t linked to you.

You can find instances of where your brand was mentioned by using this Google search operative:

intext:digital ducats -digitalducats.com -twitter.com -facebook.com -pinterest.com -youtube.com

Simply replace “digital ducats” with your company name. This search operative tells Google not to include digitalductds.com, as well as the other social media sites since links from social media, don’t count for much.

Send an email to the author asking them if they could add a link to your company name. Give them the URL and keep your request polite, simple and to the point.

Broken link method

The broken link method is a little more labour intensive because it requires you to find websites with broken links and match them to your content to replace those links.

Broken link opportunities exist with any of your link prospects. When you’ve generated a backlink report on your competition you can start with their best links and click on each one individually.

Take the URL of the domain and run enter it in the Ahrefs dashboard.

Click on the backlinks tab.

Click on the broken links tab.

A list of broken links will be generated showing you the page the broken link is on and the anchor text of the link that’s been broken. There may be a problem finding out what type of content the link was pointing to because if it’s broken, the page redirects to a 404-error message saying this page doesn’t exist.

The workaround here is to use Wayback Machine. Type in the URL of the broken link and to see what the page looked like before it was deleted. If your link prospect is already linking to this broken page, the only thing that’s needed is a page that replaces this content.

Send an email to the Webmaster along the same lines of this template:

  1. Let them know about an article they wrote that inspired you (compliment them and let them know a link is broken on their page)
  2. Give them the URL of the link they used to link out to related material
  3. Give them the URL of your page that can replace the broken link
  4. Thank them for their work (complete the compliment sandwich)

Link reclamation

Every business should be monitoring their backlink profile periodically. It’s a healthy practice for maintaining the strength of your backlink profile. You want to remove bad links and also stay on top of any links that have been lost that were contributing to your ranking.

Using the tool of your choice search for links “discovered and lost” and enter a date range for how far back you want to look at your link profile. Export the links to a spreadsheet and filter out the links that are not worth pursuing.

You will need to go through the links that are left and determine why they were lost before you can contact the webmaster. They may have deleted their content, updated their content, found a better link, or just might have something against you.

There may be other reasons you don’t see right away such as they’ve linked to you from another page. Don’t be pushy when you contact the webmaster. Be courteous and ask if there was any reason they decided to unlink your website and if they would please add the link back to your site.

Guest posting

By publishing an article on a site within your niche you are able to get your content in front of a fresh audience as well as earn a backlink. Most sites don’t allow you to republish any articles so you will need brand new articles to submit.

Search Google for popular blog sites within your niche by typing:

inurl: [your keyword] + “write for us”

The results will display all of the websites that have your keyword plus the words “write for us” in the URL.

The search result should bring you to a page that explains the guest post contribution guidelines. Most sites will have different requirements so it’s definitely worth the read. You will need to know what topics they’re publishing, any word count requirements, image requirements and so forth.

Choose your sites based on relevance and domain authority. Choose sites that are over 30 DA and never apply to sites that are outside your niche. Avoid sites that have high spam scores. You can screen for DA and spam scores within the search results pages using Mozbar.

Extend your reach through social media

There is no denying the power of networking through social media. The goal of your company is to get as many people on your website as possible. Post your content and be engaged in sharing people’s content, and commenting as much as possible to continue building a following.

Choose one or two sites that you will be engaged in making your presence felt. This doesn’t mean to limit the number of profiles you create- it helps you to be more consistent in commenting and responding to comments and questions.

Include as much video as possible when posting to your networks. Video gets the most shares and produces the highest levels of engagement. People prefer to watch a video than read a long block of text.

Share other people’s posts to show support and encourage them to share your content as well. Leave a call to action on all of your posts as well as links to your website.

A large social network can create a surge in the traffic your site receives when you share high-quality content. The more people that are on your site create more opportunities for people to link to your site and improve your ranking. Entire businesses are made from the traffic social media provides so maintain a constant presence a continuous effort to build a network that becomes a valuable asset.

Rinse and repeat

To rank your website on Google be ready to play the long game. A first-page ranking will happen with the right mix of optimized content that answers search intent and with enough authority to be considered a credible website. This SEO process can be repeated for any small business website in any industry and will result in improved rankings and increased traffic to your website.

What Are Google SERP Features?

