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How to Rank: 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint |
How to Rank: 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint Posted: 13 May 2013 07:14 PM PDT Posted by Cyrus Shepard If you’re like most SEOs, you spend a lot of time reading. Over the past several years, I’ve spent 100s of hours studying blogs, guides, and Google patents. Not long ago, I realized that 90% of what I read each doesn’t change what I actually do - that is, the basic work of ranking a web page higher on Google. For newer SEOs, the process can be overwhelming. To simplify this process, I created this SEO blueprint. It’s meant as a framework for newer SEOs to build their own work on top of. This basic blueprint has helped, in one form or another, 100s of pages and dozens of sites to gain higher rankings. Think of it as an intermediate SEO instruction manual, for beginners. Level: Beginner to Intermediate Timeframe: 2 to 10 Weeks What you need to know: The blueprint assumes you have basic SEO knowledge: you’re not scared of title tags, can implement a rel=canonical, and you’ve built a link or two. (If this is your first time to the rodeo, we suggest reading the Beginners Guide to SEO and browsing our Learn SEO section.)
Keyword Research1. Working Smarter, Not HarderKeyword research can be simple or hard, but it should always be fun. For the sake of the Blueprint, let’s do keyword research the easy way. The biggest mistakes people make with keyword research are:
The biggest mistake people make is trying to rank for a single keyword at a time. This is the hard way. It’s much easier, and much more profitable, to rank for 100s or even 1,000s of long tail keywords with the same piece of content. Instead of ranking for a single keyword, let’s aim our project around a keyword theme. 2. Dream Your Keyword ThemeUsing keyword themes solves a whole lot of problems. Instead of ranking for one Holy Grail keyword, a better goal is to rank for lots of keywords focused around a single idea. Done right, the results are amazing.
I assume you know enough about your business to understand what type of visitor you’re seeking and whether you’re looking for traffic, conversions, or both. Regardless, one simple rule holds true: the more specific you define your theme, the easier it is to rank. This is basic stuff, but it bears repeating. If your topic is the football, you’ll find it hard to rank for “Super Bowl,” but slightly easier to rank for “Super Bowl 2014” - and easier yet to rank for “Best Super Bowl Recipes of 2014.” Don’t focus on specific words yet - all you need to know is your broad topic. The next step is to find the right keyword qualifiers. 3. Get Specific with QualifiersQualifiers are words that add specificity to keywords and define intent. They take many different forms.
The idea is to find as many qualifiers as possible that fit your audience. Here’s where keyword tools enter the picture. You can use any keyword tool you like, but favorites include Wordstream, Keyword Spy, SpyFu, and Bing Keyword Tool and Übersuggest. For speed and real-world insight, Übersuggest is an all-time SEO favorite. Run a simple query and export over 100 suggested keyword based on Google’s own Autocomplete feature – based on actual Google searches. Did I mention it’s free? 4. Finding Diamonds in the Google RoughAt this point you have a few dozen, or a few hundred keywords to pull into Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Pro Tip #1: While it’s possible to run over a hundred keyword phrases at once in Google’s Keyword Tool, you get more variety if you limit your searches to 5-10 at a time.
Using “Exact” search types and “Local Monthly” search volume, we’re looking for 10-15 closely related keyword phrases with decent search volume, but not too much completion. Pro Tip #2: Be careful trusting the “Competition” column in Google Adwords Keyword Tool. This refers to bids on paid search terms, not organic search. 5. Get Strategic with the CompetitionNow that we have a basic keyword set, you need to find out if you can actually rank for your phrases. You have two basic methods of ranking the competition:
If you have an SEOmoz PRO membership (or even a free trial) the Keyword Difficulty Tool calculates – on a 100 point scale – a difficulty score for each individual keyword phrase you enter.
