Most useful things to do without developer resources on SEO

[Eric_S]

Hi fellow Moz users!

I am managing SEO at our company. Perhaps some of you out there also have the problem of wanting to make SEO changes on your website but lack the developer resources to make significant changes?

What are some of the things I can do in my power (can't do any backend work) to make SEO better?

Currently, I have:

• Social media (including Moz local tips of business listings)
• Blog site
• Refining pictures
• Google analytics to see where we can improve
• Internal and external links

Please feel free to expand on the above but ideally it will be new things that I could get on with!

Many thanks,
Eric

[Eric_S]

Absolutely agree on the branding push. There needs to be a long term strategy.

In terms of working out the business case for the blog and working out ROI:

If you have a link to your product on your blog and you track it. When it converts, there is a ROI! To work out the ROI, look at the number of visitors to the blog, then number of people who clicked the link, then number of people converted and what that is worth to you.

Let's say from 100 visitors, 2 clicked the link and 1 person converted to buy our product worth £10. From 100 visits you would get £10 which means each visitor to your website is worth 10p. If you can generate visitors for less than 10p each, then I would say there is a return on investment with your blog!

[BeckyKey]

Hi Eric

This is great & what I'm trying to do now is grow our blog too. How do you measure the ROI from your blogs & do you incorporate much social promotion?

I'm trying to get the content moving but also start up social & do the SEO, so it's proving difficult.

We have a huge amount of competition from Amazon/Ebay etc and I feel to even try & compete we need to start pushing our brand rather than just products.

Becky

[Eric_S]

Hi Christy,

I do have some successes to share:

1. Blog. I now have the ability to upload content. It has been a great way to create depth in our keywords. A long way to go but a good start. We have also seen it as an added revenue stream as a result. Key is then to build on this!

Challenges:

1. We are growing and so is the competition in our industry. It is making the SEO efforts even less effective. 
2. Creating an overall picture of where we stand in terms of SEO as a business. Then finding effective solutions to take us further!!

In conclusion, in order for us to compete, I really need to make a case to argue for development resources so we can invest in our SEO, turning in to profits going forward.

[Linda-Vassily]

I use CoSchedule to manage social media (and as a content calendar). Easy to use and nice analytics.

[Eric_S]

@NakulGoyal, thanks for this.

All your points are answered with a massive YES!

What suggestions do you have for a small project/tests/experiment for me to prove the worth of putting our resources towards this?

Thanks,
Eric

[NakulGoyal]

Eric, Have a few questions for you:

1. Do you have executive buy-in to do SEO Work?
2. How much SEO potential is out there for your website to rank?
3. How well does it rank today?
4. How big are your Top 3 competitors? Have they been growing last 1-5 years?

If you can demonstrate the size of the opportunity you have and prove it's achievable with a smaller project, test or experiment, you might have "unlimited resources" ;). Just saying :).

[Eric_S]

I do like this idea of making use of the highest performing pages. This is good because it leverages our best content and makes it even better!

Thanks for the suggestion and article too.

[Eric_S]

Thanks for the suggestion on Buffer. Seems like it utilizes all major social media in one go.

[Eric_S]

Hi Becky,

I feel you. I work in operations so I manage a lot of other things beyond the SEO and social media. In this case, I probably have an even less amount of time than you to implement these things!

A tip from me is to leverage other people's time. Have guest posts but make sure you share on all social media platforms.

I am struggling to come up with a strategy to build links for our content though. Do you have ideas/examples/blogs of how others have been successful in this area? Also, how to encourage social media shares in the public sphere. If ONE article goes viral, that is all it takes to make a huge following on the blog and twitter.

Anyway, I have so much to learn! Please share your successes with me too!

[Eric_S]

I recognise that content is king. Also, to be able to build links by connecting with websites that have a similar niche will be hugely beneficial. I will start making a plan for this.