The first page of results is often referred to as a SERP (Search Engine Result Page). It’s the most important page of search results because 95% of the total search volume will end up clicking on a result on the first page but less than 5% will venture past to the second page. (~Forbes 2017)

The goal for all websites has traditionally been the number one spot on the first page, however, the emergence of Google SERP features has changed the value that a number one position holds. More traffic is being drawn from the organic listings and absorbed by various SERP features. It’s necessary to survey and assess the first page of results to determine what features you will need to optimize your website to produce the most traffic. 

What is a Google SERP feature?

A Google SERP feature is a Google product that is displayed in order to enhance the user experience. The type of features can range in appearance. Each feature can provide additional traffic to your website. Different features present more traffic opportunities than others. Here is a list of the types of features and the frequency they’ve appeared in a search query in the last 30 days.

List of Google SERP Features

People Also Ask Box (PAA)

The first SERP feature on the list is Related Questions, or PAA boxes (People Also Ask). This feature has been appearing in 89% of total searches (as seen in the above chart). 

People also ask box

PAA boxes are triggered mostly by questions asked in a search. Each question within the box can lead a user to a different website.

PAA box opened up

The box is interactive meaning that when you click on one question another few lines of questions will appear related to the question you clicked on. This could go on indefinitely and has been one of the reasons for a decline in the number of visitors that make it past the PAA box to the organic listing. 

Google Ads (Formerly AdWords)

Pay-per-click ads, also known as Google Ads have sponsored placements at the top of the organic results. The highest bidder gets the highest position on the page. Paid ads are only distinguishable by the small green “Ad” posted to the left of the domain.

Google Ads

The advantage of running an Ad campaign is that your website is placed at the top of the SERP if you’re the highest bidder. This gives your website a priority position for being the first listing seen when a user searches a term. Google Ads are performing considerably better on mobile searches than they do on desktop based on this fact alone. 

A disadvantage to a paid ad is that when you stop paying, so does the traffic. Your website disappears from the first page when your campaign ends which makes paid ads relatively expensive. Organic search results provide a better ROI over the long run because of the difference in traffic dispersion to the organic listings. Once your website is optimized to receive traffic organically it will continue to produce unless you lose position to a competitor.

Local Packs

local pack example

The three websites that are ranked at the top of the local finder are displayed as the local pack on the first page of results. The websites selected for the local pack are businesses that can show relevance, prominence and proximity. 

Local packs can generate a substantial amount of local traffic that is typically comprised of high converting visitors. 

Reviews (stars)

A rich snippet is any feature that shows up to enhance a search result. More companies are including reviews in the meta descriptions to encourage higher click-through rates. 

reviews (star rating)

Knowledge Panels

The Knowledge Graph is Google’s own database for collecting and categorizing information on people and places. A knowledge panel will appear whenever a search for your company is directly made. The knowledge panels will display information about your company mainly extracted from your Google My Business profile.

Knowledge panel

Images

It isn’t uncommon for images to be displayed as the best response to a query. Images are selected as features according to how well they’re optimized for a specific query.

Images on SERP features

Videos

As videos gain more relevance as solutions to search intent they will continue to grow in the frequency of appearance. This SERP position can be won and used to drive traffic at all stages of the buyer phase.

video Google SERP features

Site-links

Websites with excellent organizational structure will generate relevant links in a search listing.

site-links example

Featured snippets

This SERP feature can come in a variety of forms such as the list, paragraph, chart, or graph. Featured snippets are displayed to provide the user with the quickest answer to a search query.

The featured snippet is an example of one of the most popular Google SERP features

Shopping (Paid)

Often times you will see a carousel of products appear in a search result. These are images of sponsored ads that can be bid on in a Google Shopping Campaign.

Google shopping SERP features

Top Stories

Featured stories are displayed by Google and extracted from news aggregators and websites.

top stories

Knowledge Cards

This feature answers generic questions. The information is generated from high authority sources such as Wikipedia and Wikidata.

knowledge card example

Despite the numerous SERP features that have continued to appear more frequently, organic traffic represents a large part of a successful inbound marketing campaign. 

When building content it has become absolutely mandatory to take into account the SERP features that appear in a keyword search because of the percentage of clicks that may be absorbed. 

