Enhance your website’s speed, SEO, and user experience with 13 essential image optimization tips. From understanding the difference between lossy vs. lossless compression to the significance of alt attributes, mastering these techniques ensures visually captivating and fast-loading images for your audience. Dive deep into selecting the right image file types, utilizing unique visuals, and ensuring mobile compatibility. Optimize and elevate your content with the recommended tool, Imagify, to seamlessly strike the balance between image quality and file size. Dive in to elevate your web presence through powerful imagery!
What is Showit?
Showit is a web design platform that offers complete control to creative professionals and entrepreneurs to build a website. It is a drag-and-drop platform that provides design freedom without needing custom coding. One of the main benefits of Showit is the ability to create a mobile site easily, ensuring that visitors have a seamless experience on any device. With Showit, there is no need to compromise design to optimize for mobile.
Showit is known for its beautiful pre-made templates and exceptional customer support team. It is an excellent option for photographers and creative professionals who want both complete control over their website’s design and a platform where they can easily edit their website. The Showit platform is easy to use and offers creative freedom without requiring any custom coding. With Showit, users can easily customize a Squarespace website or old blog and migrate to a new site without worrying about technical issues.
Showit integrates with other website builders and offers several templates that cater to the needs of different businesses. The Showit website design editor is user friendly, and building blocks can be customized to meet individual needs. The platform offers various Showit templates that can be easily customized to match the brand’s aesthetic. With Showit, creative businesses can have a new website up and running in no time and hit publish when ready.
Here you can learn Showit’s search engine optimization capabilities and how to make the most of them to achieve the best possible rankings for your photography website.
Is Showit good for SEO?
The short answer is yes, Showit is good for SEO. Showit offers a number of features and tools that can help website owners improve their website’s SEO performance. For example, Showit’s platform is built on WordPress, which is known for its SEO-friendly architecture. Showit also offers customizable meta tags, descriptions, and titles, which are essential for optimizing your website’s search engine visibility.
Additionally, Showit offers the ability to create sitemaps and add alt tags to images, which are important elements for improving website accessibility and search engine optimization. Overall, if you’re an online business looking for a website builder that can help you improve your SEO strategy- then Showit is definitely worth considering.
While it is possible to rank highly on Google with Showit, you’ll need to consider several critical factors and extra steps for excellent search engine optimization performance.
Assuming you are using Showit 5, have an SSL certificate, and your WordPress site address and URL display https- here are some Showit tips that will focus on aspects unique to Showit SEO.
Pre-requisites and choosing the right package
Showit offers its hosting platform in three packages: Showit, Showit + Basic Blog, and Showit + Advanced Blog. The Advanced Blog package is the only viable option for those serious about SEO. The Basic Blog package has several limitations, such as being unable to add plugins outside their pre-installed list, being part of a multisite installation, and needing FTP or database access.
Fixing legacy issues and migration to Showit
Significant technical issues encountered with Showit websites occur during the initial migration process. If you’re migrating a website from the Squarespace or WordPress platform, then pay close attention to the following settings to avoid negatively impacting your rankings: WordPress Site Title & General Settings, Permalinks, WordPress pages, Plugin settings, Redirects, and Canonical Address (www).
Basic SEO settings – Quick Review
There are several basic SEO settings to be aware of within Showit. These include Analytics (UA code), Page Title, Meta Description, Meta Keywords, Share Image, and Advanced Settings. Familiarize yourself with these settings and follow best practices to improve search engine optimization performance for your website.
Sitemap URL for Showit website
With Showit, the sitemaps for Showit pages and WordPress Pages/Posts are separate. If you’re using Showit pages, it’s recommended to submit the Showit site sitemap to Google Search Console. You can find the sitemap for Showit pages by adding /siteinfo.xml to the end of your domain.
Example: https://robbenmedia.com/siteinfo.xml
Images (alt text vs. title)
When optimizing images within Showit, there are three ways to insert an image: Standalone images, Gallery of images, and Canvas background. Each method has different SEO settings available, and web designers need to know how to optimize each type of image for better search engine visibility.
Design and SEO Best Practices on Showit site
Showit offers a range of attractive templates, including free and paid options, or you can create your site from scratch or combine templates. The following best practices should inform your decision when building or selecting a design template for your business website.
Use canvas views wisely
Canvas views are a unique feature of Showit and are helpful for various purposes. They work well for slideshows, testimonial sliders, and displaying galleries without opening a new page.
Technically, the Showit website builder handles canvas views well, with lazy loading for objects like images in sliders. Google can render and index content within initially hidden canvas views. However, canvas views have some drawbacks, so exercise caution when using them. Showit’s navigation customization between canvas views is not found in most other page builders.
Consider the following when using canvas views:
- Google may prioritize initially visible content for ranking. Avoid hiding important content for a good user experience in an initially hidden canvas view.
- Users expect specific navigation for certain functions, especially on mobile devices (like swiping through a slideshow). Don’t sacrifice usability for creativity.
- Canvas views can make visitors feel like they’re on a new page with changed navigation, causing confusion. Refrain from disorienting visitors with a complex web of canvas views.
- Don’t use canvas views for content that could be an independent page likely to receive search traffic.
- If tracking form submissions in Google Analytics, consider using a thank you page instead of a thank you canvas view after form submission.
Pay attention to object order
In the Showit platform, the layer order of objects determines their appearance in the HTML of the page. The objects at the bottom of the layer list appear first in the HTML. Use a text-only browser or the text-only Google cache to understand how Google reads your page.
Here are three tools to view a “text only” version of your website:
- Google cache (text only version)
- Textise
- w3td Text Browser Tool
Avoid using multiple fonts for a single line of text Showit designs often include multiple fonts in one line of text. While this is possible, it could be more optimal, as separate H1 headings are created in the code.
Regarding <div> and <p>, consider the following HTML element tags in Showit:
- <div> – A generic tag for “division” (or section). It can be used safely anytime.
- <h1> – The main heading. Use only once per page.
- <h2> – Secondary topic headings.
- <h3> – Subheadings belonging to a parent H2.
- <nav> – Main navigation. Use only on main menus, not buttons or other links.
- <p> – Paragraph. Another generic text tag that can be used safely anywhere.
The Chrome extension “headingsMap” helps examine a page’s heading structure. HTML headings (H1-H3) should indicate the hierarchy of your page. Use H1 once per page for the main topic and H2 and H3 tags to outline your content.
For text elements not part of your main navigation or content structure, use the <p> or <div> tag.
Use <nav> for the main menu, not headings. Avoid using H1-H3 tags for your navigation. Use the <nav> tag for the main menu and, if necessary, the <div> tag. Many Showit sites mistakenly use heading tags for their primary navigation, which should be avoided.
Be mindful of “off canvas” items
In Showit, any objects placed off the visible canvas while editing your site won’t be visible to website visitors but will still appear in the code and be visible to search engines.
A common issue is that template or demo content gets moved off the canvas but needs to be deleted during site customization. This can result in “Lorem Ipsum” content being crawled by Google and even triggering a “translate this page” option in search results. Make sure to remove such content to avoid potential SEO issues.
Avoid creating separate objects for mobile and desktop
While it’s sometimes easier to create two versions of an object and hide one on the desktop version and the other on mobile when responsiveness is an issue, this approach should be used sparingly. Google is likely to see both versions and prioritize the mobile one.
What occurs when items are hidden from desktop or mobile?
When an object is hidden on both desktop and mobile, it won’t be rendered in the final HTML for the page and will be invisible to both visitors and Google. If you hide an item from either the desktop or the mobile version, the CSS property “display: none” is applied for users with that screen size. Google will crawl, render, and index both versions but may deprioritize objects with “display: none.”
Using Showit as a Web Designer for WordPress Page Building
Showit can be a comprehensive WordPress page builder- however many users and designers don’t use this feature. Here, we’ll discuss how to integrate Showit and WordPress effectively.
