Ranking for more keywords - Noob question

[Sparkstone]

Hi,

I've noticed recently that our site is ranking for a fraction of the keywords that our competitors are ranking for. In terms of increasing the number of keyword rankings per page would it simply be a case of adding optimised copy to each page?

Thanks,

Dan

[EGOL]

Here is what I have at the top of the "start-up" page on my work computer....

Creating New Content is the Only Way to Earn Money!

[MarieHaynes]

Wow.  I remember having this discussion with you a few years ago.  And it's so true.  Some of the stuff that I wrote back then has filtered its way up to the top without me doing any link building.

I wonder if I could create an auto-reminder for myself to read this advice every 3 months to remind me to keep creating awesome content and not just get focused on links links links.

[EGOL]

Thanks, Paul.  You are correct.  These are all-new pages with articles of very substantive length.  Mine are typically 1000+ words and several images.

Depending upon subject area they can bring in good amounts of traffic from long-tail keywords and when/if they rank for their short tail the traffic can be huge.

A lot of the content that I publish and forget starts deep in the SERPs for primary terms.  But it slowly climbs and a year or two later is at great position.

[irvingw]

sometimes you can identify and target long tail on the existing pages you already have. In many cases it's a case of adding two instances of the long tail on a page and tweaking the title tag etc. and you could see improvement.

But if you are looking to target a completely new set of keywords then additional content would definitely be needed.

[ThompsonPaul]

Just note, Dan - Egol is talking about creating all-new pages about new topics, not just adding more content about different topics to existing pages.

The most effective content targets one or two primary keywords. If you try to target too many keywords with a single page, you dilute the ability of each of them to earn rank.

Paul

[Sparkstone]

Thanks for the reply. Interesting, I like the approach of spending little time on link building.

I shall be giving this a try, in a hope to increase the long term affects.

[EGOL]

My favorite method for increasing the traffic into a website is to do keyword research and then start writing very useful and interesting content for topics that people are searching for.   If you can do that your traffic will start to climb.

Also, my personal belief is that when google sees that you have content for everything that anyybody anywhere is searching for they rank you a little higher.

I spend zero time linkbuilding.  Zero.  Instead I put up a sustained content attack.

For me this brings great results as long as every page of content that I produce is one of the very best documents on the web for that topic.  These articles each require a couple days to a couple of weeks - with staff helping me with art and photography and research.

This will not work if you are publishing crap or even pedestrian-quality content.

This approach is time consuming, expensive and slow to produce results.  But if you persist at it your site will become very hard to beat and visible in the SERPs throughout your niche.

This approach is not for everyone because few people have the resources, faith and patience needed to do the work.