In order to maximize the number of visitors to your website consider the features that present the opportunity for additional traffic.

How To Select The Best Keywords For Your Website

Aug 20, 2020 @ 6:02 pm

Learn how to select the best keywords for your website to drive traffic that converts to clients and sales. Qualify keywords through a series of endeavours including but not limited to the following:

  • Identify your main seed keywords
  • Develop keyword options
  • Assess commercial intent
  • Target long-tail keywords
  • Perform a SERP Analysis
  • Assess the competition

The keyword research and strategy you implement can make or break the success you have in converting visitors to clients.

If you want to know how to find the best keywords for your business, this article will walk you through a few of the most common steps in determining a strategy.

Identify your main seed keywords

Make a list of keywords on a spreadsheet describing the major areas of your business. Come up with as many different keywords as if you were a client typing in a search to find information about your product.

Keep in mind that there are different stages of the sales funnel for every keyword you’re thinking of optimizing content to rank for. You will need to target both transactional and informational keywords to help move visitors along the buyer journey.

An image of the 3 stages of the buyer journey to guide you how to select the best keyword for your website

For example, “buy + [your keyword]” is a transactional search term that will trigger a search result that most likely lists ads and product pages.

Transactional keyword search result display

This would be considered at the bottom of the funnel where users have already done their research and are looking to buy a product or service.

Develop keyword options

Some keywords may seem obvious choices, however, you have to consider that not everyone will search like yourself. There are many different ways people search for the same thing. There’s also the possibility that the keyword you’re thinking of may not drive traffic that’s good for your business.

One tool you can use to find popular keywords that convert is the Keyword Planner. This is Google’s tool to use when building an Adwords campaign and can be valuable for generating keyword ideas, estimating traffic and providing clues to commercial intent.

Google Keyword Planner reports the best keywords suggestions for your website along with the metrics for each keyword

The Keyword Planner will generate a list of keyword options along with the volume, competition rating and cost per click. Each value should be considered as an indicator to use in your decision.

Assess volume in relation to conversions

The traffic that is displayed is an approximate value. Keep in mind that volume can sometimes have little bearing on the value of a keyword. It’s one piece of the puzzle that can be used as an indicator of whether your keyword is suitable for your business.

The volume a specific keyword generates should be assessed by the type of traffic drives and how well those visitors are a match to your business.

Assess commercial intent through the CPC bidding system

The commercial intent of a keyword can be inferred by the range of bids that exist for placing ads with Google for that specific keyword.

The low and high bid amount shows you what people are paying per visitor for that keyword on both ends of the spectrum.

The higher the top bid amount, the more inferred value you can assume from the traffic a keyword generates.

Target long-tail keywords

Although seed keywords typically have the most search volume they are not always the ideal keywords to pursue. They are often extremely competitive and convert at lower rate.

Targeting transactional keywords are beneficial however you also need to educate your buyers about your company and product to earn their trust.

Enter long tail keywords.

Long-tail keywords are considered to convert higher because they drive traffic that is a better match to the content you’re producing.

For example, imagine your company sells silk t-shirts.

If you were to optimize for the search term “t-shirts”, it would bring you a lot of irrelevant traffic because of the broad search intent it carries. Your site would be getting visitors looking for cotton, nylon, sports t-shirts, etc.

Many visitors would simply leave your site when they see you only offer silk options. This produces poor metrics (bounce rate, dwell time).

The longer you create a target keyword, the more of a match you can make to the traffic that finds your content.

Optimizing for the term “Silk t-shirts” eliminates a lot of the unwanted traffic your site was generating from the term “t-shirts”

“Silk t-shirts for women” would be an even more specific stream of traffic to target.

Once you’ve identified your seed keyword it’s important to go through the related content that people would be searching. In most cases people are looking to solve a specific problem. Your content should provide as many solutions to problems that people have regarding your keyword topic.

“Silk t-shirts for psoriasis” would target an extremely specific group of people. By publishing a piece of content titled “Why Silk T-shirts Are Good For Psoriasis” you would be driving traffic from a very specific group of people looking exactly for what you’re offering.

Although the traffic is likely to be much lower, the competition will also be lower because of how specific this long-tail search term is.

With a high-quality article making a convincing argument, you can easily move your visitors a step closer to buying your product by targeting a problem and providing the solution.