Showit pages vs. Blog templates
In the Showit builder’s “Site” tab, you’ll find “Pages,” “Blog Templates,” and “Site Canvases.” These templates are flexible and can be used for much more than just styling the layout of a page, post, or 404. The “Custom” option lets you create and customize a template for anything in the WordPress template hierarchy, opening up numerous possibilities with Showit.
Benefits of using WordPress pages
Using Blog Templates in Showit offers several advantages, including adding a “featured blog posts” section to the page and incorporating dynamic content from WordPress. Other benefits include:
- A unified sitemap.
- A consistent <head> section.
- The ability to use plugins to control the page.
Mapping a WordPress template to a WP page
Setting up a WordPress page and Blog Template in Showit can be relatively easy if you’re familiar with the process. You’ll need to create a page in WordPress, find its ID, and then copy your Showit Page to a WordPress template.
Using Yoast
Yoast is a popular SEO plugin that can be used on Showit with the Basic Blog and Advanced Blog packages. It replaces the SEO features from the Showit builder- however it cannot analyze the content built primarily in the Showit Builder.
WordPress Block Editor (Gutenberg) and Showit
The default WordPress editor since version 5.0 has been the block editor (code name Gutenberg), which has improved significantly over time and can be safely used with Showit. If you’re starting with Showit and WordPress, it’s recommended to familiarize yourself with the block editor instead of installing the classic editor plugin.
Implications for Showit Users
While Showit has many innovative features, there are several reasons why some may not recommend it, such as encouraging users to create site website templates that could be more easy to use, concerns about cross-browser/device compatibility, and issues with search engine optimization in many designs. The platform also struggles to future-proof its technology and provide adequate technical support.
However, as the Showit platform can be used as a WordPress page builder and incorporate best practices, it remains a go to option for photographers. If you need help maximizing your Showit site’s search engine potential, you could consider hiring a consultant.
Overall, Showit is a powerful custom website builder that offers full control and design freedom to creative entrepreneurs and professionals alike. It offers a user-friendly interface, beautiful pre-made templates, and exceptional customer support team.
While it is not as powerful as other website design platforms like WordPress, Showit offers a range of exceptional features that make it an attractive option for online businesses. By following the right steps and using best practices, users can optimize their Showit websites for better search engine visibility and achieve the best possible rankings.
FAQs
Q: How much does it cost to have a Showit website?
A: Showit’s pricing starts at $19/month for the basic plan, which includes hosting, unlimited galleries, and the ability to design your own website with their drag-and-drop builder. The advanced plan starts at $34/month and includes additional features like e-commerce capabilities and advanced search engine optimization.
Q: What is the difference between Wix and Showit?
A: Wix and Showit are both website builders, but there are some key differences between them. Wix is a more beginner-friendly platform with a larger variety of templates and plugins, while Showit offers more creative control and customization options. Showit is also more focused on designing websites for photographers, artists, and other creative entrepreneurs.
Q: Why is Showit better than Squarespace?
A: Showit is often preferred over Squarespace by professionals because it allows for more creative freedom and customization of their website. Showit’s drag-and-drop builder and flexible design options make it easier to create unique and personalized websites. Additionally, Showit is known for its excellent customer support and user-friendly interface.
Q: Is Showit better than Shopify?
A: Showit and Shopify are designed for different purposes. Showit is a website builder for creative entrepreneur, while Shopify is an e-commerce platform for businesses that want to sell products online. If you’re a creative professional who wants to sell products online, Showit’s e-commerce capabilities may be sufficient for your website needs. However, if you’re looking for a more comprehensive e-commerce solution, Shopify may be a better choice.
How much does SEO cost? And how much you need to spend to grow?
After reading this, you’ll have a very good idea of why to invest, what’s all involved, the true cost, and how much to spend on optimizing your site for search engines.
First, What’s The Value of SEO?
Hunting for sales is difficult.
For example, your business may have to invest in sales reps, train said reps, manage them, and then give them months to build a prospect base. This is all while they’re getting little to no deals closed in the beginning.
Plus, you run the risk of these sales reps quickly leaving for a new job. This is extremely expensive!
Now the value of SEO is your customers come to you on their own. A prospect Google searches for a solution, finds your site, clicks, and makes a buying action.
This all takes place without one second of your involvement. (Of course, to get here you would have needed to invest in advance.)
Instead of hunting, you’re attracting sales like a magnet. Common sense, and data, shows that buyers are more likely to convert when it’s their decision, versus feeling heavily pushed into a deal.
The end result is less work, more revenue, and greater profit when you invest in SEO.
SEO Case Study
A case study does the best job of showing the worth of driving organic traffic to your website.
One of our customers in California produced the following results over one year.
12 Month SEO Budget: $105,000
New Revenue: $490,000
Return on investment: $385,000
Percentage ROI: 366%
And get this, while this customer’s sales and revenue continue to increase significantly, the SEO management expense stays the same. Meaning this company is unlocking major profit gains month after month.
Eventually the SEO management fee will decrease into a maintenance fee or go away entirely.
Think about it if this was your business, you’re now getting customer acquisition without the cost.
This is the beautiful situation our business, Robben Media, is in. Our SEO efforts have compounded over time and now we get “free customer acquisition”.
What All Goes Into Search Optimization?
A good SEO consultant is worth their weight in gold because there’s a lot to it, if you want to execute and rank at the top of Google.
Here are the main categories of search engine optimization.
1. Technical SEO
It’s very wise to have confirmation that Google can easily crawl and index your website before anything else.
Because if you have technical website errors left and right, all your other SEO efforts can go to waste. Talk about a nightmare.
What exactly is technical SEO?
It involves everything from your site speed, to your code and files readability, user friendliness, and much more. You can read this ultimate guide to learn more.
The good news is that if you tackle this right off the bat, then you should only have to maintain going forward. Now you can focus your efforts on these other search optimization strategies.
2. Keyword research
Targeting the optimal keywords is the foundation of any successful SEO campaign.
The basis of this activity is to find the specific keyword phrases your customers use to find your product or service, then analyze these for monthly search volume and keyword difficulty.
You can use a tool like Ahrefs or Google Keyword Planner to analyze keyword phrases. The objective is to find keywords with enough monthly search volume, but not too much competition or it will take forever to rank.
3. On-page optimization
Once you have your keyword list, you can use it to both improve your page titles, headings, and semantic content across your site, as well as create new content.
For on-page optimization, consider adding a Frequently Asked Questions section to your core pages. Doing so will provide more value to readers and improve your odds of ranking higher.
Another good idea is to add a YouTube video to your core pages. Google owns YouTube and appreciates this type of content.
4. Content creation
Definitely update your current pages and blog posts to individually target keywords.
Next it’s time to create new content on your website to go after additional keyword searches.
Focus on truly covering a subject entirely in a new blog post, with the goal of hitting 2,000 words or more. Otherwise, a wimpy 300-word blog post won’t have a major impact.
Plus, you can link to your main sales pages from this newly published content to increase your key pages’ rankings.
5. Backlink building
Many website owners stop at content creation. The phrase “content is king” has sunk deep into their brain.
However, Google evaluates websites based on their authority, and those with the most high-quality backlinks get ranked higher than those without. Link, or backlink, acquisition is simply another website linking from their site to your website, giving your site credibility in the process.
The point is you can have the best content and offer on the planet. But without link acquisition to get others to find your site at the top of Google, your content is pretty much worthless.
How Much Does SEO Cost?
Before you ask how much does SEO cost, you should ask yourself how important are organic sales and growing your business? If it’s the top priority, then you’ll find the money to prioritize search optimization.
You should be spending at least $2,000 to $5,000 per month at the minimum, or as much as you can afford if you’re not at that level yet. And if you’re a brick and mortar business only trying to rank for local keywords, then it could be less like $1,000-$1,500 per month.
