SEO Misconceptions: Getting #1 Organic Rankings
Photo by Phillip Larking on Unsplash
For the uninitiated, this phrase may seem perfectly reasonable:
Do what you have to do to get us to rank #1 on Google.
The intention behind this sentence is pure enough; however, it needs to be unpacked a bit and should be much more specific. Without doing so it could cost you more than you’re willing to spend this year, a lot of time lost to frustration and confusion and may even lead to tactics you didn’t mean to use.
For example, if you really want to be the top result for a particular keyword you could start a sponsored search campaign. Although, that’s probably not what you meant when you said the sentence above.
Which Keywords to Organically Rank For? Why?
The best search queries to attempt to rank for are non-branded keywords. These are the terms that everyone in your industry is after, which makes them the most difficult to rank for. The higher the competition for a keyword the more you have to do correctly to rank in the top results.
If you’re prone to laziness or taking shortcuts, forget about top results for high value, high competition non-branded search terms.
Every two years, Moz surveys the top search marketers for their views on the ranking factors of search engines. In the 2015 survey the search factors (from most to least influential) were:
Domain Level Link Features
Page-Level Link Features
Page-Level Keyword and Content-Based Features
Page-Level Keyword-Agnostic Features
Engagement & Traffic/Query Data
Domain-Level Brand Metrics
Domain-Level Keyword Usage
Domain-Level Level Keyword Agnostic Features
Page-Level Social Metrics
These are higher level groupings of what SEO metrics are important. Some of the things you’ll have to pay attention to in order to set the stage for ranking a specific set of keywords are things like (in no particular order of significance):
Quantity and quality of links
Trust metrics
Content quality, length and relevance
Keyword usage, exact and partial keyword matches
HTTPS
How visitors interact with your site content
Social media metrics
…and many others.
Optimizing In-Site, On-Site SEO and Off-Site SEO
As you can see with the above survey data from Moz, search optimization can get extremely complex very quickly. At Risdall, we like to break up the search engine optimization factors into In-Site, On-Site and Off-Site SEO.
In-site SEO are the back-end activities like page load speeds, website structure, internal links, etc. Activities that would typically involve some coding or changes within your CMS.
On-site SEO are the elements on an a page that are publicly facing. Things like content quality, length, anchor text, keyword density, image optimization, etc.
Off-site SEO are the factors that impact your website but happen on third party platforms. These are elements like citation building, social media, location and map optimization.
If you’re team hasn’t been focusing on addressing all of these search optimization factors then we should refine the opening statement to:
Let’s focus on setting the stage for being able to target search terms that we’d like to rank for.
Audience Intention Affecting Organic Terms
There’s an important consideration to make between the search terms and the content that will appear: the intention behind the search. There is a big difference in general knowledge/educational searches and the searches where something is needed right now.
For example, the search queries: Am I a hypochondriac? versus Urgent Care Near Me.
The type of content that would be relevant to these searchers is very different. The person in need of urgent care has already diagnosed the problem is severe enough to go to an urgent care and is more than likely looking for directions to get to the facility. Whereas the person who is looking to see if they are a hypochondriac is trying to educate themselves on the specific qualities a hypochondriac exhibits.
Knowing Your Competition for Potential Top Organic Rankings
The healthcare area is a great example, not only of searcher intent, but also of the immense competition for keywords. This is where knowing your place in the industry can help focus your search engine optimization activities.
For example, Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic are content powerhouses. So much so that some people go to their websites rather than WebMD to educate themselves on conditions, procedures and lifestyle information.
If your organization is a smaller, regional player there’s not much you can do to take on these organization’s directly. However, doing your research, optimizing local listings and focusing on those services that your facilities specialize in can go a long way to make sure you’re in the running when someone is looking for a reputable facility to go to.
Conclusion
Once you have the ability to analyze and manage the in-site, on-site and off-site factors of search engine optimization, you’ll be much better able to specifically target the keywords that will have an impact on your business.
This not only focuses the activities your team will be undertaking, the content they’ll be creating, but also provides the specific targets to measure their performance. You’ll also be better able to understand whether a keyword is worth ranking for, so your efforts aren’t in vain from the beginning.
Now we can further refine the opening statement to:
Let’s focus on building our relevance and authority around specific services and the specific keywords which will provide the most value to our organization.
[This post originally appeared on the Risdall Marketing Group blog and has been posted with a rel canonical]
