A challenge! What off-page strategies would you employ first when ranking a brand new small business website?
-
I'd love to hear what you guys do. I think the game has changed now in the era of Penguin. Gone are the days where you can build a few quick links and suddenly your new site is ranking fairly well.
Obviously, the first steps are to get the on page SEO right - titles, good keyword use, etc.
Eventually, the goal may be to build some content that will attract natural links. But, we all know that is going to take time.
So, here's the scenario:
You've got a new client with a website in a fairly non-competitive niche, say, a piano mover in Seattle. The site is indexed, with no external backlinks. You're happy with the current on page SEO. The site is currently ranking on page 3 for "Seattle Piano Mover". What would you do next?
-
I would also suggest claiming and tidying up the Google+ Local/Google Places entry for the business (or creating one if it does not exist) and ensure that the business is listed consistently in all the major directories in order that it is clear where they are and how to contact them.
Asking satisfied clients/customers for reviews or feedback, or pointing them in the general direction, can also help.
-
These are great! Thanks!
-
These might not work for piano movers but for small professional office here are some low-hanging fruits that I can think of for links.
- landlord (some brag about their tenants)
- chamber of commerce (often link to members, write blog post, become an officer for profile link)
- community directories (they feature local businesses, write blog post)
- professional associations (link to members, write blog post, become an officer for profile link)
- clients (write a blog post for them)
- suppliers (often link to local product vendors/customers or write blog post for them)
- professional schools (often link to successful grads, write blog post)
- license boards (link to licensees, write blog post)
- other local businesses with synergy (write blog post, become one of their "recommended")
- local newspapers (write article for online edition)
- local BBB (get in directory, write blog post)
- write for professional journal online edition
- local city government/organizations (directory, blogs, supporters, volunteers)
-
Good additional strategy is to purchase and 301 redirect an expired, aged domain (or several) that already has a few dozen authoritative domains linking to it, preferably a domain with history in the same niche.. this usually results in a nice boost - but it may take several weeks to take affect. Fire a few links at the expired domain to speed up the process.
-
He probably just needs a handful of links from local sources. Maybe local business associations, etc.
If it is very niche and local, you have very little work to do compared to a site that needs to rank for a competitive keyword nationally. But you already knew that!
-
Is this a test Marie .... or are you after advice
As for me, I'd kick back and pat myself on the back and say job done good ... Number 3 aint nowt to be sad about
I once did a site for a client, and offered basic SEO as part of the build, clearly stating that I would insure the site structure would be fine, proper use of heading tags, good meta description, the basic stuff.
Anyway, he said he would love to rank high for School Cleaning Ireland, the phrase itself was so niche, as soon as the new site was indexed, he ranked number 2 in Google.ie
The guy was over the moon with me ... Got three new jobs from referrals (just web build) ...
Anyway, the moral, I have not done a thing with his website in over 8 months, my job was just to build it for him, I have just checked Google.ie, and he now ranks number one for that very phrase, without an iota of content changing on his website, I know that for sure as it is a static HTML ...
Sometimes niche words need very little work at all
Regards
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
-
New page not topping on results
Hi, We have created a new page on our website for same keyword in slug but the page is not showing up for same keyword even combined with website name: website.com/keyword is new page and not listing on top of results for exact search query "website keyword". This page is listing as 3rd result and other pages are making on top even they don't match with page title, h1 tags and URL. This new page is indexed. How long it'll take to Google to adopt this? I don't think it'll remain same forever. Is there anything we can do from our end?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Do Website Engagement Rates Impact Organic Rankings?
Hello Experts, 1) Do Website Engagement Rates Impact Organic Rankings? What does Website Engagement Rates means? Is it a visitor stay on my page long time? Can anyone guide me what things we can include in website engagement rates Specifically for "Ecommerce Sites" ? Can I consider - 1) Reviews 2) Video's 3) Good Images and informative description 4) video's 5) highlighting relevant blog posts at category pages 6) email subscription etc as website engagement? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wright3351 -
Ranking dynamic landing pages
I have a client and I'm working on a project with their development team. We're creating dynamic landing pages populated with their lead data. Similar to the style of linkedin. For example, someone searches for "demand generation manager" and one of our pages with contact information (some) shows up in the search results. www.leadgenius.com/demandgenerationjobs (or something like that. we have yet to flesh this out). We're also looking into different backlinking strategies to support optimizing the above mentioned pages in addition to their new site launching this month. What is the best way to optimize the dynamic pages as well as the main site in tandem or independently?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Intergen0 -
Do Page Views Matter? (ranking factor?)
Hi, I actually asked it a year and a half ago (with a slight variation) but didn't get any real response and things do change over time. On my eCommerce website I have the main category pages with client side filtering and sorting. As a result, the number of page views is lower than can be expected. Do you think having more page views is still a ranking factor? and if so is it more important than user experience? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet1 -
Duplicate Content Dilemma for Category and Brand Pages
Hi, I have a online shop with categories such as: Trousers Shirts Shoes etc. But now I'm having a problem with further development.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | soralsokal
I'd like to introduce brand pages. In this case I would create new categories for Brand 1, Brand 2, etc... The text on categories and brand pages would be unique. But there will be an overlap in products. How do I deal with this from a duplicate content perspective? I'm appreciate your suggestions. Best, Robin0 -
First Website
Hi Everyone, I have just published my first website and was wondering if anybody would like to help me with some hints and tips. This is my first time branching into SEO and could really do with some help. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. The site address is www.theremovalistsguide.com.au which targets the furniture removal industry in Australia. Thanks for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobSchofield0 -
An affiliate website uses datafeeds and around 65.000 products are deleted in the new feeds. What are the best practises to do with the product pages? 404 ALL pages, 301 Redirect to the upper catagory?
Note: All product pages are on INDEX FOLLOW. Right now this is happening with the deleted productpages: 1. When a product is removed from the new datafeed the pages stay online and are showing simliar products for 3 months. The productpages are removed from the categorie pages but not from the sitemap! 2. Pages receiving more than 3 hits after the first 3 months keep on existing and also in the sitemaps. These pages are not shown in the categories. 3. Pages from deleted datafeeds that receive 2 hits or less, are getting a 301 redirect to the upper categorie for again 3 months 4. Afther the last 3 months all 301 redirects are getting a customized 404 page with similar products. Any suggestions of Comments about this structure? 🙂 Issues to think about:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zanox
- The amount of 404 pages Google is warning about in GWT
- Right now all productpages are indexed
- Use as much value as possible in the right way from all pages
- Usability for the visitor Extra info about the near future: Beceause of the duplicate content issue with datafeeds we are going to put all product pages on NOINDEX, FOLLOW and focus only on category and subcategory pages.0 -
SEO Audit Strategy For A Complex Website?
I am looking for a list of SEO audit tools and strategies for a complex website. The things I am looking for include (but not limited to): finding all the subdomains of the website listing all the 301's, 302's, 404's, etc finding current canonical tags suggesting canonical tags for certain links listing / finding all current rel=nofollow's on the website listing internal links which use & don't use 'www.' finding duplicate content on additional domains owned by this website I know how to find some of the items above, but not sure if my methods are optimal and/or the most accurate. Thank you in advance for your input!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CTSupp0