In terms of metrics and measurements. To manage is to measure. What are some of the things I should be measuring, using the tools you have suggested? Do you have any articles or youtube videos that explain this?

The dev resource is indeed a permission issue. If there is a case for it, I can push for it to be done. In this case, measurements are the best forms of data to give to make a case! Cost vs value right.

[Eric_S]

This is a great practical suggestion that I will be putting forward!

With the ability to manage our site that comes with much more power to make a difference. Thank you.

[Eric_S]

Appreciate the myth busting and all the articles here. I am getting the sense that to be in control of SEO is to do it holistically. This is not just content creation but content amplification/promotion too!

[Eric_S]

Thank you for clarifying this. We have a social media platform within which I am curating a content schedule for. Knowing how to make the best use of this is essential for SEO I think.

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Eric_S,

You've received a lot of great ideas for improving your SEO in this thread! Have you implemented any of them? We'd love to get an update from you!

Christy

[TimHolmes]

I personally use a number of tools, MOZ bing one, Google Search Console, SemRush, and SeoPowersuite.... as for managing my social my personal favourite is Buffer..... where i manage, FB, Twitter, G+, Pinterest, Instagram and LinkedIn.

[SouthernPowerflushing]

Hi Eric,

Do you currently use any other software to improve your SEO? ive just signed up to Moz and its absolutely amazing!!! but was wondering if there is another where i can manage my social media accounts in one go? (that is good).

Many thanks,

zach

[Shalusingh]

Hi Eric,

There are a lot to do without having developer resource and the things you doing is a great start but only if you are doing in an effective way. It is all about what your customers want from you. So firstly analyze them - what they like, what they don’t, what they are seeking for, etc and then put yourself at their position. You will get the answer how to make them happy. Do research and analysis. Believe me, you don’t have to worry about your rankings. Once you will make your customers happy, Google automatically be happy. And in reverse Google will give you the top rankings.

For your help here are some of the suggestions written by Dr. Peter J. Meyers and Ronell Smith.

Hope this will help!

[BeckyKey]

Hi

I face the same issue

Are you the only SEO & do you have the support of a content team? I'm focusing on KWD research & optimisng our product descriptions/titles, content & starting to do social.

As the blog content/social falls on me as well, it's hard to keep up with all of that plus SEO stuff as our site is so big.

Did you get anywhere with an answer to your question?

Becky

[Packaging-Group]

Most importantly, follow all of the suggestions in the site crawl report, and tackle as many of these as you can. Here are some of the free tools I use regularly that can help you take your efforts further.

• Use the free dashboards and custom reports from the google analytics gallery to get more insight into your traffic and to identify any errors (outside of what you see in moz).
• Google Data Studio (Free) also has reports you can use for keeping track of different metrics and it connects directly to google analytics and search console.
• Google Sheets has a free addon for google analytics and search console data that allows you to schedule automatic reports, once you have identified errors you want to monitor.

Aside from metrics, content is king, and you will benefit greatly from researching your target keywords, and posting articles that include links to the related pages.

Is it a permission issue, or are you not comfortable editing any of the technical aspects?

What platform is your website running on?

[Moreleads]

You could use GSC to find some actionable insights to optimize your on-page content.

1. go to the search analytics area and click on the "pages" option.  Then click on the page and change the option to "queries" to find relevant keywords you can add to the that page on your site.
2. Find pages in the same report with low ctr´s on good positions and optimize the meta descriptions and page titles.
3. Identify your top queries and see if the right pages are ranking for them.  If not diagnose why and correct the issue(s). You can check out his moz resource https://moz.com/blog/wrong-page-ranks-for-keywords-whiteboard-friday

[BeckyKey]

Hi

If you're creating this great content - is social amplification through your own brand channels still worth pursuing?

I am facing the same challenges as Eric & am trying to push for more social - but as a way for us to share the content we're producing.

Becky

[TimHolmes]

Along side your content for your blog, ensure you try to answer commonly asked questions, this can help to position you in P0 (knowledge area) if answered well.

