How do you prioritize your SEO efforts?
-
If you're an in-house marketing person, almost by definition, you're neither a specialist or expert in the variety of things one might do to improve SEO. We do a bunch of stuff in-house and hire people for other stuff that needs to be done and the work is never complete!
What do you do, as the de facto in-house, on-staff "expert" for SEO? I'm purposely leaving this question fairly open-ended to solicit advise, ideas & direction to develop a framework and a guide for our efforts.
Also, I'm not intentionally ruling out pro's...I'm open to your opinions too - but I will probably only hire you unless you have a full tool bag of skills that include the ability to write auto-responders, write & blog relevant content, set up and monitor page rank, do SEO, set up AdWords campaigns, etc. at a the nice price. And I'll only do that if I can't do/learn/achieve all of the above to a certain degree on my own. Although I'll probably never stop questioning processes, costs and everything else associated with hiring a pro...all of which will make me a pain-in-the-butt client you probably don't want.
Thanks!
-
By focusing on every channel for doing better SEO for all blog posts. You should do SEO of every single blog post on your website.
-
Hi!
I don't know if I got back to you or not but if you're still open to continuing this conversation I'd appreciate your help.
Thanks again for your insights, in any case.
Karl
-
Wow, what a fascinating product you work with and a very interesting website.
I took the liberty of checking out your site and found it pretty impressive. Some effort has already clearly been taken to optimize this site and provide real value to your customer, so kudos to whoever is responsible for that effort.
At a very high level - so take this with a grain of salt because I only spent a few minutes - you have great domain authority and a lot of really strong content, but it appears that you are not ranking for keywords associated with your product that you clearly should be ranking for.
I went to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and typed in "cablevey tubular drag conveyors" (the first keyword in the page title of your home page) and got a long list of great keywords associated with your industry. I went through a couple of the higher traffic ones in SEOMoz's Keyword Difficulty Tool and there's no reason why you shouldn't be ranking for these keywords based on your Domain Authority alone. It very well could be that you just haven't optimized the proper page on your site for these keywords yet, and it is possible that a little on-page optimization is all you need to start ranking well because your DA is so strong.
I am willing to go more in-depth if you want - just shoot me a private message and we can exchange contact information.
As far as a referral goes... there are many good SEO companies and individuals in the SEOMoz community who would be able to provide quality help. My recommendation would be to instantly tune out anyone who says you need link building and content - not that you don't need those things but I don't think they are your priority right now.
-
Hi EGOL,
Thanks for your detailed reply. We all need to make decisions about what we say in our marketing. I'm most interested in figuring out the form we need to follow to make sure our SEO works as well as possible. Content needs to be decided upon often and regularly to be competitive - that's an ever-changing process (for us at least!).
I am all for wearing multiple hats - it's simply a matter of prioritizing my time as I have many different venues to manage other than our site to attract, inform and generally communicate with our most likely target prospects.
The web and our sites are excellent tools to communicate - but they're not the bulk of our marketing - they're a tool. I need to learn how to use this tool better.
-
Hi Back Burner,
At the moment my goal is to understand better what I can do, train my assistant to do, and begin to define and document what I need to hire out.
I have a certain amount of time - and a lot of interest - in learning - but I have responsibility for more than SEO. That's where the prioritizing comes in.
Your comment about "full site audit first" makes a lot of sense. Because that would allow me some perspective and knowledge I need updated.
Who would do this audit? You? Someone you can refer? I'm open to suggestions.
Thanks!
-
As the in-house SEO... my jobs are....
-- know the website... know where traffic is coming from and what they do on our site, identify new keyword niches where we can compete, know where sales are taking place, work to improve conversions, use title tags not only for SEO purposes but also to pull visitors into the site instead of our competitors, develop a text and video content plan that will increase our exposure on google and youtube
-- know the products that we sell and how well they are selling, develop new traffic sources for them, identify new product lines that we can strongly compete for or that can be sold to our current traffic, understand profit margins in a way that allows me to prioritize their promotion in search and on-site
-- develop a text and video content plan that will increase our exposure on google and youtube for relevant keywords and for relevant audiences
-- continuously review different parts of our site and product lines looking for changes that might increase our rankings, increase our conversions or increase our popularity with visitors... it is easier to double your income from current traffic than it is to double you income with new traffic
The above isn't all SEO. Much of it is "webmastering" and "product marketing." But, I don't think that a person should have anything against wearing multiple hats, sitting in multiple chairs and sticking his nose into anything related to the company web.
-
Like most things in SEO, it depends. What are your business goals (lead generation, ecommerce, thought leadership, etc.)? What is the status of your current optimization efforts - i.e. has any on-page optimization, site architecture, link building, content, etc. been done? If so, how much? What is your competition doing and how does your site stack up against them?
Different sites have different goals and are at different points in the optimization process. Prioritizing your SEO efforts is going to depend heavily on where you sit currently and where you want to go.