Keyword phrases in the 60-70+ range are typically competitive, while keywords in the 30-40 range might be considered low to moderately difficult. To get a better idea of your own strengths, take the most competitive keyword you currently rank #1 or #2 for, and run it through the tool. Even without automated tools, the best way to size up the competition is to eyeball the SERPs. Run a search query (non-personalized) for your keywords and ask yourself the following questions:
You don’t actually have to rank #1 for any of your chosen words to earn traffic, but you should be comfortable cracking the top five. With keyword themes, the magic often happens from keywords you never even thought about. Case Study: Google Algo UpdateWhen SEOmoz launched the Google Algorithm Change HIstory (run by Dr. Pete) we used a similar process for keyword research to explore the theme “Google Algorithm” and more specifically, “Google Algorithm Change.” According to Google’s search tool, we could expect a no more than a couple thousand visits a month – best case – for these exact terms. Fortunately, because the project was well received and because we optimized around a board keyword theme of “Google Algorithm,” the Algo Update receives lots of traffic outside our pre-defined keywords. This is where the long tail magic happens:
How can you improve your chances of ranking for more long tail keywords? Let’s talk about content, architecture, on-page optimization and link building. Content6. Creating ValueWant to know the truth? I hate the word content. It implies words on a page, a commodity to be produced, separated from the value it creates. Content without value is spam. In the Google Algorithm Update example above, we could have simply written 100 articles about Google’s Algorithm and hoped to rank. Instead, the conversation started by asking how we could create a valuable resource for webmasters. For your keyword theme, ask first how you can create value. Value is harder to produce than mere words, but value is rewarded 100x more. Value is future proof & algorithm proof. Value builds links by itself. Value creates loyal fans. Value takes different forms. It’s a mix of:
Your content doesn’t have to include all 4 of these characteristics, but it should excel in one or more to be successful. A study of the New York Times found key characteristics of content to be influential in making the Most Emailed list. 7. Driving Your Content VehicleHere’s a preview: the Blueprint requires you create at least one type of link bait, so now is a good time to think about the structure of your content. What’s the best way to deliver value given your theme? Perhaps it’s an
Perhaps, it’s all of these combined. The more ways you find to deliver your content and the more channels you take advantage of, the better off you’ll be. Not all of your content has to go viral, but you want to create at least one “tent-pole” piece that’s better than anything else out there and you’re proud to hang your hat on. If you need inspiration, check out Distilled's guide to Viral Linkbait or QuickSprout’s Templates for Content Creation. 8. Title – Most Important Work Goes HereSpend two hours, minimum, writing your title. Sound ridiculous? If you’re an experienced title writer like Rand Fishkin, you can break this rule. For the rest of us, it’s difficult to underplay the value delivered by a finely crafted title. Write 50 titles or more before choosing one. Study the successful titles on Inbound.org, Mashable, Wired, or your favorite publication.
Whatever you do, read this fantastic post by Dan Shure and the headline resources at CopyBlogger. 9. Length vs. Depth - Why it MattersHow long should your content be? A better question is: How deep should it be? Word count by itself is a terrible metric to strive for, but depth of content helps you to rank in several ways.
I. Uniqueness At a minimum, your content needs to meet a minimum uniqueness threshold in order for it to rank. Google reps have gone on record to say a couple sentences is sometimes sufficient, but in reality a couple hundred words is much safer. II. Long Tail Opportunities Here’s where the real magic happens. The deeper your content and the more in-depth you can explore a particular topic, the more your content becomes “about.” The more your content is “about”, the more search queries it can answer well. The more search queries you can answer well, the more traffic you can earn. Google’s crawlers continuously read your content to determine how relevant it is to search queries. They evaluate paragraphs, subject headings, photographs and more to try to understand your page. Longer, in-depth content usually send more relevancy signals than a couple short sentences. III. Depth, Length, and Links Numerous correlation studies have shown a positive relationship between rankings and number of words in a document. “The length in HTML and the HTML within the <body> tag were the highest correlated factors, in fact with correlations of .12 they could be considered somewhat if not hugely significant. |
Posted: 13 May 2013 02:06 AM PDT Posted by Erica McGillivray Holy cannoli, it's MozCon 2013 Agenda time! July 8th-July 10th here in Seattle are going to be out-of-this-world. I know many of you have been asking for the complete MozCon schedule, and we've been working hard with all our 2013 speakers to find those perfect words to express how awesome MozCon's going to be. I'm thrilled for the variety of programming we'll have from local SEO and mobile content strategy to video and marketing analytics. There will be plenty of amazingess to fill your brain. You'll see that we have some MozCon favorites returning like Avinash Kaushik, Wil Reynolds, and Joanna Lord, and we've invited some great new folks like Kyle Rush, Karen McGrane, and Dana DiTomaso. Those are some insanely smart industry experts! You'll learn a ton of actionable info to take home and start implementing on your site(s) right after MozCon. And for those of you wanting to know about the party... This year we're raising the roof of the EMP Museum. That's right, we wanted to meet and greet our