But overall, there are too many needs to be met — technical audit, keyword research, on-page optimization, content creation, link acquisition — for a small budget. Some, or a few, core components are going to get ignored. The campaign will have weak spots, limiting your rankings.
Like anything in life, you get what you pay for. I’m sure jobs on Fiverr say they will do a great job ranking your site at $300 per month.
From experience, we know that you literally can’t do much of anything with a $300 budget. And if things go really poorly, your site could get suspended from Google for breaking the rules.
How Much Should You Spend?
Depending on your current Google rankings, your desire to grow quickly, and your cash flow, here’s how much a wise company should spend on climbing the Google rankings.
We’ll address a conservative, average, and aggressive approach.
Conservative
This conservative positioning may be for an established brand who already ranks at the top of Google and just wants to maintain their rankings, or for a new startup with limited cash to invest.
Either way, a conservative SEO approach would look like publishing around one to two new blog posts per month. As well as acquiring a few authority backlinks to sustain your domain authority.
Conservative Total: Spend 5-7% of your monthly revenue on SEO
Average
An average SEO spend is for a business who understands the power of customers searching Google, finding their site, and purchasing online, but they have other investments to pay for too.
Maybe you just hired more employees or invested in reducing your technology debt, leaving less capital available to do an aggressive SEO campaign. Spending 15% of monthly revenue will still move the needle considerably to acquire links, publish a blog post per week, and leave you well-positioned for the future.
Average Total: Spend 8-15% of your monthly revenue on SEO
Aggressive
A well-funded SaaS startup or a small- to medium-size business who believes in capturing market share first will want to spend aggressively here.
Sometimes the scenario is a business that starts with conservative or average spending, sees a dramatic return on capital, and then decides to invest every extra marketing dollar into ranking higher on Google.
At this point spending 30% of their monthly revenue feels like a no brainer because the bucket continues to grow as they pour more money into driving organic sales.
With this aggressive investment, you’ll be able to get links from top authority websites at a high frequency to boost your domain authority, organic traffic, and profits.
Aggressive Total: Spend 16-25% of your monthly revenue on SEO
Conclusion
In theory, my honest opinion is to invest as much as you responsibly can into SEO. I say this because each dollar invested can return two to 10 times the value.
We’ve seen it happen with our customers and our own business at Robben Media many times over.
Though if you’re running on paper thin margins or in a cash crunch, then investing heavily may not be an option at this point in time. You may need to budget and save up for this later down the road.
No matter what, don’t sit on the sidelines for too long or your competitors will continue to bring in all the customers from Google, while you have to work twice as hard to get sales.
Now that you can answer how much does SEO cost, how much do you plan to spend on it this year?
Need SEO Support To Grow Your Business 3X Faster?
Are you overwhelmed trying to understand search engine optimization, or just don’t have the time to do it well?
You’re in luck. We provide a proven formula for growing your traffic, sales, and revenue from Google. Fill out this form and we’ll see if we’re the right fit for one another.
Traffic goals flat out work.
Making the goal gives you a specific focus. The haze falls away, and now the mission is clear.
This traffic goal acts as a north star — “the why” — to propel you to put in all the work required to achieve it. Call it free motivation.
How do I know all of this? I’m speaking from experience. With my first blog TakeYourSuccess.com, I made a goal to drive one million page views to the site.
Honestly, everything became easier after making the decision. Of course I had challenges along the way, but those were minor compared to my big traffic goal.
I ended up driving 1.7 million pageviews and 87% of the traffic was organic, directly from Google search. Honestly, in the days where it felt like a grind, the traffic goal helped me keep working.
If you’re interested in achieving the same, where people are flooding your website, then you’re in the right place.
Let’s explore more about setting a traffic goal so you can make your own, learn why they’re so helpful on your mission, and get all the long-term benefits.
Things To Know About Traffic
Looking at this from a bird’s eye view is advantageous before you jump into the specific work.
Here are core principles you should know about traffic.
1. Traffic is already out there, you just need to attract it
This is very helpful to know. When you realize you don’t need to stir up fake demand, then it takes the pressure off.
While the traffic is going to your competitors currently, if you do your job then eventually it can be siphoned to you. In a way, you’re halfway there.
Plus, according to Oberlo, 3.5 billion Google searches happen every day. If you get a tiny little fraction of those searches, you’ll be in an amazing situation.
Lastly, there are many different types of traffic you can gain:
- Organic traffic from Google searches
- Paid traffic from advertising campaigns
- Social media visits
- Referral visits from others
The road you choose is up to you. Do what you know the best, and then after you master one, add more traffic avenues.
2. Traffic compounds over time
Getting traffic to your site can be painful at first. It takes consistent focus, energy, and patience.
However, traffic begins to snowball once you hit a critical threshold. It happens at different times for everyone.
Once you’ve “paid your dues,” you’ll begin to receive more backlinks to your site, social shares, and people recommending your content to their friends. (P.S. In need of backlinks to rank at the top of Google? Try this.)
You’ll find yourself putting the same amount of effort into growing your site’s reach from month one to month 12, though you’re getting 50 times the results a year later.
3. This is a numbers game requiring consistency
I like games of consistency. They mean if I’m disciplined enough, eventually I’m going to win.
Attracting people to your website is one of these games. The only way you lose, is by giving up.
Why quit, when more than what you can imagine is on the other side of hard work? If you promise to show up, the reward is yours for the taking.
Setting A Specific Traffic Goal
Some goals just aren’t that motivating. I get it, you want to play it safe and make sure the goal is easily achievable.
But the problem I have with easy is it’s not going to be life-changing.
We want something worth shooting for, where the reward is worth the effort. It’s fine if it’s a little scary. That means it’s a good goal.
Now thinking about your own traffic goals, what’s a number that’s beyond your comfort zone, but not impossible? Does that feel like 1,000 page views per month? Or 10,000? Maybe 100,000 in total traffic? Or if you’re already there, one million? Keep in mind, your traffic goals should also align with your revenue goals. For more insights on how much traffic your website needs to generate revenue, check out this comprehensive guide: How Much Traffic Does a Website Need to Make Money?
Does that feel like 1,000 page views per month? Or 10,000? Maybe 100,000 in total traffic? Or if you’re already there, one million?
Naturally this depends on your current monthly traffic number.
If you have 0 visitors per month, then shooting for 1,000 traffic sessions would be a win.
When you’re consistently hitting 25,000 views, doubling the traffic to 50,000 is the next step. You get the idea.
It’s time to think about your traffic goal and create one. Yes, stop reading and take as long as you need to figure out the right traffic goal for you. Once you have this number, you can continue.
Pro Tips For Staying Motivated
Setting a monthly or annual traffic goal is one thing. Staying motivated long enough to achieve it is the hard part.
Unless you have the discipline of Superman, in that case ignore this list, then here are four action steps to help you along the way.
1. Have A Strong Why
We only have 24 hours a day. So if you don’t know why you’re spending valuable time on something, you’re not going to stick with it long enough to see results.
This is a critical flaw of any plan. To avoid this downfall, get a clear why for your traffic goals.
Is it because you want to grow your ecommerce business? Are you an author who wants more eyeballs on your books? Or do you have a blog and simply want more people to read your awesome tips so they can have a better day?
Ensure your why is connected to your long-term goals. And the more emotional-baked and logically-sound the reason is, the better.
Then you’re ready to move on.
2. Find An Accountability Partner
What’s better than someone going through the same challenges?
If you’re fortunate to know someone who wants to expand their website’s presence as much as you do, you’re lucky. Ask them to be your accountability partner, and you’ll be theirs, in the efforts of achieving your traffic goals. This will inspire confidence.
If you don’t know anyone, the world is big. Use social media to ask around or directly message people who you think would be a good accountability partner.
