Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks Wyatt, I was curious about author tags as well.

Hey 1902,

I'm a small business owner, with little to no experience in SEO. I've learned the basics just by doing research online and reading a lot of articles. I rely on my website to get new clients and generate pretty much all of my business. When I first got started, I avoided trying to get backlinks by writing articles and guest posting on other sites because I thought it was too time consuming and difficult to write "kickass" content. I didn't think I had anything amazing to say and didn't think I'd ever be able to get published on sites with really high domain authority. After spending a lot of money on pay per click campaigns, I finally decided to try it.

Before I really started focusing on writing articles (about 3 months ago), my site was showing up on page 5 or 6 of organic search results on Google for my focus keywords. After about 2 months of focusing solely on writing, my page is now showing up on page 1 for several of my focus keywords. Guest posting on other sites has by far been the best return on investment for me in getting meaningful backlinks that have increased my organic presence on Google.

It did take time, but it wasn't as hard as I thought. I just started Googling reputable sites that posted articles relevant to my industry. I emailed those sites and asked if they accepted guest submissions for publication. A lot said no (or didn't even respond), but enough said yes. I'd say I have about 5 solid sites that I can now submit content to and they provide a bio in each article with do follow links back to multiple pages on my site. These key sites have domain authorities of 60 and above--the best sites have domain authorities of 82 and 92. My content is not anything amazing or groundbreaking. My articles probably aren't going to become the go-to authority on their topics. But they are relevant and they are publishable. I thought it would be nearly impossible to write for the really reputable sites, but I'm now a regular contributor to U.S. News. All I did was email and ask if they'd be willing to accept guest posts and submitted a writing sample on a suggested article.

Moral of the story is that, at least for me, writing articles to get back links has by far been the most effective way of boosting my site. Definitely worth the effort and not as intimidating as I thought it would be. I saw significant results after just a couple months of focused effort. Hope this is helpful. Best of luck to you!

Thanks Miriam, super helpful!

Looks like I need to go and make some changes to my GMB listing.

I've done a lot of PPC and I'm REALLY trying to scale back my ad spend by improving my organic results. For the past 2 months or so I've really been pushing on guest blogging. I've seen some great results. 2 months ago my site was showing up on page 5 or 6 for most of my target key words. Now I'm on page 1 for a few of them and others are working their way up. Long term I'm really hoping to phase out PPC with great organic presence.

Thanks Miriam, that's some great info! A few follow up questions:

**Local. **How does the service radius work? Just looking at my GMB listing as a consumer, it doesn't even show my service radius, it just says the business is located in Charlotte and gives the address. Is the purpose of the service radius so that my business will potentially be pulled as a local result when someone does a search for something like "foreclosure attorney" from a location within the search radius I've entered on GMB? For example, someone in Raleigh does a search on their phone for "foreclosure attorney". I've included Raleigh in my service radius on GMB. But there's no chance that I'll show up on local results because my actual office is in Charlotte? I guess I'm trying to figure out why Google will let me have such a large service radius (I can include the entire state if I want), if there's no chance of me showing up in local results outside the city where my actual office is?

Organic. Unfortunately, with the type of law I practice I won't really be able to create any meaningful content for my site that is city-specific. In looking at other businesses, including law firms, that cover entire states (or other large geographic areas--even the entire country), I haven't really noticed any of them providing city-specific content. But they still show up at the top of organic results when I do city-specific Google searches. Any ideas how they do that? Is Google smart enough to figure out that my site is relevant to every city in North Carolina simply because my site says that I provide services throughout the entire state? For example, one of my H1 tags is "stopping foreclosure in North Carolina". When someone does a search for "stop foreclosure attorneys in Raleigh", will Google say, hey, Raleigh is in North Carolina, this website is relevant because it's about stopping foreclosure in North Carolina?

Thanks Miriam, I really appreciate your time and advice!

Awesome, thanks Miriam! Similar to Christopher, my homepage ranks really well for a search like "stop foreclosure attorney Charlotte NC", but I want to achieve similar rankings for any location in North Carolina.

1. I have a single office location in Charlotte, but I provide legal services to the entire state of North Carolina.

2. I do not meet face to face with clients in locations other than Charlotte..I usually don't even meet face to face with my clients in Charlotte.

3. I am willing and able to provide legal services anywhere in North Carolina. The services I offer are transactional and are almost completely handled via email, fax, and phone. On my Google My Business listing, I've currently entered Charlotte and the 14 largest counties in NC as my service areas. I'm thinking I should go ahead and just add every county?

4. I am curious about both organic and local rankings.

I've wondered about duplicate content also. I wrote a blog post that I liked so much I used it almost verbatim to update a page on my site. I've heard that Google doesn't penalize for duplicate content, but I'm interested to see the responses to this question.

I am in a similar situation. My firm is located in Charlotte (and that is the location on my Google My Business listing), but I provide services to the entire state. Not sure how to get the best SEO results in other locations.

