What SEO Strategy does your site need?
Before starting any SEO or link building strategy please read this page. You will save yourself a ton of time!!
This one of the most over looked steps in the whole SEO process, especially by beginners! There is this belief that there is a certain way to rank sites and that is it. The problem is, there are tons of different types of sites that all require completely different approaches when it comes to SEO
What works perfectly for one site will be a complete disaster for another site. Trust me, I’ve done it!
Identify the type of site you have
I have broken it down into these categories. Hopefully your site will fall into one of these
Blog – Whether it’s a blog about yourself, your hobbies. SEO like my blog or anything. As long as it’s updated regularly and focuses on a specific niche
Local business – a site based around your local business which you are trying to rank for in your area
E-commerce – A site that sells a number of different products, like a store
Affiliate page – This is when you are trying to rank for a specific affiliate product, like I have done here
Authority Site – This is when you build a site around a niche and you provide A LOT of content. You want to stand out above your competition. You are well trusted!
Ok, so hopefully you can select one of the above categories that fits your site!
All of the above sites require a completely different approach to SEO. Implement the wrong strategy and you are doomed!
It’s amazing how many people fall into the trap of thinking there is only 1 approach. Now I’m not criticising anybody because I have done it myself a ton of times. You wouldn’t believe the amount of times I messed up.
Luckily I persevered and came out the other side ok!
I’ll go through each one with you so that you can apply the correct SEO strategy and get to work on your site.
#1 How to Rank a Blog
The first type of site on the list is a blog. Now there are millions of blogs on the net and blogging has become more and more popular over the past few years. People blog about pretty much anything, and if you build up a decent amount of followers, you can make a very good income from your blog!
Check out a few of these blogs that are already earning very good sums of money!
– PinchOfYum.com – http://pinchofyum.com/october-traffic-and-income-report $15,000 last month!
– AcoupleTravellers.com – http://acoupletravelers.com/couple-travelers-numbers-october13-income-14000/ $14,000 monthly
– LeavingWorkBehind.com – http://www.leavingworkbehind.com/monthly-income-report-october-2013/ $7500 monthly
As you can see, 3 completely different topics but all similar in what they do. A blog is about sharing your knowledge, views, experiences, and pretty much anything.
This is a blog that you are reading now!
What SEO Strategy does a Blog require?
A blog is quite diverse in the sense that it can benefit from most types of SEO. But Here is what you should be aiming at to rank your blog.
Lets think about this for a minute. What is the purpose of a blog?…. To share great content that you have knowledge about, that other people have an interest in, Right!!
To rank a blog you are going to need to build trust, like ability, and respect. The emphasis for you is to build a good following of people that enjoy your content. You must become active on all of the popular social media sites, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Youtube etc…
As you are a blogger you are going to be publishing new posts quite often, therefore your site will build authority and you will start to get traffic from the search engines for long tailed keywords. The more relevant content you post, the more chance Google will pick it up!
Concentrate on Social Signals
As I said previously, you need to build trust and like ability. To do this you need to increase your social signals. you can see my post about social signals here. Build your Twitter followers, get lots of Facebook likes and shares and even YouTube videos.
The more you build your social presence the more chance you have at ranking in Google. This is the key for bloggers and it will get you a lot further than building back links!
Create content worthy of sharing
You hear Google bang on about quality content all of the time, and to be honest, it’s just not necessary for some type of sites….. But It’s absolutely vital for a blog!
Once people start to share your content then you will soon see your blog attracting more visitors and rising up the SERP’s. If you provide shit content that has been seen before or lacks interest, then nobody will share it or talk about it.
Forget Link Building for now!
Although you can do some link building to try and help boost your rankings, it really isn’t necessary when it comes to ranking a blog. Don’t believe me? Check out this post from Matthew Woodward.
He has done absolutely NO backlinkg for his blog, which had well over 100,000 unique visitors, over 16,000 social shares, over 8,000 subscribers and a profit of over $70,000 in just 12 months, without building a single link!!!
Summary
Create great content and be active in social groups. Make your content ‘shareable’. Look how I use the ‘Social Locker’ plugin when I share extra content in return for a tweet or fb like. Concentrate on building a good social presence.