Message strangers on Twitter, for example, and see if they’re interested in committing to meet virtually every week or month. By looking at their tweets, you’ll be able to judge if they’re a good fit.
3. Join A Mastermind Group
For an accountability partner on steroids, join a mastermind. In this group environment, everyone is focused on driving more traffic to their site.
I’ve found the smaller the size of the group, the conversations and information shared go deeper. The sweet spot is around five to eight members.
In each meeting, discuss:
- Your goals
- Your challenges
- New insights
- Your questions for the group
Using these four cornerstones will keep the talking focused and allow each individual to have key takeaways to execute on their own.
Also, naturally people will have answers, at least ideas, of how to reach your goals.
You can find a group like this by pulling together friends and peers you already know. Ask them if they’d be interested in meeting around their website traffic goals.
You could also join a group that already exists. Searching Facebook Groups is a good idea for this route.
4. Review Monthly Progress
A goal is only as good as you measure it.
Set a reminder in your calendar on the last day of the month to review your
monthly traffic. Google Analytics is the best way to track your traffic.
Doing this ensures you don’t forget about your goal. Plus, you’ll be more motivated to achieve your objective when you can see progress each month.
Now if you’re not making progress, this is a red flag to redesign your approach. With 30 or 31 days to make moves, your monthly visitors should be rising.
Set aside one hour per month to review your past month’s traffic. Get a clear understanding of what types of traffic and pages are bringing in the most traffic. Analyze why that is. And then double-down to multiply your results going forward.
(Keep in mind, once you achieve your first goal, then make a new one, and so on.)
Conclusion
When you do this right, you’ll know the value of a website traffic goal, why you’re going to create one, and how you’re going to get it.
All that’s left to do at this point is to do the work.
Once you’ve completed this guide, here are some other resources you can leverage:
- Free SEO Course teaching you how to rank at the top of Google
- Using SEO keyword research to work smarter
- Promoting content for accelerating traffic growth
We’re rooting for you!
What’s your traffic goal going to be?
We’re big believers in optimizing a site so it ranks at the top of Google, drives organic traffic, and leads to sales. To do this successfully, you’re going to need to know how to get backlinks.
Because even if you have the best content in the world, another site with similar content and more backlinks will unfortunately outrank you. These backlinks are like votes where the more — and higher quality — links a site receives, the higher that site ranks on Google for specific keywords.
It took us awhile to learn this, but finally we cracked the code. We’ve assembled the top 20 best ways to get backlinks so you can win with SEO.
Provided by Robben Media
Are you looking for help ranking your site?
Are you not interested in doing the work it takes to execute these backlink strategies? Already have too much on your plate, or just don’t enjoy this type of marketing (but realize the importance)? Then you might be a good fit for our SEO service.
Depending on your unique needs, we’ll do keyword research, find ranking opportunities, create content, and drive backlinks. After we get our hands on your SEO campaign, you’ll be excited to see a significant uptick in traffic, leads, and revenue.
Interested in learning more about our SEO service? Schedule a call.
You can also learn from our free SEO Course.
Looking for a guaranteed Google first page ranking?
Is that even possible?
Before I answer. Aren’t guarantees nice?
They remove all risk from the investment. Give you an out if things are turning south. And you’re in the driver’s seat of a win, or at least you don’t lose, situation.
Get excited because when you execute to a tee, you can (pretty much) guarantee a first page, maybe first overall, Google ranking.
Why Invest In Google Rankings
Do you want to grow your business? Or at least be more profitable than you were last year?
If money means anything to you as a business owner or marketer, then listen closely.
Yes Facebook ads are extremely effective. But they have a downside.
We see this scenario every month: The high cost-per-click and cost-per-conversion is sometimes too expensive for the clients budget.
And over time, PPC ads only get more expensive. For example, some Google ads that cost $9 a click in 2005 now cost $70 a click in 2020.
So then we start looking for other solutions to drive the same number of leads and sales, at a fraction of the cost.
On this search, we often land on SEO. The art and science of ranking near the top of Google to attract your target audience to your site.
And when you consider the fact that only 0.78% of Google searches click on 2nd page results, then you’ll see why the game is to rank your site on the 1st page of Google. Why? Well, there’s no clicks and traffic if you’re off the first page.
Once you rank at the top of organic search results, you turn on a sales machine with Google sending new prospects and customers to you daily, non-stop.
And specifically, there are the three key benefits to ranking your business website in Google’s top 10 results.
1. Brand Awareness
When shopping for a product, given a choice between two options, the prospect is most likely to choose the company they’ve heard of. Common sense, right?
This brand awareness turns into brand equity. As broken down in this Apple brand equity report, brand awareness can do wonders for your profit and loss statement.
Having a brand name people recognize is a major asset. After all, trust is one of the core factors in a prospect’s mind before buying.
Now combine that idea with the fact that once you figure out how to get to the top of Google without paying for ads, brand awareness soars. Your business name and URL is in the face of thousands of people every day across your city, country, maybe the world.
Over time, this brand awareness snowballs into massive ROI. A known brand will receive more:
- Sales
- Profit and revenue
- Social media followers
- Email subscribers
- User-generated content
- Press mentions
- Influencer shoutouts
- Employee applications and talent
- Opportunities to win over new audiences
2. Organic Traffic
To successfully market your business, you almost always need to invest significant money or time into the execution.
Spend $10,000 per month in ad spend or 100 hours per month, it comes at a cost. Be it ecommerce marketing, professional services, or brick and mortar, the reality is the same.
That is, unless Google is sending you thousands of visitors to your site for free. This is called organic traffic. Traffic you don’t pay for, but earn thanks to a highly search engine optimized website.
Consider this.
Let’s say 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000 prospects are visiting your site organically every month. Knowing the average conversion rate is around 2.5%, that’s 25, 250, or 2,500 new customers monthly, on repeat.
And then imagine these customers come back as repeat buyers, while you continue to add 25, 250, or 2,500 new customers monthly.
You’d quickly turn into a 7- to 9-figure brand thanks to one traffic channel: SEO.
3. Increase Revenue
Using the example above, when organic traffic floods your business website, record-breaking revenue and profit numbers are always around the corner.
This is why the ROI of SEO is insanely high. You can generate hundreds of thousands to millions in revenue, without spending any money to acquire it.
Even if you’re paying sales reps, the cost to acquire a new customer drops significantly when you’re generating new leads for free.
For example, we worked with a catering company to accomplish the following using SEO:
- 4,673 ecommerce sales from organic traffic
- Rank on the 1st page of google for 4 buy now keywords
- Helped them grow to become a $600,000 per year business
We strive to rank our customers first overall for their specific products or services. By doing so, we match the maximum number of buy-now prospects with our customer’s offerings.
That’s all it requires to build a sales machine.
Tactics To Guarantee Google First Page Rankings
For customers and ourselves, we have hundreds of keywords ranking 1st overall, and thousands in the top 10 of Google rankings.
Here’s a screenshot to prove it.
Use the following pro tips to get your business website ranking on Google’s first page, ideally first overall. Then those one million page views can be all yours.
1. Keyword Research
Consider keyword research your blueprint for the house build. When you do it strategically, you’ll see results faster and won’t have to waste time redoing construction and renovations.
Same theory holds true for keyword research.
The Robben Media general rule of thumb when doing keyword research is:
- Lock in on keywords that genuinely provide value to your customers
- Go for keywords with a monthly search volume of at least 500 (if you’re a retailer who only sells in one location then a search volume of 100 works)
- Look for ones with a keyword difficulty of 20 or lower if you’re new to this, 40 or lower if you have some SEO going for you, and 40+ when your website has done years of SEO work
We use Ahrefs to find this keyword information. SEMrush is another option you may consider.
Put on the mindset of your ideal customers and ask, “What would I search to find your specific businesses’ products or services?”
