SEO for a starter
-
Hi
I operate in a rather competitive market (IT and project management related training), and my focus is the UK market. I've recently started focussing on SEO. I have been creating content, albeit slowly. I have completed writing a book on my target subject, which is due to go out in a couple of weeks (I've received very positive feedback so far). And I have a decent PPC campaign.
To get to decent ranking on Google etc., my plan is
1. Focussing on quality content and publishing on my site (I have about 15-20 articles in the pipeline). Reaching out for guess posts is next, but creating this much content is hard.
2. Get external SEO help for link building and off-page SEO. This is somewhat confusing for me, as I've got offers ranging from blog posts, BMR etc. I have some budget for this, but don't exactly know what to target.
3. Gradual focus on on-page optimisation.
I haven't done anything on social front, on FB, Twritter. I do have a solid LinkedIn profile (personal).
I have one full time resource available to help me out.
What should I focus on? What am I missing?
Cheers.
-
Hi Feneris,
Were these answers enough to get you started, or are you still looking for some more advice? We'd love to have you check in and know how things are going for you. Thanks!
-
Feneris,
Any plan requires first knowing where you are. You state you have a decent ppc campaign, but do not state anything about your website. How is it ranked, type, etc. When I read your plan for ranking on Google, I first see you are focusing on content: is the site new? If so, How many pages? Architecture is flat - 2 to 3 clicks to anywhere? Keywords are good to go and you are ranking for at least some of them?
If not ranking for keywords or no kw analysis yet, I would take a step back and focus on site map as it applies to visitors coming to the site and do keyword analysis prior to the content. Believe me I am sure you know your subject, but my experience is everytime I do keyword analysis I am amazed at the way people search differently than me. An example for us is we have several attorney clients in various areas. In some cities, attorney is used as the most searched on term and in others it is lawyer??? So, I would do that first as it will apply to your content writing.
Next, I would make sure that my on page is spot on because otherwise, it is going to languish until you get the bug and you will be wasting your good content as no one will see it. A typical mistake with newer sites is identical title tags on every page - really bad for SEO. Another is you need quality meta descriptions for the organic traffic you get or they will not click through which is also bad for SEO.
I would also go after my Local SEO (places, bing bus portal, yahoo local and citation sites). If your site is new and your resources are good, I would sign up with Yahoo directory for the $295/yr. If you claim your SE local and 12 to 20 citation sites you will have helped yourself a lot.
Then, when your book goes out, set up speaking engagements and interviews for yourself and get the media links, etc. Whenever you are going to be hawking the book in the media make sure there is a link to your site. I am assuming you are creating a site for the book???
So, that is my 2 pence worth. Hope it is helpful.
Robert
BTW - Do not forget to support open source developers by making contributions when you use their tools. Keep the Internet Open.
-
To my experience it's very important to post solid contents continuously, to let people come and know you during the time even though it may be a good idea to have some content online to start.
Then I have good results with my Facebook page (in the Italian market): it's very easy to manage and very effective in spreading your content around the web. Furthermore, once you've got a good number of friends, your contents run even faster.
-
If you've written a book then you need to work on your image as an authority figure. Go out to tech sites and get yourself interviewed, with a link to your site. This is the kind of link building that Google loves and it pays the greatest rewards in the long run.
Offer some excerpts on your site. Better still, write your content and insert excerpts. Creates a natural teaser that makes people want to buy your book (which is why you're doing SEO). Maybe add a "power" picture of yourself (I'm basing this on what I've seen others do).
You NEED a FB page. Twitter plays a role too, but it requires a lot more fresh content. if you can't keep your Tweets up I'd skip it.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Dramatic drop in SEO rankings after recovering from hacking
A few months ago my client's website was hacked which created over 20,000+ spammy links on the site. I dealt with removing the malware and got google to remove the malware warning shortly within a week of the hacking. Then started the long process to do 301 redirects and disavowing links under Webmaster tools over these few months. The hacking only caused a slight drop in rankings at the time. Now just as of last week the site had a dramatic drop in rankings. When doing a keyword search I noticed the homepage doesn't even get listed on Google Maps and for Google Search instead the inner pages like the Contact Us page show up instead of the homepage. Does anyone have any insight to the sudden drop happening now and why the inner pages are ranking higher than the homepage now?
Algorithm Updates | | FPK0 -
Ecommerce SEO help
Hi I'm having difficulty managing our product pages for optimisation, we have over 20,000 products. We do keyword research & optimise product titles/meta of new products - however there's a lot to clean up but we have done a lot. I find we rank/convert better on product pages so they would be great to focus on - however when an old product is discontinued, the page is removed & we lose authority by creating new pages for similar products - does anyone have any ideas for managing this? This is something done automatically on the dev side in France. I then have the issue of trying to rank category pages - these are highly competitive areas competing with big brands. I'm finding it tough to know where to focus, the site is vast and I am the only SEO. I've started looking into low hanging fruit - but these aren't necessarily the areas which bring in much revenue. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
SEO for mobile sites?
