Tactics for Quick SEO Wins

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Use keywords to deliver short-term progress

You can use your keywords to deliver quick SEO wins and make short-term progress. 

Most clicks from organic search results are from the top five positions. It’s better to get some clicks from lesser-searched keywords than no clicks from highly searched competitive keywords.

Quick-win keywords – also known as low-hanging fruit – are queries you currently rank in positions 2 to 30. Making small improvements to these pages can result in big changes in organic traffic. 

Identify quick win keywords

Try to identify easier and more realistic keywords to help you make short-term progress. To do this:

• Target keywords that your website already ranks for: 
  • So, keywords that rank within the first three pages of Google
  • Free tools that provide this information include: 
    • Google Search Console’s Performance Report 
  • Ahrefs Webmaster Tools Organic Keywords Report 
• Target longtail and less competitive keywords:
  • While ‘yoga poses’ (60,500 monthly searches) is one of the highest searched terms in the yoga industry, it’s also one of the most competitive.
  • More specific keywords – for example, ‘yoga poses for 2’ (5,400 monthly searches) – and very specific keywords, –for example, ‘easy yoga poses for 2’ (480 monthly searches) – are examples of longtail keywords that will be less competitive, so easier to rank.

When identifying low-hanging fruit keywords, SEOs and digital marketers often target keywords on page two and three of a SERP and try to get them onto page one. Although this is a good strategy, it often comes at the expense of improving page one rankings because it is thought that page one is enough.

For the keyword ‘yoga poses,’ which has an average of 60,500 monthly searches, climbing 10 positions, from 19th to 9th, would result in roughly 400 extra visits. But climbing just one place, from 6th to 5th, could result in over 600 extra visits. So, ranking on page one isn’t enough. You’ll get disproportionally more clicks and visits the higher your website ranks on page one.

Weave targeted keywords into content

You can boost the keyword relevancy of a webpage by weaving targeted keywords into your content. 

To improve your on-page SEO relevancy:

• Review how well optimized essential on-page elements are, including: 
  • Title tags, headings, and main content 
• Review how well optimized other on-page elements are, including: 
  • URLs, images, meta descriptions, and links 
• Optimize essential and other on-page elements for a target list of keywords

Satisfy user intent

You can also apply on-page optimization techniques to satisfy the user intent of targeted keywords. 

To do this:

• Review target quick-win keywords and think objectively about what the user might want.
• Then, compare the results that Google is showing on the first page with your landing page.
• Ask yourself, how well does your page match up to the intent you expect a user wants and what Google is showing? 
• Rewrite your content as necessary to better serve the user intent of the keywords you are targeting.

Optimize standard snippets

A snippet is a brief description of a web page that appears in search results. On search engines, standard snippets are the most common types of SEO results. They contain an URL, title tag, and meta description. When written in an enticing and engaging way, an optimized standard snippet can result in a higher clickthrough rate. While URLs are best kept short and title tags keyword-rich, some of the biggest gains can be made with a well-written, click-worthy meta description.

Optimize rich snippets

Rich snippets appear next to standard snippets in search engine results but are more visual. Audiences love rich snippets, and they tend to attract more clickthroughs.

You can add structured data to the source code of a webpage and this is what makes the snippets richer. It helps search engines better understand what the page is about and it often attracts more users to click on your listing over the competition.

Google uses structured data to create informative and richer results for special search result features and enhancements. 

If you explore Google’s Search Gallery of Rich Snippets, you’ll see dozens of examples, including:

• Product reviews
• Event information
• FAQS, and 
• How-tos 

You can test structured data by using Google’s structured data testing tool, Rich Results Test. This is a simple-to-use tool. Simply paste the URL or code snippet that you want to check, and the tool will run tests and inform you of any errors present in the code.