Those are the keyword phrases you want to target. Go make a spreadsheet of 20 of these keywords.
Then look to the next step below.
2. Content Creation
Once you have a list of 20 keywords you want to rank for, it’s time to create an individual website page for each keyword.
For each individual keyword, you want to publish one 2,000+ word blog post. This gives the reader and Google indexing enough content to move you to the top of search results.
In each of these content pieces, the aim is to create an “ultimate guide” of information so your prospect never has to click back and view other search results.
You want to completely satisfy their search. Go over the top in value add. Make it the best content on the internet.
When you execute like this, you’ll receive more social shares, bookmark saves, time on page, and (eventually) organic traffic from Google.
Last but not least, the best written articles receive the lion’s share of backlinks. In my experience ranking customer sites and my own, the quality and quantity of backlinks decides Google rankings more than anything else.
3. Backlinks
What’s a backlink? It’s when another website links to your website page. Google can be viewed as a voting ballot. Whichever page receives the most and best backlinks, rises to the top.
And as we know by now, top of Google means the most organic traffic, and revenue growth. Put simply: “get backlinks, get traffic, get sales”.
But did you know that 66% of pages receive no backlinks? This goes to show the opportunity for your Google rankings and traffic to skyrocket is there. To be frank, most website owners don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to SEO.
Ok, you’re all in on backlinks. Next up, how do you generate them? It’s more of an art that a scientific method.
These methods work the best:
- Publish guest posts on other websites and blogs
- Respond to journalist inquiries using HARO
- Create a roundup post, email bloggers for quotes, publish the piece, send it to them and ask for a backlink
- Make friends with journalists and reporters, then offer to provide insight on trending news if they need it
- Find broken links on other related websites, and offer your link as a substitute for the broken link
Additional SEO Resources
Looking to get 1 million visitors to your website? We’ve done it and are now showing others how to do it themselves with our free SEO course.
The course includes five training lessons allowing you to do a major overhaul of your own website’s search engine optimization.
This could be the best business decision you make all year. Just imagine thousands of interested prospects flooding your website to buy from you. Pretty amazing, right?
Conclusion
Now technically, the answer to the question, “Can you guarantee Google first page results?” is no. Guaranteeing anything is difficult.
But with an unconquerable will and the desire to commit to a first page Google ranking, then yes you’ll accomplish your goals.
Be the difference maker. Or you can hire a SEO company like Robben Media to execute for you. We can clean up your site, do strategic keyword research, and acquire backlinks so your domain authority increases. In turn, Google will rank your site higher, you’ll receive more organic traffic, and sales will grow.
What’s your favorite SEO tactic?
Frustrated with your lack of website visitors?
Don’t have the money for Google ads?
Wondering how to get to the top of Google without paying?
It’s your lucky day.
We know how disappointing it can be to execute flawless website design or set up an online store, just to hear crickets and get zero traffic.
We are here to tell you it gets better. Follow the secrets to getting a top ranking without draining your bank account like there’s a leak at the bottom.
After executing these tips, you’ll start to see your rankings climb to the first page.
Utilize Search Engine Optimization (SEO)and Link Building
There are two ways to rank at the top of Google: paid advertising and SEO.
Since our goal is not to spend money, we’ll focus on SEO.
SEO is when you optimize your site’s content with the right target keywords to organically appear on Google’s search results for said keywords. SEO is not just about Google, it’s about optimizing your content for all search engines.
A Denver immigration law firm, for example, would want to rank on Google’s first page for “immigration lawyer Denver” to acquire new customers in need of their services. To accomplish this, they want a solid SEO plan to attract clients to their business website.
There are a variety of components that go into an effective SEO plan:
- Low competition keywords
- Quality content
- Relevant backlinks
- Expansive content promotion
- Extensive research
- Knowledge of algorithms
Having a comprehensive SEO plan can take a lot of time and effort. But without fail, this all pays off in the end when your website traffic (and revenue) soars.
Our goal is to help you get your website ranked on Google without spending money.
1. Go After Low Competition Keywords
It can be tempting to try and compete with broad keywords that you know will be searched a million times per day. Don’t fall for this trap. Targeting low competition keywords can help your website reach the top of Google searches.
Many of the industry leaders are going after these keywords for their SEO plans. You’ll find better success when you target less competitive keywords, especially in the beginning.
Say you own an ecommerce nail polish brand. You don’t want to try and compete for the keyword “nail polish”. Companies across the world are fighting for those same search results.
Instead, you will want to add a unique wrinkle to better stand out. This could be attempting to rank for the keyword “animal print nail polish”. Notice how this keyword is much more specific, has two extra keywords, and is still a popular search to drive traffic and sales. That’s how you do effective ecommerce marketing — work smarter, not harder.
When all said and done, finding the right keywords can be a trial and error process.
But the more you practice and start recognizing what works for your business, the sooner you’ll fall in love with the results.
2. Optimizing for Both Local and Non-Local Searches
Optimizing for Both Local and Non-Local Searches is essential for how to get your Google listing higher. Understanding your audience and their geographical location is crucial for effective SEO. If your business primarily serves a local community, it’s important to focus on local SEO strategies. This includes optimizing your Google My Business listings and incorporating local keywords into your content. For instance, if you run a bakery in Boston, you might want to include keywords like “Boston bakery” or “best pastries in Boston” in your content.
However, if you want to reach a wider audience or if your services aren’t tied to a specific location, you’ll need to optimize for “Google search without a location”. This involves focusing on broader keywords and creating content that appeals to users regardless of their location. Tools like Google Trends or Keyword Planner can be invaluable for finding both local and non-local keywords that are relevant to your business.
Creating location-specific landing pages can boost local SEO, while broader, topic-focused pages can help attract a non-local audience. Online reviews and ratings also play a significant role in local SEO, so encourage your customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google and Yelp. Lastly, don’t forget about the power of social media. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram can help you reach both local and global audiences, even when users are conducting a Google search without a location.
3. Write Quality Content
Having quality content is the bare minimum cost of admission for driving organic traffic. But winning doesn’t come from bare minimum.
Raise your standards. Write the best content on the internet for each piece of content you publish. Write quality content and ensure your title tag is optimized for better visibility.
In this content, Google has specific expectations for what you should do:
- Producing relevant information for what others are looking for.
- Having an accessible website that takes one click to navigate.
Understanding the search intent of your target audience is crucial for writing quality content.
Since you want to rank on the first page, you need to be complying with Google’s guidelines for what quality content looks like.
A tool called Google Search Console helps ensure your page is up to par. Google Search Console generates reports on search traffic performance so you can gauge how well your website is performing.
Once you get your report, Google will offer you suggestions to improve your website to boost your rankings.
One thing you absolutely need to avoid is using deceptive technology to “trick” Google into ranking you higher. Google will figure out what you’re doing and will prevent your site from ever reaching a top rank. Even worse, you may get suspended or banned from appearing.
Besides producing relevant content, you also need to be constantly updating your content. You can repurpose your outdated content to add new, unique twists that keep it valuable to users.
At the end of the day, you should always be valuing quality content over quantity. Spending extra time to ensure your content fits Google’s expectations will pay off in the long run. Writing quality content is key to getting your website noticed on Google.
4. The Importance of an Optimized Meta Description for SEO
A meta description is a short snippet that describes the content of a web page. It appears under the page title in search engine results and plays a significant role in SEO. A well-written meta description can entice users to click on your page, thereby increasing your click-through rate and potentially improving your search engine ranking.
When writing meta descriptions, it’s important to use action-oriented language, include your target keyword, and ensure the description accurately reflects the content on the page. This can significantly improve your website’s visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Meta descriptions also play a role when your content is shared on social media. The meta description is often used as the description of the page, so it’s important to make it compelling. However, be wary of common mistakes such as duplicating meta descriptions across multiple pages or exceeding the recommended length. These can negatively impact your SEO efforts.
