What strategies to best use to boost rankings across long-tail articles on site?
-
Heya!
I'm currently engaged in what appears to be a slightly unusual SEO task. I run a large, reasonably well-respected (but not global-standard, yet) site that I'm currently monetising through individual articles targetted at addressing specific search engine queries that I know have decent traffic.
It's the EHow / Demand Media model, except with a focus on a single specific (video games) niche, and much, much better quality articles (sufficiently good that they attract a fair amount of praise - all the writers on the site are published authors and the quality's damn high).
Most of our articles end up ranking with essentially no backup, but they don't rank high - usually 2nd or 3rd page of Google. I'm trying to determine what the most effective strategy would be for us to boost our article rankings with the least possible expense / effort (we don't have a huge budget).
Our long-tail articles are mostly being trumped by articles with either a couple of external links to them or by other articles with no links but from a site with significantly higher Domain Authority (70+ to our 48).I'm working to improve our on-page optimisation, but it's already pretty good (an "A" report from the SEOMoz tools on most or all pages).
So, I'm wondering what the best use of our time would be to increase traffic globally across the site. Strategies I'm considering:
- Focussing on building links to the homepage and to any other pages on the site, by asking for links from community members, doing linkbait articles, directory submissions, guest blogging, and so on. Long-term aim: increase our domain-wide MozRank and MozTrust.
- Build links to our long-tail articles specifically, most popular first. Get direct links from relevant blogs, press releases, social bookmarking, etc. Long-term aim: get to #1 on Google one page at a time.
- Something Else?
I'm wondering what the big SEO brains here would suggest?
Happy to provide additional details if it would help!
-
Since the search engines aren't very good with videos yet, that is the reason behind the practice. For clients, I also always try to include a brief summary below to help out a bit more. Never hurts to cover all the bases!
-
Hmm, now that is an interesting idea. Do alt tags for video correlate with ranking as strongly as alt tags for images?
Thanks - these are all useful ideas!
-
Make sure you have links back to your site from the social media too.
Might already have it but never hurts to review.
I always optimize all page elements because you never know when things change. I tend to use H2/H3 in those I am looking to have rank using the kw phrase.
When you construct a post, the first link gets some weight and so using anchor text with an emphasis can help. I use it in the first or second sentence generally. I also use the main site phrase in an anchor link call to action at the bottom.
This reminds me, since you are doing a lot of videos, you might create a short commentary below the video and make sure you have the alt optimized for the video topic.
Hope that is helpful.
-
Thanks!
I'm already doing most of this, I must admit. I'm using the Keyword Strategy plugin to do internal linking using exact keyword phrases, although I could probably optimise the number of places I'm doing that on the site a bit more.
Titles and headers are fairly optimised already - although from reading the SEOMoz reports, I understand header tags have a very small SEO effect anyway?
We've already got a Twitter, Facebook, Del.icio.us, Stumbleupon, and Tumblr presence, so I think we're reasonably covered there!
Things I'm not doing, and will probably start - thanks for the suggestions -
There's a related articles plugin I should be installing - thanks for recommending that, I'd forgotten I meant to do it.
First link anchor text I must admit I'm not optimising - can you explain a bit more or suggest a resource I could check?
Thanks again for these suggestions!
-
Since I have a lot of small businesses that I market with new content, I would suggest you take a closer look at the long tails you are using and make sure you have all the on page elements in place to work for you.
I am sure some of the veteran folks here will give you some valuable input on other strategies but here are mine from a writing perspective:
If you are not linking to external sites, make sure you are using your long tail kw phrase to interlink on the site.
Titles, headers, and author bios should also be tight. Your first link anchor text will also be valuable. Consider archiving by author as well as by topic.
If you are using a CMS such as Word Press, consider implementing a related article plugin so you can further drive traffic to related articles.
Finally, if you are not using social media--get a Facebook page (not profile) and Twitter account going so you can share the links of your new and previous articles.
YouTube is the number three search engine so you might post some teasers to attract traffic and make sure you optimize your channels in the social media landscape.
I've had good luck with using these tactics for clients. Looking forward to seeing what others have to say.