Thanks Bryan! As of this morning, I'm now the very first listing in the organic results for my targeted key word!

Very helpful, thanks!

Thanks Tim! I actually noticed today on Google Search Console that it can show me where schema is being used. Just as it says in the quote above, it's currently only being used on my blog pages. I'm not very savvy with all this, so Wix has been an easy and inexpensive way for me to get a good looking website that gets results, but I can definitely see it has some drawbacks when it comes to customizing for SEO. Hopefully they'll add more options in the near future! I definitely went and voted for it on their site!

Hey 1902,

I'm a small business owner, with little to no experience in SEO. I've learned the basics just by doing research online and reading a lot of articles. I rely on my website to get new clients and generate pretty much all of my business. When I first got started, I avoided trying to get backlinks by writing articles and guest posting on other sites because I thought it was too time consuming and difficult to write "kickass" content. I didn't think I had anything amazing to say and didn't think I'd ever be able to get published on sites with really high domain authority. After spending a lot of money on pay per click campaigns, I finally decided to try it.

Before I really started focusing on writing articles (about 3 months ago), my site was showing up on page 5 or 6 of organic search results on Google for my focus keywords. After about 2 months of focusing solely on writing, my page is now showing up on page 1 for several of my focus keywords. Guest posting on other sites has by far been the best return on investment for me in getting meaningful backlinks that have increased my organic presence on Google.

It did take time, but it wasn't as hard as I thought. I just started Googling reputable sites that posted articles relevant to my industry. I emailed those sites and asked if they accepted guest submissions for publication. A lot said no (or didn't even respond), but enough said yes. I'd say I have about 5 solid sites that I can now submit content to and they provide a bio in each article with do follow links back to multiple pages on my site. These key sites have domain authorities of 60 and above--the best sites have domain authorities of 82 and 92. My content is not anything amazing or groundbreaking. My articles probably aren't going to become the go-to authority on their topics. But they are relevant and they are publishable. I thought it would be nearly impossible to write for the really reputable sites, but I'm now a regular contributor to U.S. News. All I did was email and ask if they'd be willing to accept guest posts and submitted a writing sample on a suggested article.

Moral of the story is that, at least for me, writing articles to get back links has by far been the most effective way of boosting my site. Definitely worth the effort and not as intimidating as I thought it would be. I saw significant results after just a couple months of focused effort. Hope this is helpful. Best of luck to you!

I've got a Wix site that I'm pretty happy with. There have definitely been some frustrations, and it does seem like I've been missing out on some customization options that would help with SEO, but for certain key words my site is now showing up on Google in the top 3 of local results and page 1 of organic results. I'm admittedly pretty clueless regarding SEO, programming, and most of the stuff talked about on Moz, but I feel like Wix has been an easy and inexpensive way to get a good looking site that gets results.

Had the same question, these answers are helpful, thanks!

I've experienced the same thing, but it wasn't very long before the MozBar caught up. Sam's answer was helpful too!

I should probably be doing the same thing as Eric with my site. What is silo and why is it a good strategy? Also wondering if it's better to have anchor text links or to use "Learn More" buttons? Not sure if that matters for SEO or if it's more just about what works well for the consumer?  Thanks!

Awesome, great link, thanks!

Yep, what Bryan said. I've also had a lot of luck with guest posting for other reputable sites that are willing to give me a dofollow link. In fact, guest posting has given me the best ROI on my SEO efforts so far. It's required a fairly significant time commitment, but other than that it's been free. I'm happy to share more on what's worked for me if you like.

Sure, happy to share! I'm definitely not an SEO expert by any means, but this worked for me. For the past 2 months the only link building I've done has been through guest posting. When I started, my site showed upon in Google organic results on page 5 for one of my main key words. As of 2 days ago, I now show up at the very bottom of page 1 for the same key word.

I got started just by researching reputable sites on Google and checking their DA using to Moz toolbar. I contacted any sites that I liked and asked if they accept guest submissions. A lot weren't interested, but enough said yes. I spent a good amount of time on this, and on writing articles, but it's been worth it. My content isn't anything amazing, but it's relevant and publishable. I probably only have about 5 articles published with sites that have a DA of higher than 50 (I think the highest DA is 82), but it's already made a huge difference over the past 2 months. As soon as my site got on page 1 (2 days ago), I've been getting significantly more calls from potential new clients.

Another thing that's really helped me get new clients is the local results on Google. I now show up in the top 3 local results for the same key word I was talking about. I started having clients leave Google reviews (which I hadn't done in the past) and I immediately noticed my position climb in the local results.

So I haven't really done anything fancy. I've just spent the time to make contacts and write articles, but it's definitely been the best ROI for time I've spent on SEO so far. Now I have some good contacts that are will to accept regular submissions, so I'm definitely going to keep at it!

Thanks Wyatt, I was curious about author tags as well.

Thanks Bryan! As of this morning, I'm now the very first listing in the organic results for my targeted key word!