Search engine optimization is a critical part of guaranteeing the success of your website.
To understand why search engine optimization is a crucial part of every
practice, lets think a little bit about when patients search for a
healthcare provider. Search Engine Optimization is a process using a
variety of methods in an effort to increase traffic to your website when
potential customers search for your product or service in a search
engine such as Google or Bing. Search Engine Optimization is a process
using a variety of methods in an effort to increase traffic to your
website when potential customers search for your product or service in a
search engine such as Google or Bing. The lesson I want to impart is
that Search Engine Optimization is not an overnight process, and there
are no shortcuts for long term success. You may check this article I got
in to.
Even
though SEO is a long-term investment, marketers often feel pressured to
show progress quickly. Columnist Dan Bagby provides some ideas for
quick wins that can show value while waiting for your longer-term
initiatives to start gaining traction.
When you start at a new
company as the SEO specialist or pick up a new client, one thing
everyone wants is to see quick results. The fact that SEO takes time can
be a struggle as you try to show value while also satisfying your own
desire to make an impact.
Here are a few SEO techniques that will
let your colleagues or clients know you are the real deal, bringing
value with your expertise.
1. Win With Featured Snippets
Winning
a featured snippet spot can have a huge impact, bringing organic
traffic to a page. Although getting featured in the quick answer box is
not guaranteed, there is a pretty simple formula for optimizing your
content for it.
Start by going to the Google Search Console to
find rankings for queries that contain a question — you can do this by
filtering for queries containing “how,” “what” or “why.”
Once you
have a list of keyword phrases, check search volume and prioritize your
list, focusing on the keywords with the highest search volume. If you do
not currently rank for any question-related keywords, think of a simple
question you can answer, and create the content to answer that
question.
Increase your chances of being featured in the quick answer box by making on-page improvements:
Provide a detailed answer in a bulleted or numbered format that specifically answers the question posed by the search query.
Add a video to the page that answers the question (with transcription).
Add additional information that adds more value to the page for the reader.
Once
your content has been revised, submit it to be indexed, and share it on
Google Plus, so that the changes are noticed quickly. To learn more
about optimizing for featured snippets, check out this article by Eric
Enge.
2. Optimize Existing Content
It is much
easier to improve a strong existing page’s ranking a few spots in the
SERPs than it is to get a new (or poorly ranking) page to show quick
results.
Knowing that you see the biggest bumps in traffic when
you get into the top three results, target content ranked in position 3
to 10. Improving bounce rates or building on pages that are converting
can also be a great way to see big gains from a small time investment.
There are several ways to identify which pages to focus on:
Going back to the Search Console, sort keywords by rank to find keywords ranked between 10 and 3.
Looking in Google Analytics, find pages with a high bounce rate but decent traffic.
Also in Google Analytics, find pages with high conversion rates. Check
what keywords are driving traffic through Search Console, and focus on
optimizing for those keywords.
What can you do to improve these pages and see results quickly? Here are some ideas
On-Page Optimization
Modifying the basic on-page ranking factors to improve search engine optimization.
Find internal pages that are related to your target pages, and create
new internal links from the related pages to the target pages.
Share on Google Plus and submit to Google to be crawled.
Crowd Source Content For Quick Links
One
way to quickly improve a page’s content (and possibly gain links) is by
reaching out to influencers. Keep it simple by asking influencers to
contribute to a page you are trying to improve.
For example, if
you have a page you wrote about the best places to eat in Austin, you
could reach out to food bloggers in Austin and ask them for their
opinion on the best new restaurants.
Even more effective is to ask
them if they have a blog post about those specific restaurants that you
can link to. They will gladly give you content to link to while you get
more content to add to your page.
Once the updates are made, let
the influencers know by email and via Twitter. This can result in
additional social shares and possibly links for the influencers. You can
also use this technique when you are creating a brand-new page.
Optimizing For Search Intent
I
often find pages ranking well for queries that do not fit the page. For
example, I might see an article ranking for queries related to “finding
influencers” that is really more focused on how to reach out to
influencers. Fixing this will likely improve rank and lower bounce rate.
If
the page does not rank for other keywords, and the keywords currently
driving traffic are strategic for your site, rewrite the article
completely focusing on those keywords.
If you want to maintain the article, you can add a section to better answer the query that it already ranks for.
If the information that would match the search intent does not belong
on the page, write a new page that answers the questions, and link to it
from the ranking post with keyword-rich anchor text.
3. Improve Rank For Converting Pages
Look
at Google Analytics to find the pages that are converting. Use Search
Console to find the keywords driving traffic to that page. You can also
look at paid campaigns to see top-converting keywords.
Focus on these keywords and pages to see quick results and really prove the value in SEO.
4. Find Competing Content
Check
your site for several pieces of content on the same topic and combine
the pages. Make sure to redirect URLs so that there is only one page.
5. Fixing 404 Errors
There
are several tools that make it easy to find 404 errors. You can fix
links by reaching out to site owners that have the broken links or
redirect the broken URL to a live page.
Final Thoughts
While
SEO is a long-term investment and can take time to show results, there
are always a few things you can do to show quick value. I have included
only included a few opportunities here, but there are many other
techniques like using other sites to get content ranking quickly. What
are some of your techniques to get quick results?
In order to find the right approach to content and collaboration, search engine optimization is absolutely essential. Search engine optimization is the most effective use of your marketing budget.
So every dollar a company spends on search engine optimization is one
dollar less to spend on advertising on Google. Call Us Now...
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