SEO - I just do not seem to get it
-
Hello All,
I came to the forum two weeks ago and prior to that studied SEO until my brain almost melted two weeks before. Now, I've read some great articles here on SEOMoz which have been fantastic. Mainly being this one: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo.
So anyway, I genuinely throught I got it about a week ago. Here's what I did:
First I decided on my keyword: "PC Repair Sheffield".
Then, I made a website and on-page optimizaed as best as I possibly could (Graded A on the SEOMoz on-page exam tool).
So I decided firstly to add myself to the Independant newspaper Business Directory, because it's free and has a great domain authority.
I then went to Yahoo answers, found a Question i knew the answer too and made a whole article on the question, I provided a really useful answer and put a link to my full answer in the 'Source' section. This was a NoFollow Link.
Every week, I write a new article and put it in my 'Blog' page. In the articles, I like to cover some problem that I've encountered throughout the week, if, for example, I write about a Hard Drive I replaced in Sheffield, I write about that and link it to my 'PC Repair Sheffield' page. Every article contains a video from Youtube, which is another 'NoFollow' link.
Past that, I just find forums which are preffereably not 'No Follow' links and try to help people by answering their questions, but putting more details on my site for them toi see, with a link.
That is pretty much the extent of what I 'Get' so far. But I do read a lot of the posts on here and I'm always seeing the Experts on SEO criticise these things and say it's bad without actually explaining why, or how to improve this, or what to do instead in some kind of simple way?
I mean, this blog i'm writing, is there really any point? It's unlikely anybody is going to see it, sharing it is just a rediculous assumption. Nobody shares a page on how to fix a hard drive from a local sheffield site.
I don't think that NoFollow links are a waste of time, but that's my personal assumption. I think that makes it more natural in a way..
'Write Fresh Content' and get natural links is a crazy suggestion, nobody is ever going to share it. It's just not the way the world works for small businesses.
No task is easy, but none are impossible either, i know that I could do SEO, i'm just not entirely sure 'what to do'.
-
Hi Paul. It seems you are doing the right things already.
Remember to target both low and high competition keywords - and focus on both short and long tailed keywords. Use good synonyms. fix <-> repair, PC <-> computer. Dont target too narrow. use Google Keyword Tool to find good keywords.
And, yes i would be that guy sharing a link to a page that saved my day by fixing my harddrive. I would comment and ask questions i stumbled upon on of your videos, when searching for someone or something to help me fix my problem.
Try taking a look at good performing local repair shops in ie Manchester. What have they done. From who have they acquired good links etc.
Keep it up
-
It can be hard for small (or even larger) businesses to accomplish some of these things.
However, to be successful, it's what needs to be done - so the question becomes, if you want to do C work, is it fair to expect an A grade?
-
Hi Paul,
It looks like you have a good understanding of SEO and are willing to do the work required for a good SEO campaign. Now if you can most efficiently use your SEO time, you will really have something.
The one thing that you seem to be lacking is building your online network. It is great to write for your own blog and it is ok to sometimes comment on forums, answer questions and submit to good directories, but in my experience, the best links are given by a person, not by just pressing a submit button.
I would recommend finding some target websites that publish content related to your company/industry and try to build a relationship with the blogger or website owner. These will be your target links.
Yes, you will need to "Write Fresh Content" or provide something that adds value to their website, but that is only the start. You should write content with a purpose. The goal should be to get that content published on a certian blog or website. The only way to do this is to physically reach out to the webmaster or blog owner (remember they are people) with a phone call or email (I always receommed calling first if possible). You cannot just sit back and expect people to link to your great content, it needs to be marketed by you.
You most likely are an expert in your industry, so you have the knowledge needed create content that people would love to use and post. All you need to do is pick your target websites and physically get it front of a person that has the ability to put it on the website.
I hope this helps.
-
Hi Paul, I think you do get it, and quite well. I think the other thing you are discovering is that SEO is a very long process. Last summer at MozCon, Rand shared some stats from his blog in the early days. He had post after post where it seemed like no one was reading, and certainly no one was commenting. It's hard work. It takes time. One of my favorite quotes is from a great master French flutist, Marcel Moyse. He would always say that becoming a great musician was a matter of "time, patience and intelligent work." I think you are doing the "intelligent work" part. Just keep at it. The "time and patience" part is hard, especially online because everyone expects the Internet to abound and placate us with instant gratification. You are doing all the right things. Trust in the force You'll get there. Just persist.
Dana
-
"Every week, I write a new article and put it in my 'Blog' page. In the articles, I like to cover some problem that I've encountered throughout the week, if, for example, I write about a Hard Drive I replaced in Sheffield, I write about that and link it to my 'PC Repair Sheffield' page."
This is approximately what I do for two sites that I focus on.
I identify informative content that people are searching for, write an article that is among the best-on-the-web for that topic, supplement the article with great photos, graphics, perhaps a video (that we prepare ourselves), and post them on the site.
We have been doing this every week, every week, every week, for several years. We don't do any linkbuilding or other site promotion - our visitors share our content and link to it without any work done by us. Rankings climb steadily and traffic climbs steadily as we add more content and the site becomes more visible.