Keep it fresh and add new content regularly and become an authority. Make sure you register with google+ and add Authorship to your blog! Get involved in forums and give good advice. A good bounce rate is usually a good indication of how well your blog is interacting with users.
Don’t be afraid to link out to other blogs in your niche, sharing is your friend!
If you feel the need to still do some link building then keep it minimal. Check out this post I published about ranking a new site. You have put a lot of work into your blog, don’t jeopardise it by getting a penalty for poor link building
Use OpenSiteExplorer to keep tabs on your DomainAuthority. You want to get this as high as you can!
There you go, I know it was only a brief summary but BE SOCIAL, Create LOTS of Quality content and your blog will prevail
#2 How to Rank a Local Site
If you run a local business or are working on SEO for a local company then you are going to want as much exposure as possible. Ranking for your keyword in your local area will have a big impact on your business, but it’s vital you must adopt the correct approach! check out this post ‘My Failed Attempt at Local SEO‘
You will learn a great deal from that post!
So what does it take to get local rankings?
To start with, forget link building again. google is not interested in how many back links your local business site has, I mean, why would they? They don’t expect a small business to have thousands of back links from all over the world. In fact, this will do more harm than good!
You need to build a presence in your local communities and directories. Here’s what to do:
– Make a list of all the local directory sites
– Check which ones your top competitors are registered on (I show you how to do this here)
– Register your business with all of these directories
– Important: Keep your citation consistent. By this I mean the way that you state your address and telephone number. Make sure you use the same format EVERYWHERE
Register with Google+ business and places
Registering with Google services provides proof and authority of your local business. It will help your rankings and give you lots more exposure with Google places and local listings. Google local listings appear within the search results and they display the local businesses address and telephone number.
make sure you use a real address, and as I said before, keep the formatting consistent!
Get your on page SEO right
Content is not a major issue here. I have seen local sites rank number 1 with just a 1 page site and a couple of hundred words. The main priority for you is to include your keyword in the title. By all means try to add as much relevant content as you feel fit, but you don’t need to update your site with new content.
Make sure you include your address and telephone number on the home page, this is very important. It’s always a good idea to include a privacy policy too.
For local sites I also like to link out to authority sites in your local area, like your local council.
Take it the extra step
If your site has not reached the top spots by this stage then you can build 1 or 2 niche related sites to give your site some link juice. Read my post about Building your own blog network. It should only take one or 2 sites; If you can’t be bothered, then let us build a PBN for you.
Here’s what to do with them
Preferably register a domain that contains the keyword you are trying to rank for!
Make the site about your porduct or service (Don’t use the same content from your proper site)
Link out to authority sites in your area and make sure that you include the keywords + area in the title, headers and once or twice in the content. Example: ‘blue widgets in city’
Now you want to blast this site using a link building service or as I prefer to use, GSA search engine ranker.
The idea here is that we build links to boost the authority of this site. We then link out from this site to your main site! This should give it enough link juice to boost your rankings, as it’s unlikely your competitors will go through this effort.
If you adopt this method there are some things to watch out for… Don’t use the same host or IP address, don’t register it in the same name. Just don’t leave any footprints that might indicate that the 2 sites are yours! All of this is covered here
I have also had very good success with local sites by creating a few Web 2.0 properties about the specific niche, and then linking them to the main site. Again i have already covered this right here
Summary
As you can see, a completely different approach than ranking a blog. Local SEO is exactly that ‘LOCAL’. Sign up to all of the directories. make sure you keep things consistent. Include your keyword/city on your home page and make sure to include your address and telephone number.
Register with the Google local services
Take it a step further and build a mini blog network and some manual Web 2.0’s
Oh, and it would be a good idea to get a few positive reviews published about your business 😉
# 3 How to Rank an E-Commerce site
A big issue with most E-Commerce sites that is affecting the rankings is poor URL structure, architecture. This is leading to many occurrences of duplicate content. Which of course, is not good!
So before implementing any SEO strategy you need get on site structure correct!
This is usually an issue with E-commerce sites because of their nature. We often see individual products listed in categories, and then sub categories. This leads to a lot of duplicate content as you can imagine.
