My First SEO strategy - What's next?
-
I have recently embarked on an SEO strategy for my website. I've done a lot of reading and researching here on Moz and on search engine land and have got a good idea of how to build a basic SEO strategy. My own expertise is in PPC, so keyword strategy came easy to me. I rebuilt my website and focused on the on page SEO with every single page, this has brought really great results - instantly. For some of my chosen keywords I have gone from not being ranked to being on Google's first page - within a couple of days of my new website going live, for other's I've gone from being outside the top 50 to being ranked in the top 50, so my on page SEO has really strengthened my position and I now understand how important it is as a ranking factor.
I've also started to create content on a regular basis with 2 or 3 new blogs being uploaded each week, the blogs are based around my businesses main target market's - PPC, Web design, digital marketing etc. These blogs have a lot of links out to good websites, EG "to learn about adwords check out the adwords fundamentals course on lynda.com" and useful info like that.
I also signed up to whitespark for citation idea's so have started adding my site to all relevant directory suggestions that it gives me.
So my question is this, after seeing great early results because of my on page SEO, what are my next steps to increase my rankings?
And more specifically how do I use Moz to help increase my ranking?
During the week, I've started using Open site explorer to find my competitors backlinks, should I now spend my time trawling through these links to find opportunities to add links for my website where I can. Is this a good thing to be doing at this stage?
Anything else that I should be doing now to capitalise on my early results please let me know what it is and please tell me how to take full advantage of Moz to gain a better ranking.
I appreciate all insight!
-
Hi Michael,
If you are meeting face-to-face with customers and are targeting a local market, then Local SEO would also be a pool to wade into. Here's a good place to start, unless your business model is virtual/national only:
https://mza.seotoolninja.com/learn/local
Wishing you tons of luck!
-
Here are some good advices from Umar and Clever PhD but here is one thing I would like to add here. When looking in to competitor’s link, always keep in mind that not every link your competitor is getting is a good link. You have to make a decision if the link is good or not.
When build link on any website, make sure that the website is a good website for your business: http://searchengineland.com/5-metrics-to-quickly-assess-site-quality-when-link-building-87028 this guide will certainly help you doing that.
Build few but quality links instead of building every link that your competitor’s are building.
Hope this helps…
-
Followerwonk will help you find influencers that may give you an opportunity to collaborate on additional content, spread your social media influence or even have those followers notice what you are doing and link to your site.
More here: https://mza.seotoolninja.com/help/guides/followerwonk
Fresh web explorer is kind of like Google Alerts. You set it up to look for keywords that you want to build content around and your brand name. If there is some content that you see published on one of your keywords, reach out to the site and see if they would add you. If a site mentions your website but does not link to it, then ask for a link.
More here: <a title="https://mza.seotoolninja.com/help/guides/research-tools/fresh-web-explorer" target="_blank">https://mza.seotoolninja.com/help/guides/research-tools/fresh-web-explorer</a>
-
Thanks very much for responding Umar and the info provided.
I'd love if you could elaborate a bit more on how exactly would I use Followerwonk and fresh web explorer to benefit my SEO strategy?
-
Hey Michael,
Welcome to the SEO World.. I really like you analytical approach to learn and implementing things perfectly.
Coming to your question, it is always a good approach to keep an eye on competitor's backlinks and make efforts to get the links on same places. I assume you're a MOZ Pro subscriber, start using Fresh Web Explorer also to keep an eye on every mention your competitors are getting and try to create something more meaningful assets so that you can easily target all those sites.
Remember, link building is on going approach and you don't need to rely only on competitor's backlinks. Get in touch with bloggers or influencers who belong to your industry (you may use Followerwonk for that) and try to obtain links in a way that it's become extremely difficult for your competitors to copy you.
Contrary to PPC, SEO takes time and you have to be patient to see things going in your way.
Use Moz analytics smartly and do let us know if you like to ask more specific questions.
Good luck!
Umar
Umar
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 GMB Local SEO question
I am trying to diagnose how one particular competitor is smoking us in local rankings. I came across a text field “Service Details' within Google My Business Services. This allows me to put in a brief description of each service we offer. My thought is that this could be a good place for keywords. That said, the descriptions are not public facing (or to the best of my knowledge) so I am reluctant to do all the work for nothing. I am wondering if anyone has filled these out and if there were any noticeable results. Any insight is appreciated
Local SEO | | jorda0910 -
Should local businesses focus exclusively on a local SEO strategy (and forget traditional SEO)?
Hello Friends! I work at a small, local company. We definitely want to rank high for local search , so we see the value of having a local SEO strategy. But does it make sense for us to also invest in a traditional SEO strategy? My understanding is that a traditional SEO strategy is focused on improving your site's visibility on a national or international scale. Does this make sense for my company if only local customers convert? If we had unlimited time and resources, I'd be all for a traditional SEO strategy. I understand that the more traffic, backlinks, etc. my site generates from producing relevant content, the higher my ranking. But my company has to be very strategic about where we spend our time since our resources are limited. So...How much can or does a traditional SEO strategy impact local search results? I'd hate to spend the time writing a beautiful SEO-optimized blog on dog grooming, for example, if that effort won't impact my SERP ranking when someone in my area searches for "dog grooming near me." I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Local SEO | | annav0520 -
How to go about SEO when the content on all the pages is in a regional language (with its own script which is non-roman) but majority of searches are in the same language but roman script?