This works in niches with low competition and also in niches where the competition is very very high. The key to success is content that defeats what is already out there.
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
-
SEO suggestions for a directory
Hi all, I am new to SEO. I work for a ratings and review website, like TripAdvisor and LinkedIn. How would one go about setting up SEO strategy for national directories that have local suggested pages? What can be a good practice. For example, Tripadvisor has many different restaurants across the UK. What would they do to improve their SEO? How do they target correct links? How do they go about building their Moz Score? Would really appreciate your thoughts and suggestions. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Eric_S
Eric0 -
How good or bad is this for SEO?
I will try to make this as clear as possible. We represent the yellow pages - www.visalietuva.lt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FCRMediaLietuva
For every single company that is listed we have Creditworthiness - that helps to find information about their payment history and their business status. It's pretty useful. An example could be found here: http://www.visalietuva.lt/en/company/dizrega-uab/creditworthiness Some companies that are proud of their result started putting Iframe on their pages:
http://dizrega.lt/lt/kontaktai/firmos-rodikliai We noticed this on Google Webmasters, when new links started to appear.
So we are not sure if this is good for SEO? Of course this is good for our Google Analytics:))
If this is good, maybe we should send offer for our clients, that we can help to put iframe like this for free, for people who are not able to do it themselves. Your opinions please!0 -
SEO Monthly Strategy
Out of curiosity, do any Mozzers use a monthly spreadsheet style SEO strategy that is set on a daily basis like this: Day 1 - purchase/write 3 articles
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fertilefrog
Day 2 - comment on 5 blogs
Day 3 - upload article 1
Day 4 - directory submissions
Day 5 - blog promotion
Day 6 - etc..... If so, do you find this to be the most effective way of working, with this rigid structure?0 -
Which part of SEO take the most time?
Which part of SEO do you think will take the most time? and Why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marknorman0 -
SEO Tools for Content Audit
Hi i'm looking for a tool which can do a full content audit for a site for instance - Find pages which: • Lack text content. • Finds pages with lengthy meta descriptions • Finds missing H1 tags or multiple H1 tags . • Duplicate meta descriptions. • Find images with no alt text Are there any tools besides the ones on SEMOZ which can enable me to do a full content audit on factors like these. Or any SEO audit tools out there which you can recommend. Cheers, Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | monster990 -
Is this Negative SEO?
Hello Everyone, I have just spent the past 9 months designing, engineering, and manufacturing our first product. We just opened our web store and started selling product. http://miveu.com. I have spent zero time doing any kind of SEO. We haven't even put up a sitemap yet or any redirects. I'm just now starting to take a look at things. As soon as I start digging, I find that it appears that someone is at least attempting to do some kind of negative SEO against us. It seems to have started about a month ago. Check this out. https://www.google.com/search?q=miveu&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-beta#q=miveu&hl=en&client=firefox-beta&hs=bo2&tbo=1&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:d&sa=X&psj=1&ei=AGgBUJfJNK650QHW8YW-Bw&ved=0CE0QpwUoAg&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=335379d2f3ac2208&biw=993&bih=637 At first I was thinking this isn't so good, but it seems they are just trying to build crap content about our keywords and make it relevant to us. After taking a closer look, I'm thinking maybe this isn't all bad. They have targeted all of our exiting YouTube videos and created new videos that use all of our keywords, titles, people, etc in an effort to make our existing videos irrelevant. They have have also done the same thing with articles that were written about us, awards we have won as well as started negative campaigns about us and people who have said good things about us. Here are my thoughts. While the content is really crappy, it seems like they are actually building keyword relevance to us and our products. They have all the right keywords, the content is just crappy. "There is no such thing as bad press". I don't know if anyone has ever said this before, but I'm going to refer to their effort as "White-Hate SEO" because it doesn't appear to be a real dark effort. Am I missing something here, am I way off base? My bigger worry is that their campaign may include some much darker efforts that I just haven't found yet. I'm pretty sure I know who is responsible for this. They have made it clear that they really do hate us. Frankly, I'm not interested in retaliation, I just want to get my own house in order with some good old-school whit-hat SEO. I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dmac
David0 -
RSS feeds- What are the secrets to getting them, and the links inside then, indexed and counted for SEO purposes?
RSS feeds, at least on paper, should be a great way to build backlinks and boost rankings. They are also very seductive from a link-builder's point of view- free, easy to create, allows you to specifiy anchor text, etc. There are even several SEO articles, anda few products, extolling the virtues of RSS for SEO puposes. However, I hear anecdotedly that they are extremely ineffective in getting their internal links indexed. And my success rate has been abysmal- perhaps 15% have ever been indexed,and so far, I havenever seem Google show an RSS feed as a source for a backlink. I have even thrown some token backlinks against RSS feeds to see if that helped in getting them indexed, but even that has a very low success rate. I recently read a blog post saying that Google "hates aRSS feeds" and "rarely spiders perhaps the first link or two." Yet there are many SEO advocates who claim that RSS feeds are a great untapped resource for SEO. I am rather befuddled. Has anyone "crackedthe code" onhow to get them,and the links that they contain, indexed and helping rankings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tclendaniel0