A great tool to use is answerthepublic.com where you can see what common questions are asked around you main terms. Adding this great unique content either on a blog or selection of FAQs could be beneficial.

[Igor.Go]

There are alternatives like Serpstat's "related keywords" and Ahrefs' "also rank for". they determine "LSI" keywords by finding connections in SERPs.
Take top 10 for keyword A and compare it to top 10 for keyword B, if 5 pages from SERP A were found at SERP B it's safe to assume that keywords A and B are related.

You can find some cool keywords with these tools
Example: https://i.imgur.com/wO62vII.png and more https://i.imgur.com/HWiBchu.png

Here's what fitment is for those unfamiliar: https://i.imgur.com/RptDZ1e.png

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Eric_S, this is a great question!

Have you looked into installing Google Tag Manager on your site?

Depending on how your website is managed, installing GTM on your site may or may not require minimal development resources. Once it's up and running, though, you can use GTM to implement all sorts of SEO changes. On your site. Yourself.

[WebMarkets]

After a week of reading your posts, I would expect a better response.

My initial point was to focus on on-page content, by utilizing the diagnosis and keyword density tools on SEO Quake as one of my preferred tools without the use of developer tools.

As Matt Cutts stated in the video, there is a law of diminishing returns when dealing with keyword content. And absolutely there is. So, if there is a law of diminishing returns, there must also be a law of increasing returns. Correct?

I respect your opinion and appreciate your feedback. But not the type of feedback that puts down another person for their opinion. You make good points, but a weak argument on why the metric is flawed overall.

A better discussion would be how does too much keyword density effect Conversion Rate Optimization? Or how a keyword density tool differs from a TF-IDF calculation.

All in all, its been fun. Agree to disagree about pieces of you perspective. And I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

@Kris: Have you even read this post and watched the video that Gianluca posted on this thread earlier: https://www.hobo-web.co.uk/keyword-density-seo-myth/ ? I do agree that mentioning keywords needs to happen obviously. But what I'm completely against is measuring that against a metric like keyword density. TF-IDF is already a better way (which was also already written about in this thread).

For many reasons keyword density is a flawed metric, like I mentioned before. But let me add some more explanation to it:

• The percentage of 1 keyword mentioned v.s. all words on the page. But what does that percentage mean, you have no clue right? Is 1% good, is 2% bad?
• Keyword density takes very many things not into account: the number of words on a page, if I have a 100 word description and 10 mentions of the keyword it could potentially be fine and not keyword spammy. But if I have 1000 words and 25 mentions it could potentially be that it's absolute spam.
• Competition? What are all my other competitors doing, what is their density for a certain keyword. All of that is not being taken into account when looking at these numbers. Maybe a 5% density is high in your industry, maybe it's 0.5% you wouldn't know.

These are just some examples of why the metric in itself is not more then just a percentage and for that I would never recommend using it.

[WebMarkets]

I appreciate your feedback Martin, and yes, as an SEO professional, I am constantly learning about SEO best practices. What I do not appreciate is your willingness to publicly shame me for a difference in opinion. That sir, is something you should correct. Last time I checked, I didn't see your name as the almighty resource for SEO.

"It's using the RIGHT metrics to decide what you're going for and how to prioritize certain areas of optimizations over another. But clearly you don't want to be convinced of that....good luck with keyword density. I hope the other people reading this topic at least don't take this for granted. "

As a comment to your statement, how do we find the "right metrics"? Do these metrics come from theories? A/B testing is real and the A comes from one opinion and the B comes from another. Yes, accurately researched data is concrete, but the samples come from differences in theory...AKA opinion.

However, your argument still has many holes. Your'e basically telling me, I can have a page up for snocones in phoenix, and not mention "snocones and/or phoenix on the page, but still be ranked #1 because of links? That's entirely incorrect.

This example is the point to my argument.

