So much is happening around the world of SEO and you would surely want to be on top of all these to ensure that your website rankings are under your control.
In this article, we are showing you 5 SEO hacks that are working right now and will continue to work in the future, according to Nathan Gotch. Nathan Gotch is an SEO consultant and the founder of Gotch SEO company.
Hack 1: Reverse Keyword Research
Most people attempt to do keyword research with a traffic-focused mindset, and the reason is simple — it's for pure vanity. Huge traffic growth is pretty on charts but it doesn't tell the full story. The truth is, traffic is relative.
Assume we have 2 businesses, business 1 sells funny cat pictures which gets 9 500 searches per month while business 2 offers personal injury services in St.Louis which only gets 200 searches per month.
Now the pop quiz here is which business will produce more revenue after ranking number one for the most important keyword?
Well, the answer is that the personal injury lawyer by an order of magnitude of thousands.
This example demonstrates that search volume is not what matters. What matters is search intent. All of your keyword decisions should be grounded on search intent and that's where reverse keyword research comes into play. Reverse keyword research is an intent-focused methodology, not a search volume-focused strategy. You can still use search volume but it's only a small piece of the puzzle.
Here Is How to Reverse Keyword Research Works
Instead of prioritizing keywords with the highest volume, you're going to prioritize keywords with the highest transactional intent. That means you're going to start at the bottom of the funnel and work your way up.
For example, if someone searches "What is SEO?", it makes sense to deliver an informational piece of content hosted on your blog. This informational content should deliver pure value without any sales pitch because the searcher hasn't shown any other intent other than to learn.
You have to push the searcher further down the funnel and then always offer a relevant and free lead magnet whenever you publish such kind of informational content at the top of the funnel.
For example, on a blog post about on-page SEO, you can write a free on-page SEO checklist, and then further down the funnel, instead of asking them to buy an SEO training course, you can just ask them for their email address in exchange for an awesome piece of free content. Then once they're on your email list, you can deliver more value to them and nurture the relationship, and as trust grows this subscriber may turn into a lead and eventually a client.
So that’s how you turn a cold website visitor into a client.
Of course, it's not always that straightforward because only 3-5% of searchers will turn into email subscribers. That's why you must target keywords at each stage of the funnel.
For example, after searching "What is SEO?", their next search might be "learn SEO". This is still informational and at the top of the funnel, the content structure will be the same. However, after that, they may search for "best SEO courses" or "best SEO training" which is further down the funnel and is investigative.
So at that point, they'll want to see other people's experience with the program and this will lead to a more transactional comparison of the two popular SEO teaching programs.
These searches are extremely high value because a searcher has become brand aware and is getting close to conversion. That's why you must prioritize these keywords first and then work your way up the funnel.
The goal is to make money not to juice your traffic numbers.
Hack 2: Prioritize Existing Keywords
This might seem obvious but common sense isn't common practice in SEO. The truth is that the best keywords to optimize for are the ones that you're already performing decently for. That means any keyword that's ranking from position number 2 to 15 is a golden opportunity to drive more organic traffic with little effort.
In this case, it’s Google telling you that your page is a good fit for that keyword and the algorithm is giving it to you on a golden platter, you just need to take advantage of it. You should spend 80% of your time optimizing for existing keywords, and the other 20% targeting new keywords.
To find your best keywords to prioritize, you need to follow the following steps:
- Go to Semrush
- Enter your domain
- Go to organic research
- Click on the positions filter and in the custom range enter 2 to 15.
Now you'll see all of the potential low-hanging fruits to target.
How to optimize for these keywords to improve the performance of any given page
To optimize for your best keywords, you just have to go through this 7-step check process:
- Is there keyword cannibalization?
Keyword cannibalization is when two or more pages are targeting the same keyword phrase. Eliminating this is a priority because it hurts performance. You can use Screaming Frog to find instances of keyword cannibalization.
All you need to do is open up Screaming Frog, put the target website through, and then start the crawl. Once it's done, the best way to find keyword cannibalization is to start searching based on URL or by title.
Having any 2 or more pages on the list with the same keywords and exact intent means that those 2 pages are competing against each other. All you need to do is to go through and clean them all up. In this case, it's just a matter of cleaning up the URL structure and probably consolidating these pages into one primary page.
- Does the content need to be upgraded?
So the criteria at this point are simple: the content must be unique and better than what is already on the site, and when compared to the top 10 competitors. If you are unable to be objective in this analysis, have someone outside of your company review your content and compare it to the top 10 competitors.
- Is the content optimized?
If your content passes the test, it's time to focus on on-page SEO.
- Have you promoted the asset internally?
What this means is, have you built enough internal links to the target page? The remaining steps are also important checks like:
- Is the page easily accessible to crawlers and no more than three clicks deep?
- Have you created enough topical relevance?
- Does the page have enough backlinks?
You need to narrow the backlink gap on both the page and the domain level if you want to beat ahead of your competitors.
Hack 3. Upgrade Before You Optimize
Before you ever do on-page SEO you first need to ask if the page itself is different and better than what's currently ranking. You need to go through this exercise with a completely objective mindset. If your page is just another me-too piece of content then optimizing it may produce short-term gains but it won't last.
What produces long-term results in SEO is creating truly unique pages. This means that you need to find angles that haven't been used before. Keep in mind you're still satisfying the intent but the content itself needs to be different than what's ranking.
So look at your content through an objective lens and if it isn't great then upgrade it. Once that's done and you're satisfied, then do on-page SEO.
Hack 4: Do Not Violate Minimum Viable On-Page SEO Laws
The most non-negotiable on-page SEO action is to place keywords in the right spot. Your primary keyword should be in the URL, the title, the h1, the first sentence, the first h2, and the last sentence. These are non-negotiable spots.
Once you've placed your primary keyword in these critical spots, you can then use a tool like Surfer SEO to optimize NLP which is Natural Language Processing.
Hack 5: Build Topical Relevance Before Link Building
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is diving right into link building early on. The truth is that if you build a strong on-site and content foundation, you won't need as many backlinks to rank. You also won't need to be as aggressive with anchor text. The best method for improving rankings without needing as many backlinks is to build more topical relevance and authority.
The right way to build topical relevance and authority is by going deep into a specific topic instead of wide/ broad when you're trying to build topical relevance. The image below shows an example of how deep you could go when focusing on the topic "coffee".
Conclusion
So those are five powerful SEO hacks to take advantage of right now to grow your traffic. Using these SEO tips, will help you maximize your traffic, climb the rankings in search engines, convert your website visitors into leads, and build a strong brand presence in your market.