community while hiding from Daleks. We've listened to your needs, and the EMP's amazing space works for those who want to rock out to karaoke as well as those interested in quieter conversations with a new friend. If that hasn't got you purchasing your ticket yet... MozCon 2013 AgendaMonday8:00am - 9:00am Breakfast 9:00 am - 9:30am Intro: The Year in SEO, Marketing, and Moz with Rand Fishkin 9:30am - 10:00am Really Targeted Outreach with Richard Baxter 10:00am - 10:30am International SEO and the Future of Your ROI with Aleyda Solis 10:30am - 10:50am Break 10:50am - 11:50am Simplifying Complexity: Three Ideas For Higher ROI with Avinash Kaushik 11:50am - 1:20pm Lunch 1:20pm - 1:50pm Wordless Wednesdays: How to Swaggerjack the Power of Visual Memes with Lena West 1:50pm - 2:20pm Rapid Fire Link Building Tips for Your Content with Ross Hudgens 2:20pm - 3:00pm Hot Off the Press: 2013 Ranking Factors with Matt Peters 3:00pm - 3:30pm Strings to Things: Entities and SEO with Matthew Brown 3:30pm - 3:50pm Break 3:50pm - 4:20pm The Mobile Content Mandate with Karen McGrane 4:20pm - 4:50pm Building a Better Business with Digital Marketing with Mackenzie Fogelson 4:50 - 5:20pm The 7 Heavenly Habits of Inspired Inbound Marketers with Dharmesh Shah Tuesday8:00am - 9:00am Breakfast 9:00am - 9:30am Building a Winning Video Marketing Strategy with Phil Nottingham 9:30am - 9:45am The Next Generation of Mozscape with Phil Smith 9:45am - 10:00am How to Moz Lingo: Cross-Team Communication When Crisis Hits with Carin Overturf 10:00am - 10:15am Empower Your Customers to Become Your Evangelists with Aaron Wheeler 10:15am - 10:30am Engineer Your Life: Agile for Work and Play with Miranda Rensch 10:30am - 10:50am Break 10:50am - 11:20am Let's Play for Keeps: Building Customer Loyalty with Joanna Lord 11:20am - 11:50pm Ecommerce SEO: Cutting Edge Tactics That Scale with Adam Audette 11:50pm - 1:20pm Lunch 1:20pm - 1:50pm Building Your Business: Relationship and Other Critical "Soft" Skills with Brittan Bright 1:50pm - 2:20pm Win Through Optimization and Testing with Kyle Rush 2:20pm - 2:50pm How Gender and Cultural Differences in Web Psychology Affect the Customer Experience with Nathalie Nahai 2:50pm - 3:20pm Breaking Up with Your Keyword-Based KPIs with Annie Cushing 3:20pm - 3:40pm Break 3:40pm - 4:10pm End-to-End Local Optimization with David Mihm 4:10pm - 4:40pm Next Level Local Tactics: Making Your SEO Stand Out with Dana DiTomaso 4:40pm - 5:10pm Cater to Your Audience via UX with Allison Urban 5:10pm - 5:40pm Living in the Future of User Behavior with Will Critchlow 7:30pm - 11:00pm Party at the EMP Wednesday08:00am - 9:00am Breakfast 9:00am - 9:40am Beyond 10 Blue Links: The Future of Ranking with Pete Meyers 9:40am - 10:10am Using Metrics to Build Social Media Engagement with Carrie Gouldin 10:10am - 10:30am Break 10:30am - 11:00am The Search for Company Culture and Why It Matters with Sarah Bird 11:00am - 12:00pm Why the Internet Hates Us and Can #RCS Change That Perception? with Wil Reynolds 12:00pm - 1:30pm Lunch 1:30pm - 2:00pm Building Your Community From the Ground Up with Jen Lopez 2:00pm - 3:20pm Community Speakers! 3:20pm - 3:40pm Break 3:40pm - 4:40pm The Secret Ingredients of Better Marketing with Rand Fishkin 4:40pm - 5:10pm Ultimate Q&A
Wowzers, that's a lot of crazy amazing stuff. See you there!
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Over the last ten years, the amount that we buy online has gone up. So have the number of ads we click on every day. We're all clicking around, browsing and sometimes buying.
But, while these interactions and transactions have been growing, the amount of time we spend online and the number of pages we visit have gone up dramatically faster.
Mobile multiplies this.
Do the math. More time, more pages, not nearly so much more in the way of transaction. A visit from a mobile user is almost certainly less likely to convert into a click, particularly a purchase. Your tweets are seen by ten times as many people, but only twice as likely to get clicked on as they used to be. All the attention we seem to get from the outside world is going up fast, but the amount of interaction it leads to is not.
There's a whole lot of people spending a lot of time browsing, not taking action. Permission doesn't scale at the same rate browsing does, which is why permission is worth more than ever before. In fact, the easiest way for a post to not spread is for you to ask someone to actually do something.
Call it attention inflation. More time spent looking, less time spent clicking. We're being conditioned to sit back and assume that action is the exception, not the rule. Sort of like the difference between the supermarket (where no one browses) and the windows of a fancy store (where everyone does).
"I'm just looking" is the new definition of online behavior.
Years ago, I was lucky enough to get a booth on the route of a political march. I had self-published a book directly related to the issue, and more than 450,000 people walked within twenty feet of my booth. I sold four of the 4,000 copies I brought with me. I lowered my price 90% and sold two more copies.
It took me a while but then I realized that people had come to march, not to shop.
This thinking explains why good real estate sites are so mobile-friendly (and why mobile is so real-estate-friendly). If you're sitting in front of a house that's for sale and take the time to look up the information, you're exactly the right person in exactly the right place.
When dealing with a community that browses, you'll need new math:
Since the very beginning (I've been doing online media since 1991), clicks have been undervalued and measurable media has been at a disadvantage compared to traditional unmeasured ads (how many clicks does a TV ad get?). As the web/mobile gets closer to ubiquity, the behaviors of people consuming media get ever closer to the old model of passivity. Sponsorship and visibility will continue to matter, clicks and interactions will go way up in value and overall pageviews will continue to inflate.
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