Keyword density isnt the one-stop-shop for great SEO ranking factors, but is does have a hand in on-page optimization. Or.....is that a myth as well?

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

If you still have that impression, then you have no idea what real SEO is. It's about everything besides opinions. It's using the RIGHT metrics to decide what you're going for and how to prioritize certain areas of optimizations over another. But clearly you don't want to be convinced of that.... good luck with keyword density. I hope the other people reading this topic at least don't take this for granted.

[mememax]

I think that this is just the bad part about SEO. Opinions.

I agree with you if we use the word experience, as different markets and different sites may respond differently to the same strategy.

I think that when it comes to SEO there is too many opinions without a very strong data support provided by testing. That is the real scientific approach that everyone in this category should take, as among opinions people may have different ones, but when it comes to scientifically proven results there is no discussion

[mememax]

• Hey Gianluca, thanks for responding to my answer.

  I agree that LSI is not a pure metric, and in the past when I used TF-IDF content, it didn't prove to work all the times in all markets. Despite that I think that both LSI and TF-IDF are recognized method to gather information about related keywords and provide to content writers additional insights.

  It's not the same when you request an article to a content writer about "Blue ribbons" than providing them information about related keywords, keywords suggested by Google and Questions related using askthepublic. The connection of the three is what I call LSI data, not 100% what google intends with pure LSI (based on the huge amount of data they have) but pretty accurate IMO.

[WebMarkets]

The wonderful thing about SEO, is that every SEO expert can have a difference of opinion, and both can be correct.

[gfiorelli1]

Beware with LSI, which is mostly a myth.

As Bill Slawski wrote in Inbound.org back in 2014:

_Latent Semantic indexing was invented and patented in 1990 before there was the web. _

_It was developed to help index small (less than 10,000 documents) databases of documents that didn't change much (like the Web does). _

_There have been a number of companies that started selling LSI Keyword generation tools that promised that they could help identify synonyms and words with the same or similar meaning. _

Where those fail is that the LSI process requires access to the database (of documents) in question to calculate which words are synonyms - and the only people with access to Google's database to do that kind of analysis (which isn't possible anyway since Google's index is much too big and changes much too frequently) is Google.

A much better metric is TF-IDF, albeit always being conscient that it is still a metric... not the bibie.

[gfiorelli1]

Keyword Density is a myth as it has been demonstrated for several years !!! Please, don't spread myth in the Moz Q&A.

Some sources:

• https://moz.com/ugc/seo-myths-that-persist-keyword-density;
• https://moz.com/blog/keyword-targeting-density-and-cannibalization-whiteboard-friday
• http://www.alessiomadeyski.com/seo-myth-keyword-density/
• https://plus.google.com/+BillSlawski/posts/F9h4pVSXapT
• https://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/how-search-really-works-the-keyword-density-myth.html
• http://resources.spyfu.com/4-seo-keyword-myths-you-shouldnt-buy-into/
• https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/seo-myth-busting-01-keyword-density.961827/ (I mean, even black hats say it's a myth!)
• ....

[gfiorelli1]

This answer is good, because of the tools that are shared.

However... creating unique content doesn't mean your site will start earning links like crazy.

Umberto Eco once said that there are thousands of exceptional books that nobody ever read. The same can be told about all the "great content" published on the Internet. If you don't

If you don't put the same effort you put in creating your "quality content" into promoting it, then you're not going to obtain any backlink at all.

Therefore, more than thinking about what tool to use for creating content (please, don't confuse content with formats), I think it's better to suggest checking out the posts here on Moz under the Link Building category.

[gfiorelli1]

Social signals are not a ranking factor.

Moreover, it has been demonstrated by Buzzsumo that the theory of social media amplification = more backlinks is false, because, as that study says:

1. only a small percentage of all the blog posts published daily are able to obtain a minimum number of social share and
2. in order to obtain at least one backlink, thousands of social shares are needed.