5. Acquire Backlinks
What’s the most important Google ranking factor? Backlinks. Acquiring backlinks from reputable sources can significantly improve your Google rankings.
A backlink is when another site that is not your own links to your site.
This acts as a vote of confidence from another site to yours, letting Google know that you are more credible than sites with less backlinks. (Speaking of confidence, check out these 13 confidence building activities.)
Be patient. Receiving backlinks takes time between the reaching out, writing guest posts, and doing roundups.
This is one of the reasons that producing quality and unique content is so important. Publishing posts with information that no one has seen before will increase your chances of someone linking to your page.
Now the authority of the page linking to you does matter:
- Pages with more domain authority can increase your chances with ranking. It is not easy to get a well-established site to backlink your page.
- Relation matters; sites that are in your industry or are related to your business will increase your rankings.
- Google checks how many times a site has linked to you before. If you get links from a variety of different sites that have never linked to you before, you will be in good shape.
There is another way to increase your backlinks. Guest blogging can be a great way to get your name out and build your industry authority.
Find a business that is similar to you and ask if you can write a blog for their site.
You can also link from one page of your site to another to provide readers with more information about the topics you’re writing about. This helps too.
Need help driving credible links to your website? Check out our link building service.
*6. Partner With An SEO Company (paid option)
No, this is not a bait and switch. You can accomplish insane results to the tune of millions of organic views without paying any SEO company.
We’re adding this option because it’s another way to get to the top of Google.
(Or you can do a profit-sharing agreement with an SEO company where you only pay them off the profits generated. Boom. Still in the guidelines now.)
Partnering with an SEO company, like us, can help you get the results you want in a timely manner.
Getting Google to send you tons of traffic can be extremely time consuming. You have to stay up to date with all the new trends and the latest algorithm updates.
The best part about partnering with an expert is that you can decide how much you want them to do and how much you want to do on your own.
You can use an SEO company to:
- Start you in the right direction and help you come up with an SEO plan
- Conduct keyword research and manage your SEO efforts to ensure you will get your desired results
- Deliver a list of blog post topics for you to write
- Allow them to completely run a campaign to deliver ROI for your business
- Ensure your core pages are receiving backlinks from websites with domain authority
Regardless of what you decide, you will learn a lot and have momentum to skyrocket your rankings.
Conclusion
Ranking first on Google takes time—just like anything worthwhile.
If you’re wondering ‘how do I rank on Google?’, following these steps will help you achieve your goal.
Though my guarantee is your rankings and traffic will improve if you stay committed. Work smart, and we’ve shown today how you can get a top spot on Google without spending a dollar. If you’re wondering ‘how do I rank on Google?’, following these steps will help you achieve your goal.
However, if your time is better spent elsewhere, partner with our SEO team to climb atop the rankings as you sit back and relax. We’ll do the hard work for you.
Do it yourself or work with us. Whatever you decide, it’s time you find out what all the hype is about. What would ranking on the first page of Google do for your business?
What’s the difference between sites at the top of Google and everyone else desperate for traffic? Those who track SEO metrics separate themselves from the pack.
Up to this point, we’ve taught you everything you need to drive an insane amount of traffic to your site. But there’s one last step: measuring our SEO performance.
In this lesson, we’ve filtered through every SEO metric imaginable and narrowed it down to seven focus points. Not only that, you’ll also get two tools to measure what’s important. Discover the connection between website traffic and revenue generation with this guide on Transforming Site Traffic into Profit.
This will help you track what content is producing traffic, so you can then improve it for better results.
What Are SEO Metrics?
Since search results often take time to produce results, tracking metrics is a way to ensure you’re on the right path toward gaining traffic before the big pay off of fresh leads and sales arrive.
Like we defined what is SEO, we need to define what’s a metric.
Defining A SEO Metric
You may ask, “What’s a SEO metric?” A metric is a standard of measurement that’s crystal clear.
When talking SEO metrics, these are knowing exactly how many people visited your site in the past month, where did they specifically come from, and what pages did they visit, etc.
It’s concrete data you can use to improve upon going forward. Because without metrics, you may find yourself trying to fix something that’s already working and then screw it up. Or you may miss a giant opportunity because you’re unaware of it.
As an SEO agency, we use data to relay performance to customers, get organized internally, and be inspired to reach new goals.
Are you ready? It’s time to reveal these seven SEO metrics.
SEO Performance Metrics That Matter
1. Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is first on the list because it’s the truest evaluator of your website’s SEO success.
This is the total traffic sent directly to your site from organic searches on Google and other search engines.
The reason you spend all this time learning SEO and trying to rank keywords on the first page of Google is to see this organic traffic number go to the moon!
Now overall traffic is important too. But this figure can be quickly manipulated with expensive advertising campaigns or a lucky viral post. So your SEO efforts will be reflected best in your organic traffic numbers.
To view organic traffic, simply sign into Google Analytics, and click:
- Acquisition
- Overview
- Organic Search
This dashboard shows organic traffic. If interested, you can select a different date to see organic performance.
We recommend you view organic traffic monthly to ensure you’re making progress.
2. Keyword Rankings
Here’s an obvious one. If the process is to research keywords to rank for and then write content on these keywords, wouldn’t it also make sense to track your Google keyword rankings?
I pay to use Ahrefs Rank Tracker for this. But if you’re on a tight budget, manually track the keyword rankings in a spreadsheet like Google Sheets.
Tracking this SEO metric shows you where you’re dominating in top 10 results. More importantly, it tells you what pages to add content and acquire links because you’re extremely close in the 10-20 range.
Plus, it’s a freaking blast to search for a keyword phrase and see your page ranks 1st across the entire internet. That’s a special feeling.
3. Backlinks
Thank God for tools like Ahrefs Backlink Checker or it’d be impossible to track every link to your domain. This tool gives you the total of both backlinks and referring domains.
The difference is you can have three backlinks from the same site but that would only be one referring domain.
Tracking backlinks and seeing your totals grow should motivate you to write unbelievable content and reach out to ask for links when it adds value.
Remember, it’s about high-value links more than getting as many links as possible. Getting a link from a .edu site with a 90 domain authority will go way farther than 15 links from spammy sites.
4. Domain Authority
Google takes into consideration each page’s domain authority (DA) when ranking websites. By receiving more backlinks and referring domains, DA improves. This is scored on a 0 to 100 scale.
Curious about your website’s authority? Use this tool, or Ahrefs, to check your domain authority every month or quarter.
If you’re doing SEO strategy correctly, your domain authority will have a consistent upward trajectory over time.
5. Traffic Source
Knowing where your traffic is coming from is helpful because you get two major opportunities here.
You can double down on what’s working. Or you can keep the strong traffic sources going consistently and spend more time on weaker sources.
To find your traffic sources, in Google Analytics, navigate to:
- Acquisition
- Overview
Again, you can’t improve what you don’t know. Knowing the source of each traffic stream is extremely useful when acted upon.
6. Top Pages
This goes hand in hand with knowing the traffic source. When you know where people are coming from and the pages they’re landing on most, you can spend extra time improving the content to make it truly your best work.
Add additional images or videos to better compliment the page. Or, see how you can increase email sign ups or sales with a well placed call-to-action button.
By adding content to the page and improving its quality, more visitors will see value in your site and click around to other pages, or share it with their social network.
Plus, you can analyze why this page is getting the most traffic and duplicate its fundamentals to other pages.
7. Conversions
This metric is more complex than the rest. In the beginning it’s not the most important SEO metric. But over time, as your focus switches from generating traffic to monetizing, true conversions become the #1 metric.
Be careful to know the definition of a conversion. Many people count a conversion as someone opting-in to your newsletter, attending a webinar, downloading a free report, calling you, or submitting a contact form.
