We are facing some problems prioritizing keywords. We are doing as follows :
We first gather keywords based on important keywords related to our business.
We then populate these lists with data on search volume, search difficulty, and CPC (as a proxy for high commercial intent), since these parameters represent the ones we should prioritize.
Next is to Prioritize keywords.
Then build the content based on those keywords.
The problem is in step 3: which parameter (volume, CPC, difficulty) should we give more importance to because we are at an initial stage (have a low domain score) and need to convert ASAP? Is there any way to quantitatively prioritize these keywords? Is there some “final score” to understand which keyword you should focus on first?
Thank you in advance…
One tactic I’ve seen is using the short-list to run ads towards those keywords first and use conversion rate as a metric to prioritize them.
i.e. if you have 50 keywords – pay for the clicks first and see which ones bring in high-quality customers, and then go build search optimized pages to capture the traffic without having to pay for it.
One other comment is that framing SEO as something that can convert immediately is fundamentally off. It takes at least 6 months to start seeing payoffs, and the right mindset here is long-term.
I think good content is table-stakes - bad content gets you nowhere. domain authority isn’t and is often overlooked, which is why I think peeps are focused on it. If you want SEO to be your backbone with results early enough to affect an early-stage startup (as it sounded like this was) then domain authority is probably going to be your issue. If you’re a high-growth startup with traffic coming from other places then yes you can afford to wait.
’ve helped a number of startups go from 0 to 100k a month with low 20s in their domain authority. I’ll have to respectfully disagree with you on needing to focus on domain authority. Domain authority is the result of creating good content, getting traffic, and accruing links over time. Domain authority is a magic number that some engineers or SEO dreamed up of. It’s not the number that Google sees your site on. Optimizing for DA is optimizing for this magic number.
What’s always worked is good content and a good SEO strategy.
On backlinks:
I haven’t seen any startup or company that’s invested in a backlink strategy that could be directly attributed to their growth in SEO. I’ve seen many attempts at it, and none of them have worked. If someone wants to attempt to do black hat link building, it might work until the time bomb ticks down and Google hands you down a manual penalty.
I have quite a few clients that go the link-building route after we get their site to an acceptable state. 4 months later, without fail, they come back and say it was a waste of time and they didn’t see any measurable uptick in traffic.
Domain authority isn’t a good use of your time to focus on. You’ll build it over time. Also worth noting that the number you see for domain authority is a made-up metric number that ahrefs or whatever tool you’re using calculated.
Forget backlinks. I’ve worked with a number of sites, and I’ve never seen a positive correlation between backlinks and an increase in organic traffic that can be attributed directly to backlinks. Focus on your content.
I’ve seen SEO pay off in a month. If it doesn’t pay off in 3, then it’s worth revisiting your strategy.
I’ve always run keywords by the eye test. If the other content on the page looks bad and you can create something better, then go for it.
If I was really pushed, I’d target for under 1000 first, once you prove it out, you can target the higher volume keywords.
Generally, the lower volume/longer tail keywords will lead to high conversions because the user is further down the funnel. (Flower shop versus where to buy flowers in Burbank)
High-quality content is what’s going to make you win. Most other things are secondary.
I think what we’re all saying is SEO is a lot of work and you have to do all of it. Good content to build DA over time is still DA, and you can’t just do DA with garbage content. It’s not a single variable thing
Your experience is SEO so you’ll know the subtleties more than me, however I’ve worked with a lot of organizations who zeroed in on backlinking and misleading content substance nobody would call “great”
We just did it for “development showcasing”, took an incredible piece of content in addition to some cautious backlinking and out of nowhere were page 1
How frequently have you done likewise and it hasn’t worked? Would the substance play out something very similar on the off chance that you hadn’t pushed it? I track down that many individuals will take a gander at the number of backlinks a site has, see that they get a ton of traffic, and make the end that backlinks assist with more traffic. I’ve seen heaps of sites where they’ve put resources into huge loads of backlinks and gotten no profit from it. The way that SEO contextual analyses are separated fits survivorship inclination. Nobody is separating how a no-name site didn’t accomplish SEO. There aren’t organizations gloating regarding how their SEO procedure didn’t work out and that backlinks didn’t work. We typically see an organization that has a ton of SEO achievement, and naturally, accepts that all that they did add to that achievement.
What has prodding separated backlink effect troublesome, is that most organizations are chipping away at both backlinks and other enormous SEO fixes simultaneously. What’s to say the enormous effect isn’t from the ordinary SEO stuff that you did and the connections haven’t had a lot, assuming any, sway? You could put forward the case that it’s the opposite way around, SEO fixes sat idle and backlinks did the entirety of the work, however, I’ve run enough SEO trials to realize that fundamental fixes without a doubt have an outsized effect.
At any rate, those are my musings on backlinks and how they identify with SEO. It’s ideal to have when you get it, don’t burn through additional effort to construct it out. You have a limited measure of time to spend on SEO, I’d much prefer to spend it on content creation than backlinks.