Ranking for competitive keywords
-
Hi Folks,
I am relatively new to SEO and I was hoping folks here could give me some guidance/tips on ranking in a competitive keyword space. My client is a health care provider and they wish to rank for terms like 'heart attack' which I believe will be quite difficult due to it being a short tail keyword and it is a very competitive space. Any an all advice and input is greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Dave
-
Ciaran,
Starting from scratch to rank for a term like "heart attack" would be quite an endeavor for a seasoned SEO with a client who had a fairly substantial budget, let alone for someone new to the discipline. Not that it can't be done, but knowing enough to inform the client what it will take and what might be more productive options for their practice is part of being and SEO. It sounds like you're working on coming to grips with that knowledge at this very point.
Starting out, I'd recommend a couple of things: Do an advanced Open Site Explorer report on your client's site and then do a comparative OSE report against some of the other sites that rank on page one for that term. Then do another report comparing your client with other sites even further down in the results to get a sense of where the client might be starting from and what they would need to do to get to the top. Installing the Mozbar can be helpful too.
Moz has another tool that you might find handy--it the keyword difficulty tool and be sure that you've read through their How To Do Keyword Research guide, as well.
-
So your goal is:
to rank on high competitive short-term keywords in a stable position and over a longer periode, right?
There are 3 possibilities (which you won`t like):
1. your client has a fortune to spend for SEO and SEA
2. you can use black hat techniques
3. your client has patience (a lot of)
The last one is the most realistic and MAYBE (there is no guarantee!) the most effective way. You have to do a lot of on-page and off-page work to establish the authority of a new domain for a few of keywords. You have to prove that your site has the relevance to be an authority for e.g. "heart attack" - this process takes some time.
We needed several years to make clear that our website is the authority for the keyword "guitar" (the german word for it) within Google Germany - the result is a stable and constant high position for years as well (no.1)... but the list to (maybe) be successful with that is long...
I would always recommend to optimize a long-term keyword which is not so competitive. If you are successful to establish to be an authority for such keywords will help you for your next step: to become an authority fpr high competitive keywords ... try to make your customer clear that you can bring them on top very fast but that they will also fall down much more faster then!
It`s just like buidling up a good reputation or to establish a good credit history - but I believe you already know that!
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
-
Ranking
Our new website has been live since April - it's an old domain but we've had a new website built on Magento 2, however, it's not ranking for most of our main keywords. Can anyone offer any advice?
Web Design | | RayflexGroup0 -
Is the size of website a ranking factor?
I've heard it said that by increasing the number of pages on a website (by adding new content) that this in iself can boost a site's ranking. Is this an old wives tale or is there a grain of truth here? My website - www.skydas.lv metāla durvis Metāla durvju montāža - http://sosdienests.lv
Web Design | | Felter0 -
What factors make a ranking difference between Desktop and Mobile?
Hi all, What makes a website rank better on mobile? Usually page load speed and mobile responsiveness matters and makes a difference to rank w website better on mobile than desktop. our website is surprisingly ranking better on Mobile but not much on desktop. What might influenced here in improvement in mobile ranking and drop in desktop? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
How to optimise non-homepage to beat homepage in rankings? Are we on right path?
Hi all, We have a page with "keyword" in slug like "website.com/keyword" where our homepage is "website.com". This "keyword" difficulty is very high, so every minor factor contributing here and we have noticed competitors' pages with "keyword" in URL ranking. Then we also planned to rank this page "website.com/keyword" and interlinked high, so it'll be favoured by Google which didn't happen. So may be we should reduce the interlinking to homepage and optimise this keyword page more to rank for this keyword. Still I doubt the chances of ranking this page is difficult and need much more. How to make this page ranked replacing homepage? If there are no options for this, we are planning to redirect our homepage to this page; so Google will slowly adopt it. Suggestions please. Thank you.
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Are non-breaking spaces ( ) in keyword phrases bad for ranking
Hello all, I came across a tip for avoiding text orphans in responsive design by putting a non-breaking space between the last two words. While this works nicely, I was wondering if I did this inside of a keyword phrase, would it still rank equally as well? Or will it be viewed as separate phrases or terms? Thanks, Roman
Web Design | | Dynata_panel_marketing0 -
Yoast focus keywords for portfolio post types in WordPress
This one is for the WordPress optimization crowd! Portfolios are used to display work. I have a question about best seo optimization techniques. 1. Portfolios can be used to display many different types of work, for me it either original web designs from scratch, WordPress redesigns, or importing a current website into WordPress. What is the best practice for keywords for multiple portfolios that are in one category. for instance WordPress Redesign. If I have 5 WordPress redesign portfolio posts is it good practice to use WordPress redesign for all 5 portfolios or should they use variations? Yoast gets angry when the same focus keyword is used multiple times. 2. Should portfolios even be indexed? Since this is how I attract new customers I would think yes but am I giving too much exposure to my client and not enough to my business. I guess this will depend on titles and meta descriptions. A discussion on best practices here is what I am really looking for. What is your advice and opinion on the matter.
Web Design | | donsilvernail1 -
Will interlinking using dynamic parameters in url help us in increasing our rankings
Hi, Will interlinking our internal pages using dynamic parameters(like abc.com/property-in-noida?source=footer) help us in increasing our rankings for linked pages OR we should use static urls for interlinking Regards
Web Design | | vivekrathore0 -
Whats the most effective way of targeting regional visitors, is it really just adding your city name at the end of your keywords?
Whats the most effective may of targeting regional visitors, is it really just adding your city name at the end of your keywords? The website i'm trying to optimize is f1plus.co.uk and the target city is aberdeen. I'm new to seo so any views or tips welcome. Thanks
Web Design | | jpc10040