But are these truly conversions? No, because the customer hasn’t spent a dollar with you yet. These are leads, not sales.
A true conversion is when you get on a call or have a meeting, and they pay the invoice.
Conversion means a buyer exchanged money. That’s the name of the game in business.
SEO Tracking Tools
Wondering how you’re ever going to track these seven metrics? Don’t worry. Use the two tools below and you’ll have it all covered.
1. Google Analytics
What better source to get data than straight from the horse’s mouth?
Google offers an awesome tool called Google Analytics. It’s totally free and available to anyone that adds the tracking code to their website.
Instantly you’ll start to see more metrics than you know what to do with, and that’s ok. You have this guide to reference.
From the list of seven above, I use Google Analytics to track:
- Organic traffic
- Traffic source
If you were only allowed one SEO performance tool on the planet, Google Analytics is your best option. Fortunately, we can combine this helpful tool with another one.
2. Ahrefs
Pop quiz: What are the two main factors to climbing the Google rankings? Content and backlinks. Ahrefs is my favorite tool for analyzing backlinks.
Once you sign up, you’ll get immediate access to your domain rating and number of backlinks. Even better, enter your keywords to track your rankings and the number of backlinks it approximately takes to surpass your competitors.
Used strategically, this information is gold for driving traffic and bringing in revenue.
We use Ahrefs to track:
- Keyword rankings
- Domain authority
- Backlinks
- Top landing pages
Sure there’s a variety of additional SEO tracking tools out there. But there’s more power in simplicity. Stick to these two tools before you risk spending more time tracking results than you do driving traffic.
Metrics To Ignore
Like in life, some things really matter more than others. The same applies to SEO.
While these metrics can serve a purpose, you’re better off ignoring the following list until you’re at a point where you feel maxed out. Then you can look to squeeze a tiny bit more out of your search traffic.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is a pretty pointless metric that website owners get tormented by for no reason.
A bounce is when someone views one page on your site and then clicks off your site. At first, this seems like they hated your content. But that can be very misleading.
For blogs, maybe you answered their question so thoroughly that they have no other questions about the topic. They know exactly what to do next, so they leave your site after viewing one page.
See the problem?
The bounce would say that’s a failure. But in reality, it’s mission complete and you gained a loyal fan of your brand because you answered their question perfectly. Next week, they come back to your site, subscribe to your newsletter, and schedule a sales call.
Your bounce rate doesn’t tell the full story when it comes to the value of your site to others. So don’t let it bother you.
And if you want to improve it, try ending your posts by instructing the reader to click a link to go to a related post about the topic. This alone will cut down on a ton of bounces.
Time On Site
Time on site tracks how much time visitors spend on your site. I’m not a big fan of this one either.
Remember the main goal of SEO is to make money. We do that by driving traffic. We generate traffic by ranking high on Google.
Meaning the point of SEO isn’t for vanity metrics like on site time. And that certainly doesn’t pay the bills.
Let’s go into another scenario. Say someone visits your store for 10 seconds, sees everything they desire, and makes a purchase. Your time on site is bad at 10 seconds, but your profits trump that by a mile.
There’s no recommended on site time and it will also vary depending on the site you have: ecommerce, content, landing page, etc. Do yourself a favor and ignore this one.
Weekly Changes
If you’re anything like me, you want progress and you want it now. But Google doesn’t operate that way.
Publishing content and gaining backlinks will take weeks if not months to improve your search results. That’s just the way it is.
Put in the work. Be patient. And check your traffic stats monthly rather than weekly. Daily is foolish.
However, if you’ve seen a drastic decrease over the last few months and it’s a pattern, that’s problematic enough to worth looking into. See if Google can’t read your site or penalized you by running an Index Coverage Status report.
Social Traffic
Social traffic is the traffic coming to your site from platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Google Analytics will show you this figure in their Acquisition Overview.
While I’m all for free traffic, I don’t value this in a SEO report nor spend time tracking it. Why? Because it’s highly volatile and random.
You’ll see wildly different traffic numbers month by month based on a variety of random factors like social algorithms, third party’s engagement with your post (retweets, comments, and upvotes), time of posting, etc.
This traffic reflects more about how many social media followers you have than your SEO performance. It’s not a solid indicator of ranking higher on Google.
Remember, if everything is progressing well for you and you have the extra time or cash to pay for a SEO strategist, feel free to dive into additional data. But for the majority, focusing on the seven metrics we defined above is all you need to get to millions of views. I promise you.
Conclusion
When you track SEO metrics like we outlined above, you should feel like a seasoned traffic professional, because you are.
Rookies hope and pray for Google results. Veterans use data to will their way to first rage rankings.
And if you’re not already tracking data like organic traffic and backlinks, there’s no better time to start than today.
What’s the most important SEO metric in your opinion?
Look. SEO keyword research is where any successful online marketing strategy begins.
With the right keywords, you can create content around those subjects and begin ranking on page 1 of Google.
Without knowing what keywords to target, you’ll be writing content that drives zero traffic to your site.
You’ll waste an extraordinary amount of time, then believe SEO doesn’t work and throw in the towel.
Trust me, after driving millions of views, I know for a fact that content marketing works in driving traffic, leads, and sales. And I also know that SEO ROI is rather easy when you know what you’re doing.
Read this guide to clearly understand SEO keyword research, and then put what you know into practice.
The Right Keywords
Growing businesses get more organic traffic than stagnating or declining companies.
Makes sense, right? Thriving businesses get sales from free organic traffic, while their competitors get nothing out of online marketing or are forced to overspend in advertising.
What these growing businesses do differently is not only understand their customers better than their competition, they also have their finger on what keywords their customers search.
In other words, they know the “right keywords” to target for organic search.
A right keyword for your website is one that helps your customers, has a high search volume, and it’s not too difficult to rank on Google’s first page.
Let’s break down the three components you’ll want in every keyword.
1. Helps Your Customers
Remember in the intro when I said keyword research isn’t too complex? Here’s the basis of it: Find keywords that focus on giving value to your audience.
What’s helpful to your audience? Anything that addresses their pain points, needs, and desires.
To get you started, think about:
- What does your ideal customer search to find your company? (Exclude when they search for your company name.)
- What is your niche’s problem? What words do they use to describe their current situation?
- What is your customer’s desired transformation?
- What’s a goal your customer wants to achieve in the next 30 days? In the next 12 months?
- What are the other positive effects your niche receives from buying from you?
Write all of these answers down.
(Now if you don’t know what your potential buyers need, start talking to and researching your customers immediately. Odds are you’re going to be out of business soon, and SEO won’t matter, if you’re out of touch with what your market wants.)
Then, using the list you just created, make content around relieving their pain, assisting their needs, and helping them reach their desires.
For example, I’m in the marketing business. Our customers—business owners—always want more money and time savings. Knowing that, we’ve written blog posts on in-depth topics like 20 unique ways to get backlinks to drive more organic traffic and sales.
Deeply knowing your customer makes you more money, and it helps you create better content too.
Lead by helping prospects and customers, and your bank account will flourish. Call it goodwill, karma, or whatever you want, it makes dollars and cents.
Once you have a general idea of helpful topics for your customers, let’s move onto the second component of a great keyword.
2. High Traffic Volume
Content marketing is a strategic game of chess, not checkers.
The game goes like this: Target keywords with the highest traffic volume at the lowest possible competition, and ignore the other keywords.
How tactical you are in choosing these keywords will determine the amount of inbound traffic your website receives.
If you create content around keywords that have a minimum monthly search volume of 500 or more, you’ll be successful. If you’re doing regional keywords, like “Chicago dentist” or sell higher-ticket items, then you can lower the monthly search volume to 100. Robben Media is going after a few regional keywords at 80 searches per month, though that’s a special circumstance and not our standard.