Now E-commerce sites are not something I have worked extensively on, so I don’t have a great deal of knowledge on them, so I won’t pretend that I do. so I have fished out a few great articles to help you out!
Get your site structure right before SEO
As mentioned above. Site structure is vital to avoid duplicate content and poor navigation. I recommend you read this post by Tom Shmitz, titled:
Everything you need to know about SEO web structure and Internal Links
Once you have your structure set up correctly It is important that you understand what your customers are searching for. You need to get your Titles and Descriptions right for EVERY page on your site!
I have touched on this on my main ranking page
Ranking an E-ccomerce sites requires a lot of work. I personally would concentrate on long tail keywords. They are easier to rank for and usually give you a higher conversion rate because the search terms are very specific.
Some Useful Resources to Ranking an E-commerce Site
Ive been rooting around and I have come across a couple of useful posts:
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/seo-for-ecommerce-websites/
http://searchengineland.com/8-e-commerce-seo-tips-gathered-from-a-decade-of-consulting-161739
Build authority
It’s going to be difficult to try and rank for all of your products, therefore it is a good idea to build authority on your root domain. Do this by building quality links. Check out my SEO BluePrint to learn how to do this!
Get Good Reviews
#4 How To Rank An Authority Site
Building an Authority site is a massive task and it’s always going to be a long term project. Building authority means becoming an expert in your niche. Providing LOTs of quality content and information and building up trust!
You need to go the whole shebang here and this is something I am aiming for with this Blog:
Provide quality content
Regular and up to date content
Deep interlinking of your pages
Social interaction
High authority/pr links
Pull In Traffic from Dozens of Keywords
The advantage of an authority site is that it will bring in traffic from lots of different keywords. If you have hundreds of pages of great content then your traffic will continue to grow.
Keep adding content to your site
Social
Get a Twitter account, FaceBook and Google+1. Also set up Google authorship so that you are recognised for your articles. You will want to build your brand and social platforms are a great way to do this
Include Legal Pages
If you want to be taken seriously then I highly recommend that you include legal pages on your site. Privacy policy, Disclaimer, also include an about Page and Contact page.
Use our Tiered link building Method
If you have followed the advice above then your site will already start to get traffic from the search engines. But If you really want to boost your authority then work through my SEO Blueprint.
Here are a couple of useful posts that I found for Ranking authority sites:
http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/5-steps-to-build-an-authority-website/
#4 How To Rank An Affiliate Site
One of the most popular types of Site for people looking to make money online is an affiliate site. This is when the site is built around a specific product. Most of the time you will come across a review site for the product you are searching for.
If you get you SEO right then you can make some decent money by promoting affiliate products
What Strategy does an Affiliate site require
If you have read this post about one of my affiliate sites then you will be well on your way to ranking your site. The single most important strategy with affiliate sites is to spy on your competitors sites.
Check the top 5 sites and make note of everything that they have in common:
- Page layout
- Font size
- About page and contact pages?
- Number of affiliate links
- Titles and headers
Use WebSite Auditor to compare your site with theirs and make the necessary changes
Check the Back Link profile
Next, head over to Ahrefs and have a look at the back link profile of your competitors. Notice how many links they have and where they are coming from. Also see how many social shares they have! I have noticed a lot of affiliate sites ranking with private blog network links
You may find a lot of affiliate sites don’t have lots of links.
Make your content better
There will be lots of people competing to get the top spot for your specific keywords. So you can at least make sure your content is better and offers value to the reader. Create a few different pages so that you can target long tail keywords as well as your main keywords
Summary
Copy your Competitors, replicate their success. Once you are on par with them you can go the extra mile to secure top spot. I would not start building links to begin with. Building links may hurt you if Google see it as unnatural. Once your site starts to appear on the first couple of pages then you can start to build some back links.
Make sure they are built manually and that you have total control over them. If you are only targeting 1 product then it’s important that you get ranking for the main keywords. Don’t let your hard work go to waist with a penalty from Google!
Check out this post for a full analysis on ranking an affiliate site
I hope this article has helped you out 🙂
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