Let's say I have an ecommerce site and it has a separate theme via device detection. So I may even have different content on the pages. So for example, on desktop, on mysite.com/flowers I have a video about flowers. But on mobile, I have 10 000 words of text. Will this page rank better for people searching via mobile? Will google give different search rankings, based on desktop vs. mobile? Or how is Google calculating this? Are there any good mobile SEO tips or a knowhow base?
Algorithm Updates | | JaanMSonberg0 -
SEO For sub locations for specific services
Hey Guys, I am currently creating a website for my business that will be marketing through SEO very heavily. I Live in NYC, and i'd like to rank up for the individual locations such as Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island and eventually if my domain authority and other long hall metrics kick in NYC. What I find very tiring is targeting these locations all separately, it means I need to create the same site 4 times with completely different and unique content. Should this setup work for me, and is there a risk that Google will see 4 web design pages, and basically say even though the content is unique your ranking up for web design with a location too many times? from my understanding this is not a problem now, but is this a future risk? It also becomes extremely difficult for site navigation with about us pages, contact us pages, and other pages that either have to be duplicated or all pages shown on sidebar for navigation. Please share your thoughts with me, THANKS!!!
Algorithm Updates | | tonyr70 -
Server Location & SEO
So I just read an interesting Tweet: #SEO Tip: #Google takes into account the location of the server (the IP) when projecting the search results #web This is something I had not thought of. I suppose my question then is HOW does it factor this information into it's results? For some reason, one of our sites is hosted on a Canadian server. We are a cloud hosting company and we serve all of NA with data centers in the US and Canada... For whatever reason we've used the Canadian server farm for our web server. Could this possibly be hurting our NA google SERPs? Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Algorithm Updates | | jesse-landry0 -
Bing SEO?
I've put in a lot of time on my site to make sure it is full of good relevent content and has a healthy back link profile. I rank well on google but not on Bing. How do I go about optimizing my site for Bing and what does Bing look for that makes them rank sites differnetly than google? Also what other search engines should I be looking to optimize for? As a note I am a Realtor with a Real Estate website.
Algorithm Updates | | bronxpad0 -
Can You Recommend An SEO Consultant To Support Our Panda Recovery Efforts?
Hi, I'm looking to find an SEO consultant to help me review my organic search strategy following the recent Panda update. Can you recommend somebody? Thanks, Adam
Algorithm Updates | | adampick0 -
Local SEO url format & structure: ".com/albany-tummy-tuck" vs ".com/tummy-tuck" vs ".com/procedures/tummy-tuck-albany-ny" etc."
We have a relatively new site (re: August '10) for a plastic surgeon who opened his own solo practice after 25+ years with a large group. Our current url structure goes 3 folders deep to arrive at our tummy tuck procedure landing page. The site architecture is solid and each plastic surgery procedure page (e.g. rhinoplasty, liposuction, facelift, etc.) is no more than a couple clicks away. So far, so good - but given all that is known about local seo (which is a very different beast than national seo) quite a bit of on-page/architecture work can still be done to further improve our local rank. So here a a couple big questions facing us at present: First, regarding format, is it a given that using geo keywords within the url indispustibly and dramatically impacts a site's local rank for the better (e.g. the #2 result for "tummy tuck" and its SHENANIGANS level use of "NYC", "Manhattan", "newyorkcity" etc.)? Assuming that it is, would we be better off updating our cosmetic procedure landing page urls to "/albany-tummy-tuck" or "/albany-ny-tummy-tuck" or "/tummy-tuck-albany" etc.? Second, regarding structure, would we be better off locating every procedure page within the root directory (re: "/rhinoplasty-albany-ny/") or within each procedure's proper parent category (re: "/facial-rejuvenation/rhinoplasty-albany-ny/")? From what I've read within the SEOmoz Q&A, adding that parent category (e.g. "/breast-enhancement/breast-lift") is better than having every link in the root (i.e. completely flat). Third, how long before google updates their algorithm so that geo-optimized urls like http://www.kolkermd.com/newyorkplasticsurgeon/tummytucknewyorkcity.htm don't beat other sites who do not optimize so aggressively or local? Fourth, assuming that each cosmetic procedure page will eventually have strong link profiles (via diligent, long term link building efforts), is it possible that geo-targeted urls will negatively impact our ability to rank for regional or less geo-specific searches? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | WDeLuca0