Where should I be focusing SEO efforts first?
-
Hi everyone,
I am a digital marketing intern at a small marketing business. They have a really horrible, 1990's ish website which I am currently working with them on a plan to completely redo within a few months. Until then I am fixing some issues on their current site which includes SEOing their current content that will be moved to the new site. They have a ton of issues which include, but are not limited to, missing meta descriptions and title tags, no official keywords incorporated into their content, no analytics or tracking of keywords, a poor use of social media, and duplicate content. My plan was to fix all these issues first, then when the site relaunches really start focusing on the more advanced bits (which include link building).
The previous intern spent 99% of his time posting on forums building "backlinks". I've been going through his posts and saw he posted on mainly marketing forums on topics but never included any type of link back to the site in his posts or on his forum profile (his reasoning was he wanted to gain a reputation with the forum first so the admin would not delete his posts or so he'd be able to put a link in his signature). He and the owner of the business say that this is the best and most effective way to help SEO and the owner is questioning whether or not I concentrate on that instead of the other issues.
So what do you think? Do you think I should be fixing all these issues first and waiting until the site relaunches to concentrate on forum backlinking? Or do you think it would be more effective to just focus on my energies on forum backlinking?
Also - the previous intern also told the owner that Wordtracker was a poor investment and is not useful. I have always thought that was sort of an industry standard. Do you think he's right? If so could you recommend something else?
Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks
-
hmmm... this is a marketing company? They need a kick in the pants.
It sounds like as an intern you will be with them for a limited amount of time. If that is the case then follow the advice given by others.
However, the folks at this company really need to go waaaay back to the basics.
If I was an intern there I would try to do something else - instead of attempting hatchet surgery on a sow's ear.
(This can be risky because you don't know who conceived the original site and what the company thinks of it.... however they must not think much of it if they are willing to turn it over to a stream of interns. Also your comments that the owner of the business thinks that forum spamming is good advertising shows that they don't understand the web.)
However, the truth is... this website should go back to the planning stages.... this company needs to determine:
-
the objectives of the website,
-
what they expect visitors to do, learn, buy, contact, etc. when they arrive at the site
-
plan a pathway through the site for each type of visitor that will lead to both visitor and company goals
-
and then storyboard a website that accomplishes both visitor goals and company goals
-
determine how people interested in the services of the company might search for the site
-
determine a cluster of keywords that will market your services in the geographic area that is served
-
plan content for the site that will position it in front of those keywords
Should you do this? Hard to say. It depends if the company is serious about making a good web presence or if they are satisfied with their current farting around.
I don't recommend posting their URL here... would be bad marketing.
-
-
After following what the others have said on here about sorting the site out first, when you move on to link building, don't go crazy with keyworded anchor text on spammy sites. Go for branded anchor text first then move on to partial and phrase match as well, then mix in some exact match... all from decent sites. That's if you build the links yourself, but it's always preferable to have content that good that you just attract links naturally anyway... go for both approaches
-
Obviously link building is important but I am always of the belief that if you have the opportunity to fix the on site issues (from an SEO, design and conversion perspective) first your efforts would be better concentrated there to start with.
This is because without the technical and on page corrections needed the efforts of your link building will be diluted and if your site does not convert well then your new traffic will not bring you the results it should.
-
If the site is as horrible as you say, all the traffic in the world is not going to help out and if the only link building strategy is essentially lightweight forum spamming then... that is almost a complete waste of your time.
Your time would be better spent looking at a long term marketing strategy for the site, determine what your goals are and what you need to do to achieve them.
If I was you I would start at the beginning, do keyword research to determine demand, audit the whole site and see what assets you currently have in place and start planning a new site that capitalises on what is there and improves the hell out of it.
If your boss insists on quick and easy traffic fix then look at some PPC ads to drive traffic and factor the experience gained here into your overall marketing strategy.
If the site is plagued with problems, light weight fixing of these problems may well result in increased conversions from the existing traffic. If the site is a train wreck then focusing on the rebuild and promotion is the best plan of action.
It's not my quote but if you can get your boss to realise that 'SEO is a marathon & not a sprint' and that he has to dig in for the long game then you should be able to concentrate on areas that will bring long term results that outstrip any such simple link building efforts.
Hope it helps & happy to feedback if you want to drop or PM a link
Cheers
Marcus
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 value of a 'Most Popular Stories' widget?
Hi there, I work for a theater and live performances publishing site. We write 15-20 quality articles per day on the New York City and national theater community. We show a "Most Read" stories widget on all of our pages, but click rates for these are really low - 1% of readers click to read a story from this. As such we're considering replacing this with higher-value content. My question, however, is this: Is there any SEO value in keeping this widget? I want to make sure we're taking this aspect into consideration. Thank you!