Without these traffic volume standards, the alternative is this. You write the best guide of all time and get ranked first on Google. Great! But it doesn’t matter because no one searches for this keyword and you send zero traffic to your site.
I’m here to save you from that sad reality.
That’s where keyword research comes in so you can know the monthly search volume, before ever deciding to write and potentially throw your time away.
This training on how to find monthly search volume is coming soon down the page.
For now, there’s a final, third ingredient for picking the best keywords.
3. Realistic Keyword Difficulty
Who do you trust? People who have proven they’re reliable in the past.
I trust my mom because she’s been good to me my entire life. My dog has never bitten me, so I trust putting my face in his face.
Google operates a similar way by ranking websites on their online trustworthiness, which comes in the form of backlinks. A backlink is when one website ranks to another, which Google considers a vote in favor of the website receiving the link.
Here’s an example of how this plays out.
You’re a newer website with 11 backlinks to the page you want to rank, and you’re competing for a heavily competitive keyword with The New York Times, Harvard, and McKinsey.
Why’s it so tough for you to rank for that keyword? Because each of those sites have thousands of backlinks propelling them to the top.
Publish an article way better than these sites, and it won’t matter. Google will give their content all the traffic, since you haven’t established the backlinks required to rank.
To avoid this insurmountable situation, you want to find keywords that are less competitive. A lower keyword difficulty means the content ranking first has room for improvement and there aren’t many backlinks required to rank in the top 10.
Keyword difficulty is the term used to estimate what it takes to rank on Google’s first page— using a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being the most difficult.
The higher the keyword difficulty, the more quality backlinks the top-ranking pages possess.
When you’re doing research, give yourself the best chance to succeed by going after keywords with a realistic difficulty. A good rule of thumb is the following:
- Brand new sites should initially target a keyword difficulty of 20 or lower.
- Sites bringing in organic traffic and have published content for 6-12 months can target keyword difficulty of 40 or lower.
- As you build traffic and backlinks for years, go after keyword difficulty of 50, 75 and higher.
Like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, you should prefer keywords that are neither too competitive nor not competitive enough, but have just the right competition.
(P.S. Two sections down, we’ll tell you about a tool that shows keyword difficulty.)
Umbrella Keywords And Long Tail Keywords
One last note.
There are two types of keywords: umbrella keywords and long tail keywords.
An umbrella keyword is a high-level, broad keyword (usually 1-2 words). These are your money-making keywords, but they often have a high keyword difficulty.
Umbrella keywords look like:
- Health insurance
- Rental car
- Catering services
- Mortgage company
Now long tail keywords are much longer in nature (3-4+ word phrases) and often include the umbrella keyword in the phrase.
A company that sells health insurance, for example, would define one of its umbrella keywords as health insurance. The long tail keywords that include the umbrella keyword would look like:
- Most affordable health insurance
- How to get health insurance
- When does health insurance open enrollment begin
- Health insurance for 30 year olds
- Penalty for not having health insurance
It’s a very smart strategy to publish new content for long tail keywords on your site, then link back to your main umbrella keyword page. This way you’re helping yourself rank for a less difficult keyword, while still helping your site rank for the main umbrella keyword.
To see what I mean, the long tail keyword “most affordable health insurance” includes the keyword “health insurance” in it.
You have to love a 2-for-1 special.
How To Perform SEO Keyword Research
Good work so far!
Now, to ensure you have a list of keywords with enough traffic volume that are also reasonable to rank for, follow these exact steps.
Step 1: Make A Keyword Spreadsheet
Benjamin Franklin may as well have been talking about keywords when he said this gem,
For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned.
The path to SEO victory isn’t sexy… unless you find data sexy. But the rewards are 1,000,000% worth it. So let’s begin.
First, you need to create an organized spreadsheet to track your keywords.
We’ve done the hard work for you. Copy Robben Media’s keyword spreadsheet following these steps:
- Click here to open our keyword sheet.
- Click File → Make a copy
- Name the file and put it in a folder you’ll remember, then click OK.
This spreadsheet is now the home base of your entire keyword strategy. Keep this open throughout this lesson. We’re going to continue using it to map out a plan.
Step 2: Choose Umbrella Keywords
Remember, an umbrella keyword is your broad, high-level keyword that you supremely want to rank for on Google. These are the keywords that bring in the money.
To find your umbrella keyword, think about:
- What do you sell?
- How do customers describe what you sell? And what would they specifically search on Google to find you and buy?
- What do customers need to know about what you sell?
To pain the picture clearer, some umbrella keywords Robben Media wants to rank for include:
- SEO agency
- PPC agency
- Website design company
The idea behind this is, if a business wants to work with a SEO agency, and we rank for that keyword, then they’ll click to our site, see we’re credible, and schedule a sales call.
Write these 5 umbrella keywords in your spreadsheet on the first tab labeled 1. Umbrella Keywords. Here’s an example of how that would look.
Step 3: Use Ahrefs For Keyword Research
It’s time to call in the big guns.
Ahrefs is the best tool for keyword research. I discovered this software years ago and haven’t gone away from it ever since. (I even mentioned my love for it in this SaaS marketing guide.)
We’re going to use this to finish off our two remaining steps.
Once signed into Ahrefs, you’re going to click Keywords explorer in the menu, then enter your umbrella keywords you found in Step 2.
When I did this exercise, I entered the keywords “SEO agency”, “PPC agency”, and “website design company”. Then click to get results.
On this new page, Ahrefs shows you the Keyword Difficulty and Volume. (The volume is the keyword’s search volume per month in your country.)
Next, you’ll want to click on each keyword listed. Here’s what appears when I click on “website design company”.
With all this data loaded, scroll down to the section Keyword ideas by search volume > Having same terms, then click View all.
In my case, this will show me 2,119 different keywords related to our umbrella keyword. Insane, right!?
Once you’re at the screen below with the massive list of keywords, you’re ready to move onto Step 4.
(Now if you don’t have an account, here’s what I recommend. Sign up for Ahref’s 7-day trial for $7, and then compile 100 to 200 solid keywords until the trial ends in a week. Rack up enough keywords on in your spreadsheet before the trial expires and you won’t need to pay for the monthly subscription. If paying a little more than $100 a month isn’t a big deal, sign up for the basic monthly package.)
Step 4: Select Your Long Tail Keywords
With this massive keyword list in front of you, you may be overwhelmed. It’s time to filter out the keywords that don’t match our three requirements:
- Helpful to customers
- Volume over 500 (go down to a volume of 100 or lower if it’s a regional keyword like “Chicago dentist”)
- Reasonable keyword difficulty (lower the standard if it’s a regional keyword)
How you filter this giant list is by clicking the down arrow next to KD (signaling Keyword Difficulty) and the down arrow next to Volume.
In this case, let’s assume you have a new site. You’re going to follow our guidelines that new sites go after keywords with a difficulty of 20 or lower. Enter 20 in the max form and click Apply.
Then if you’re still overwhelmed by the keyword list, set a volume minimum of 500. If it’s a regional keyword or you sell high-ticket items or services, then you can set the minimum volume to 100 or lower.
Now, going back to the spreadsheet you created in Step 1, find the tab labeled 2. Long Tail Keywords. Then start filling in the three columns—keyword, monthly volume, keyword difficulty—using the information you’ve gathered from Ahrefs.
Your Google Sheet will start to look like this as you move the data manually from Ahrefs.
Conclusion
If there’s any secret sauce to driving major traffic to your website, SEO keyword research is it. And now you have that!
You understand keywords and how to find the ones that are going to drive the most traffic and sales to your site. Get pumped, you’re in the driver’s seat from this point forward.
So if you haven’t done this exercise already and you’ve only been reading, go through this guide again, make a spreadsheet, and discover the right keywords for your site.
In our next lesson, we’ll show you how to write content to rank at the top of Google for these keywords.
Execute this and your traffic, profits, and business will grow exponentially!