[WebMarkets]

Yes, I would agree links help as well, greatly. But link building is roughly 25-30% of the total SEO pie. My argument is about on page content, and utilizing a keyword density tool to communicate to Google how relevant the on page content is. The higher the density, but not so high to warrant a black hat technique, the more opportunity to rank on a certain keyword. If you cannot agree to this statement, I'm sure you're just focused on gathering MOZ points.

Nothing is an exact science in the SEO world. And if it is, you apparently work for Google...or Google works for you.

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Yes, it's called: Links. Even if you would mention the keyword, you're not creating any argument for why keyword density is a good metric at all or any relation on why you should be checking it. Keyword density is a flawed metric, it doesn't provide you with any context or guideline why a certain range is good or bad.

[WebMarkets]

Again, agree to disagree. Which is the beauty of SEO.

If I create a page about snocones in phoenix but didnt mention snocones in phoenix on the text of the page, would my website rank highly on the search term, "snocones in phoenix"?

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

_"And they use keyword density as part of its algorithm to judge each page and correctly rank it in the index." - _This part still doesn't make any sense. Because you're basically trying to maintain a 'healthy' balance that is a percentage in your tool. But nobody knows what the actual percentage is anyway and for sure that their interpretation is not a certain % but totally variable based on many more factors.

So summed up, you're looking at a metric that doesn't tell you anything. At best keyword density is a metric that will count how many times a word is being mentioned against all of them, which is a percentage. Not a density number that is useful.

[WebMarkets]

Agree to disagree. Every page has a keyword density to it. Just because your focus may be conversational and written to engage the user (which, i agree and also Implement), Google still views the keyword density as part of its algorithm to index what the page content is all about.

Im not suggesting to stuff each page with monotonous keywords. What I am saying is Google needs to know what each page implies. And they use keyword density as part of its algorithm to judge each page and correctly rank it in the index.

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

No, because if you're thinking about it you're clearly not writing content that is intended for a user. I've worked with dozens of editors for publishers that really never think about keywords or the density of it. They're the best ranking sites in the world

[WebMarkets]

you dont believe in keyword density?

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Keyword density... really?

[mememax]

Technical onsite is pretty important for a successful SEO but you still have several opportunities out there:

• onsite content creation: you can create new content to implement on the site and target your core keywords with LSI data

• title and meta optimization: I don't consider this technical but it's pretty key to get better rank and most importantly better CTR

• sitemaps: create sitemaps to better diagnose the site. I imagine the dev team may have other priorities but bugs should be handled anyway, especially important ones

• find 404 with traffic/links and redirect them

• lnikbuilding. This one is always tricky depending on resources.

• If you can create new pages do some broken linkbuilding and some ego baits (mention other in order to get them to link back to that content)

• influencers marketing in social media. Build up your community and get ready to share stuff, they will return the favor when you need it

• guest posting. There are a lot of sites that accept free guest posts, depending on the niche.

• cocitation. Get links where your competitors did (exception made for PR stuff)

• skyscraper technique. Find the best content in your niche and make it better, then get the links that content had.

[Agenciaseomadrid]

Use all free apps for SEO, or their free versions

• Google Analitycs
• Google Search Concole
• Semrush (Free version)
• Screaming frog (Fre version)

And do some linkbuilding

[WebMarkets]

Try downloading SEO quake as a browser extension and focus on diagnosis and keyword density for every page.

[RayflexGroup]

Create unique content for the blog/social media to achieve links... Use websites like rawshorts.com (video animation website) and canva.com (infographics), both are free and require no downloads but will help you to create unique content that may be shared/gain links if helpful to your audience.

[LureCreative]

It you are able to edit Meta titles and meta descriptions on the website I would start there. If you are unable to even access this info on the website, I would focus on social signals and link building. So have a strong social media strategy and then work on gaining backlinks from authoritative websites. If this is a local company that wants to rank for "(your service) + (your city)" you can also focus on building quality business directory citations (Moz Local is great for this!). Best of success.