Link Building | | TheaterMania1 -
★Does syndication of a news features from high Profile site like TechCrunch have a negative SEO impact?
As a co-founder of a startup that is weekly featured on high page rank news sites such as TechCrunch, The Next Web, TreeHugger , Yahoo News etc. These types of write ups are "SEO Gold" as they are high page rank sites with high relevancy to our sector and with unique good quality anchor text and copy. However... Within hours of each post going live the content and links are syndicated either via RSS or scraped and appear as duplicate content on in some cases 100's of very low quality and low relevancy content aggregation sites. To give you an example here are just two of the sites that are now appearing as linking domains due to this syndicated content and the links included in the article. Examples : Eco Market, The “Etsy For Eco,” Rebrands, Revamps, Raises & Prepares A U.S. Launch Sarah Perez | Technology | Page 4 The above are just a couple of examples amongst 100's that result from each feature. I would like to hear you opinion on if these links would be considered natural and you feel I should not take action or if you think these need removing by contacting the webmasters or disavowing the links? I am sure I cant be alone in having this problem and look forward to hearing you advice and tips
Link Building | | LiamPatterson0 -
Need seo advice! At a fork in the road!
Hi, I m having a difficult time deciding what steps to take next, about my marketing strategy. I have 2 e-commerce sites for more than 7 years, one of them got a google link penalty back in september 2012 and lost 80% of organic traffic. I have worked on the bad links, got some of them removed and others disavowed. After 5 months of hard work and getting high quality links from authority sites related in my industry, I received a message from google saying that the manual spam penalty was revoked. This was in feb 26th. Since then I have got couple more high quality links and content to the site, but the organic traffic is still how it was prior to penalty revoked (at 20%). I still have no revenue from this site and i don't see what else I can do or how long I should work on it to see some improvement on traffic. My other site on the other hand is doing just fine but has some conversion issues. I m thinking of dropping all seo related activities for my first site and focus on the second one to see if we can have some increase on the organic traffic of that site. If I was to do a 301 redirect from my first site to the second one, what kind of effect will this have on the second site, would that be a negative or positive impact in terms of traffic? also thinking of moving the site from x-cart platform to magento. I appreciate any advice i can get here. Thank you Nick
Link Building | | orion680 -
Can anyone suggest a good SEO company ?
Hi we are hurt by many seo companies in the past who build bad quality links, and we got hit with a link penalty. Can someone refer me to a good decent SEO firm please ? nick
Link Building | | orion680 -
One page website SEO
Can a one page website rank well with the right SEO? I am building a new site so it is best to put the content related to two or three related items on one page or create seperate pages? Surely by creating just one page I can put all my link building efforts into improving the authority of that page as opposed to spreading my time over 3?
Link Building | | SamCUK0 -
Wired image releases via Creative Commons for SEO
Wired Magazine has started to publish images under CC licence as reported here: http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/11/wired-releases-images-via-creative-commons-but-reopens-a-debate-on-what-noncommercial-means/ The images are found here http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2011/11/creative-commons/ They allow noncommercial use (though this is not clearly defined) and request to attribute to the original source and "ask for a link back to the original story where the photo first appeared". The latter does not seem to be compulsory, but of course is a great SEO tactic to generate deep links. What's your take on this? Does anyone have experience with providing image material with the request to attribute you as the original source?
Link Building | | zeepartner0 -
Utilizing Print Media for SEO
Hey SEO MOZ, We have a client that holds the license to a famous Australian designer. The Designer and our client both get mentioned a lot in the print world. They get coverage in publications like the New York Times, Home and Garden Magazine and other top print media publications. Sometimes it's our clients business name mentioned and sometimes it's the designer's name who they hold the rights too. I'm wondering how we can utilize this exposure for their SEO? It already drives traffic to their website but it also be great to harness this exposure to increase their rankings. I know one way is to see if the article is also printed online and see if you can get a link on their. But I'm wondering if there are other ways to use this? Also do you have experience contacting major publications to see if they can put a link in an online published article and if they ever respond to these requests? Really appreciate this!
Link Building | | TWSOM0 -
How to Add Content to a Product-Focused Site
I recently took over management of the SEO work for the following site: http://www.grovercorp.com/rings-and-seals/. I want to do link building, but don't have a ton of experience with it. From what I've read, offering linkable content is the best way to get links. However, this site -- like many in industrial B-2-B -- is focused primarily on promoting their products. I'd like tto offer an article or add an infographic, but am not sure where I would put it? It doesn't seem like the architecture offers a good place to add linkable content. Anyone have thoughts or suggestions?
Link Building | | EricVallee340