For example, the entire content is in an Indian language called Gujarati and the script is also Gujarati. However, when I did a keyword research, I found that majority of the searches are in Gujarati langugage by roman script e.g. "gujarati sahitya" meaning Gujarati literature. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Local SEO | | Tumul0 -
What should I write about in my blog, doing SEO for Boise, ID, USA
I'm starting the website HonestOakSEO.com It's targeting SEO in Boise, ID, USA I'm doing Ecommerce SEO, service-based SEO, informational SEO, local SEO, mainly on-site SEO, and content Analysis and Advice What should I write about in my blog? I want it to be excellent. Thanks
Local SEO | | BobGW0 -
Local SEO Website Structure.
Hi everyone, This might be quite a long post so please bear with me. I am currently rebuilding my website. My previous website was built by a web designer and was very basic. 5 page html site consisting of home, services, gallery, testimonials, contact pages. None of them were great - thin content, not optimised as well as could be - no h1's etc. To be fair I knew nothing about websites and didn't bother much with the site. As a new business I used it simply as a place for people to visit for more information after receiving a leaflet and never bothered much about driving traffic to the site. A few years down the line and I have realised I need the website to be working for me as opposed to alongside me. I am building it myself via wordpress as web designer didn't want to work in wordpress. I have done my keyword research and I'm working on pages as we speak. Previously my homepage - around 80% of visitors landed here for my main keyword (driveway cleaning glasgow) as it was number 6 in the organic listing. With my services page appearing directly underneath in 7 for the same keyword. I have starting building a new page for that keyword which contains (driveway-cleaning-glasgow) in the url. I have 301'd my previous services page to this url. Now for my questions...
Local SEO | | sfrediktru8
My 2nd keyword based on volume is driveway cleaning. How do I optimise for this or will the (driveway-cleaning-glasgow) page rank for this also as the words are contained within this page? I plan on having the same structure for the remaining services - pressure-washing-glasgow, monoblock-cleaning-glasgow etc, etc. As I am building new pages for each service with location built in, where does this leave my homepage? Should I be targeting keywords for this page? It is still my strongest page and apart from the (driveway-cleaning-glasgow) page which will get some help from the 301 these are all new pages so I would expect perhaps initially to lose some traffic. But as I am not ranking well for anything other than the main 2 keywords mentioned above it can only be beneficial long term when google recognises the specific pages for each service. And when I start using Adwords I will have a specific landing page for each service. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks0 -
Implemented schema.org on our website and it's showing up as being correct but I've been told its wrong- can someone please have a quick look ?
Dear Mozzers, We have implemented schema.org on our website and it's showing up as being correct. However, I've been told by a SEO company that what we have done is incorrect and is therefore giving out wrong signals to google and that it needs fixing but they haven't told me whats wrong with it. Would someone please be able to have to have a quick scan and highlight anything that is not correct. I have enclosed 4 urls belows of the different sections of my website. My website homepage - is -- http://goo.gl/2F80w2 We have a number of branches- An example branch url is - http://goo.gl/8FpcaS example category url - http://goo.gl/gbAaD2 example product url - http://goo.gl/EXI1Sr Any assistance would be greatly appreciated Many thanks
Local SEO | | PeteC12
Peter0 -
Defining a niche for my SEO company
Hello, I realize that in order to get business in SEO, you really need to specialize. The most experience I have is with the nuts and bolts of small business E-commerce and and many types of small business web design. I've run several online stores for about 9 years and I've been doing small business web design (and a bit of development) since 2001. I've had several other SEO clients over the years. I'm in Boise, Idaho at this site What would be a profitable approach? I'm thinking I could mainly build and market small online stores for locals. Maybe something like 'Ecommerce Web Design and SEO in Boise, Idaho' for a home page title. Or I could learn Local, but I have less experience with that. Or I could try to get national clients in an even smaller niche. I'm trying to find a good approach. I only charge $75/hour and I give generous quotes when appropriate, so an 'affordable' approach would be good Thanks, Bob
Local SEO | | BobGW0 -
Local SEO Best Practices for 2,000+ 'location' service area business
Hi Moz Community! We operate a business where we have a network of 2,000+ technicians around the country who help people repair their mobile phones. These techs do the fixing at the customer's location, making them service area businesses. Even after scouring all of the go-to places on local SEO, I'm struggling to find best practices for this type of situation - the fact that our techs are operating in service areas presents a number of challenges. The biggest one, it seems, is that inevitably service areas are going to overlap. When I talked to a Google rep on this he said this "might" cause our locations to get de-listed and we'd just have to test and find out. Other challenges include the fact that we cannot bulk upload the service areas of our techs, and we cannot bulk verify - meaning there is a ton of work to do at our scale. Any suggestions on where to go to find resources on this specific topic, or an example of someone doing this well we can model? Thanks everyone!
Local SEO | | JohnGroves1