How to find long tail keywords

Apart from good old-fashioned brainstorming, you can use a few tools to help produce a list of the questions that people ask regarding any keyword topic. One of the first places you should look at is Google Search.

You can get a load of ideas for what people are searching for from Google Autosuggest. This is literally Google telling you “Hey! Here are some popular search terms we’re suggesting will help you find what you’re looking for.”

autosuggest for silk tshorts to find keywords

Find related terms in the Searches related to [your keyword] section at the bottom of a search result.

searches related to section of the search engine results page helps to select the best keywords for your page

You can get some great long-tail keywords and phrases from Featured Snippets.

Featured snippets can provide the best long-tail keywords for your website

Or PAA Boxes

The PAA box holds important clues for how to select the best keywords for your website.

You can use Answer The Public to get a list of questions and phrase matches.

Answer the public keyword result for finding the best keyword related questions for your website

You can use software from the biggest names in the industry such as Ahrefs, SEMRush and Moz. Here is your typical keyword report from Moz.

moz keyword report on silk tshirts

One click on the “questions” tab and your report displays related questions to your keyword.

moz report for keyword questions regarding how to select the best keywords for my website

The process for converting visitors to clients often takes more than just one visit to your site.

This is part of the reason for providing informational content on your blog.

According to a survey by Conductor, educational content makes visitors 131% more likely to purchase from your company.

Being in touch with the problems that are most commonly faced by your audience is critical in your content creation. If you can provide solutions to these problems within your content, you will earn the trust of your audience and move them closer to purchasing from your company.

Perform a SERP analysis

Analyze the SERP (search engine results page) to give you a deeper understanding of what type of search result a keyword generates. The factors you will need to consider are the features Google displays and the competition you will be up against.

Assess the competition

To assess one aspect of your competition you can use Mozbar, a free tool available for download in Chrome. This tool allows you to see the Page Authority, Domain Authority, number of backlinks and the spam score. All metrics are summarized for you right from the search result.

Mozbar helps assess competition to find the perfect keyword for your website

Keep in mind that domain authority is a metric created by Moz and does not reflect the complete picture for how to rank for a keyword. It is merely an indicator to use when determining the strength of your competition. Typically, the higher the DA, the more ranking ability a site possesses.

Account for the SERP features

Take an inventory of the different types of features that are displayed in the SERP. Google has produced over 20 different types of SERP features to better serve the search intent that a user may have for searching a specific query.

For example, if your keyword triggers a carousel of videos at the top of the page, you will need to consider producing a video to compete for the available clicks for that keyword. “How-to” searches are notorious for producing video results.

Video wins the featured snippet for keyword "how to make a silk t-shirt"
First spot is occupied by a video winning the featured snippet position

There are many phrases that will trigger a featured snippet. It’s important to recognize what terms are triggering the display because it will affect how you optimize your content.

Features that diminish your click-through rate for a specific search term

Take note of the different features that are displayed in a search result. Each feature may require a different form of optimization. If you’re not optimized to compete for the position, you may be facing a low organic click-through rate.

Shows the PAA box and Video carousel being placed before the first organic result
The PAA box and video carousel are placed before the first organic result

Consider the organic click-through rate

This is a measure of the total clicks that are made to the organic results as a percentage of the total search volume. If your keyword has a low organic CTR, ranking on first page may not be worth the effort to get there.

How to select the best keywords for your website by assessing the organic click through rate

Many of Google’s SERP features have contributed to low CTR for searches that are easily answered by featured snippets and the knowledge graph (calculators, translators, etc.)

Develop an effective keyword strategy

The keywords you choose to pursue will have a direct impact on the relevance of your traffic. Developing a strategy should include keywords that target every aspect of your business and the problems your product or service solves.

A complete and effective keyword strategy is the blueprint for your content creation. By addressing the different stages of the buyer journey and sales funnel, you create content that educates your audience on the benefits you offer.

Each page you publish should serve a purpose within your overall keyword strategy. Keeping users in mind first before search engines will help keep your content focused on providing insight and useful information. Learn how to select the best keywords for your website and you are one step closer to driving traffic that converts.

Keyword research is one of the many SEO services that benefit a company. Contact us today for an SEO consultation on what keywords would benefit your business the most.

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