I would advise a full site audit first to figure out what is working well and what isn't.
Actually, I take that back. First, define your goals - what do you want to accomplish with your site. Then do the audit.
Next, discover which keywords are driving traffic to your site and which ones convert the best. Then start putting together groups of keywords that are variations of your top performers and start looking for new keyword groups to target.
If you're getting a lot of traffic from what seem like good keywords but not converting, then start optimizing your site for conversions.
This is all pretty high level, but if there's one thing I've learned about SEO it's that there are no absolute answers, only problems that need solving, and there are always many ways to skin that cat.
Going through the process of identifying problems and opportunities, developing a strategy to act, and then analyzing success is a constant effort.
Deciding which problem/opportunity to attack first can only be accomplished by having a clear goal in mind.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Unsolved Need Moz SEO Wordpress Plugin With API
Re: Moz WordPress Plugin? Hi guys,
Moz Pro | | mrezair
I need some Moz SEO Wordpress Plugins For my website working with Moz API. I've already found Moz DA-PA Checker plugin Moz DA-PA Checker But Need SEO Plugins too. Any Suggestion will be appreciated.0 -
Will Moving Categories Affect SEO
I recently designed a new website to replace an old site. We managed to hold 90% ranking and traffic by keeping the same URS's and content. Now that we have completed that we are now updating the whole site. It is an commerce website. Some of the items we were selling we are getting from a new vendor. If I move these products from one one vendor to another will this affect SEO? Here is an example. I have a product called "Green Zipper Sweater". This product is Anchored via Manufacturer and Category. The URL and Title Tag are green-zipper-sweater. If the Sweater was made by "Nike Green Sweaters" and our new supplier is "Gap Yellow and Green Sweaters". If I change the the Manufacturer and now put it under "Gap Green and Yellow Sweaters" will this affect my ranking. We are continuing to stock products from the original supplier "Nike Green Sweaters" and we have an aggressive SEO plan and are ranking very well for "Nike Green Sweaters". We also have good product ranking so "Green Zipper Sweater" brings us a lot of traffic. I want to be sure I do not loose ranking for the product page "Green Zipper Sweater" and the Brand "Nike Green Sweaters" Any advice would be appreciated.
Moz Pro | | robbieire0 -
Identify business pain points using SEO
Hi, can I use SEO research techniques to identify what kind of services businesses are searching for? Is it possible to find out pain points? I have been using tool like MicroNicheFinder to do such a research but I am not getting any where. Is SEO only used to outrank my competition? Do I need to first know what business I need to be in and then use SEO techniques to research the demand? Do I make sense? You can tell that I am very new at the internet marketing thing. Please let me know. Thanks.
Moz Pro | | zsyed0 -
How To Confidently Start SEOing?
Hi Guys, Im a Web developer (Front end and back end). Ive been learning SEO tips and tricks for the last 2 years but didn't have courage to apply them to any of my clients because of lack of confidence. I say lack of confidence because I never had a SEO Guru teaching me the "Proper" way to do SEO and see ranks change OR how to really take the first step when it comes to a SEO Project, so I didnt know how to even see if my work is paying off. Now I got this client who is a Vehicle Importer in Melbourne, and he imports cars from Japan. Im charging him $200/month for 12 months to improve SEO and cut down his competition and get his site on Google. But I have no idea where to start. His site has a blog setup already and its pretty good structure wise. I have done the On page optimizations and sitemaps etc etc, but not sure what to do next like to build links ?? or do off page optimizations, or do keyword research or really get the site on Google without any bull****?? Can you guys please please show me how to start a SEO project and how to actually use the new Moz to his best use? Thanks a lot for helping me. Regards
Moz Pro | | JazzJack0 -
SEO Crawl Report Images?
Does SEOMOZ crawl images in the report? Raven tools is showing me about 200 missing alt tags and title tags. I can not seem to find any of this information on the SEOMOZ report. Am I missing something?
Moz Pro | | jasonsixtwo0 -
Hello I am new to SEO. Does SEOMoz have a to do list or can you send me one.
I just need to know what steps I should take to improve my site. My website url is : http://nuscopemed.com Thanks
Moz Pro | | NinaGraham0 -
Is this an error in SEO Moz Pro Web App?
In the rankings section if I add these two terms to monitor They are both monitored: Fresh fish fresh fish Do search engines give more weight to capitals on some small scale or is this an error in the app? Thanks, Daniel.
Moz Pro | | iSenseWebSolutions0 -
Where can I find documentation for the different SEO Pro Tools?
I apologize if this has been asked and answered or if the documentation is right in front of my nose, but I can't find it. I'm looking for information that explains what the various tools do and in particular, what each of the fields in the reports mean? For example, what does the "Find Links on this Domain" link mean in a Juicy Linkfinder Report? I know there are lots of resources on SEO and best practices and so on, but wondering if documentation on the specific tools exists. Thanks.
Moz Pro | | jkenyon0