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
-
Site architecture, inner link strategy and duplicate or thin content HELP :)
Ok, can I just say I love that Moz exists! I am still very new to this whole website stuff. I've had a site for about 2 years that I have re-designed several times. It has been published this entire time as I made changes but I am now ready to create amazing content for my niche. Trouble is my target audience is in a very focused niche and my site is really only about 1 topic - life insurance for military families. I'm a military spouse who happens to be an experience life insurance agent offering plans to active duty service members, their spouses as well as veterans and retirees. So really I have 3 niches within a niche. I'm REALLY struggling on how to set up my site architecture. My site is basically fresh so it's a good time to get it hammered down as best as possible with my limited knowledge. Might I also add this is a very competitive space. My competitors are big, established brands who offer life insurance along with unaffiliated, informational sites like military.com or the va benefits site. The people in my niche rarely actually search for life insurance because they think they are all set by the military. When they do search it's very short which is common as this niche lives in a world of acronyms. I'm going to have to get real creative to see if there are any long tail keywords I can use as supporting posts but I think my best route is to attempt to rank for the short one to three keyword phrases this niche looks for while searching. Given my expertise on the subject I am able to write long 1000-5000 content on the matter that will also point out some considerations my competitors dont really cover. My challenge is I cant see how this can be broken into sub topics without having thin supporting content. It's my understanding that I should create these in order to inner link and have a shot at ranking. In thinking about my topic I feel like the supporting posts can only be so long. Furthermore, my three niches within my small overall niche search for short but different keywords. Seems I am struggling to put it all into words. Let me stop here with a question - is it bad to have one category in a website? If not I feel like this would solve my dilemma in making a good site map and content plan. it is possible to split my main topic into 3 categories. I heard somewhere you shouldn't inner link posts from different categories. Problem is if I dont it's not ideal for the user experience as the topics really arent that different. Example a military member might be researching his/her own life insurance and be curious about his spouses coverage. In order to satisfy this user's experience and increase the time on my site I should link to where they can find more dept on their spouses coverage which would be in a different category. Is this still acceptable since it's really not a different subject?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | insuretheheroes.com0 -
How to rank an ecommerce site for search terms starting with how where why
Hi guys, I just got a new SEO job for an e commerce store, the client is asking to rank the site for keywords like where to buy used phone, where to sell my used phone for for best rates and so, the question is how can i achieve that, can anyone help me with some concrete suggestion? Thanks in Advance,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mkhurramali0 -
Title tag: Long tail words or keyword dilution?
Hi all, I am a newbie to SEO. Lately, I have been struggling to optimize my title tag. Ones say that we should have long tail words in title tags because long tail words improve click through rate and generate quality leads. On the other hand, ones say that putting other words in the title tag will dilute the main keyword that my page ranks for. Do keywords really dilute each other in the title tags? I am really confused. Let me give this an example: Web Design Services | Company Name Web Design Services with Conversion Focused | Company Name Which one would you prefer and why? Thank you. 😄 Best, Raymond
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Raymondlee0 -
Flash site ranking well for a competitive keyword
Hello Mozzers, Thought we'd get the group's opinion on this: This site (power lead generation) is ranking for the keyword "lead generation" on Google.ca at the 5th position organically . It's performing even better than some of the better optimized sites with more content related to this keyword. Any input would be appreciated. Cheers, SEO5..
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEO5Team0 -
Is My site seeing a Google Dance ? - Rankings all over the place
My eCommerce website is seeing some rankings flucuate daily from say rank 20 to rank 130 whilst some other keywords ago up and down by as much as 40 places. I have been putting up alot of new unique content and can see in GWT that google has been crawling my site more but given that I was affected by the google panda updates which saw a 40% drop in traffic I'm only just to recover some of it., i have also been trying to get rid of any poor links and our linking building is only concentrating on high quality posts and links. I am wondering if this is the post panda update - "google dance" or is google having issues trying to work where to rank my site and possibly punish me? thanks Sarah.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SarahCollins0 -
Don't want to lose page rank, what's the best way to restructure a url other than a 301 redirect?
Currently in the process of redesigning a site. What i want to know, is what is the best way for me to restructure the url w/out it losing its value (page rank) other than a 301 redirect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marig0 -
How long is it safe to use a 302 redirect?
Hi All, Lets assume there is site A and site B, both sites are live on the internet today as standalone businesses, but they sell very similar products. Site B has built up some link equity and will eventually become the domain for site A due to an organisational re-brand. For the time being however site A will remain, but site B needs to disappear temporarily, but not lose the link equity which has been built up against it. My current thinking is to 302 redirect site B to site A such that users and search bots accessing site B will be redirected to site A whilst leaving the link equity that exists against site B fully intact and allowing us to continue to grow it should we wish to. The question is, does anybody have a view on how long it is safe to use a 302 temporary redirect for? i.e., is 8-10 months to long. Thanks, Ben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BenRush0 -
Best multi-language site strategy?
When reading about multi-language site structure, general knowledge says that there are 2 right ways of doing it right: Assign one domain per region/ language: www.domain.fr www.domain.de www.domain.co.uk ... If a country has more than one language, such as Switzerland, you can create folders for those languages: www.domain.ch/fr - in french www.domain.ch/de - in german Have a unique domain www.domain.com for the whole site and create folders for language region: www.domina.com/fr www.domain.com/uk ... If a language is spoken in more than one country, you can create subfolders www.domain.com/fr-ch - french in switzerland www.domain.com/de-ch - german in switzerland At first sight, it seems that option 1 is the right one. However, sites such as www.apple.com are using option 2. I am unable to decide... what would you recommend? Any objective criteria?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hockerty0