It's a near-universal experience for consultants and in-house SEOs who've worked on numerous organic search campaigns. The first 3–6 months (longer if the site is very large or complex) of any SEO effort is almost always exclusively dedicated to fixing mistakes, improving existing issues, tweaking and tuning the sub-optimal, and generally closing the gap between what exists now and current best practices.
The beautiful part of SEO is that, once completed, these efforts can have ongoing and compounding benefits for months or years to come. The newly accessible and optimized pages start earning rankings and traffic, which beget more links, more personalization-biasing, more exposure, more sharing, and more business. If you've got competent content & dev teams continually checking items off the list (and not creating many new ones), slowly the list of actionable, low-hanging fruit dwindles. I like to call this "the SEO plateau."
The existing parts of the site have been optimized. The processes for content creation are now efficient and up to SEO standards. That immense task-list of SEO to-dos is now a stable, manageable group of regularly addressed items. Don't get me wrong—it's an AMAZING place to be. There are plenty of companies that never reach it (since the move from SEOmoz to Moz, even we never have!).
But this cleared backlog also creates its own problems, namely the frustrating "What Are You Gonna Do Now?" question.
Sadly, answering with an "Are you kidding me?! SEO just 10X'd your traffic, streamlined your conversion process, and brings in more than half of all new customers!" just doesn't cut it. That's why we need to look at the 5 opportunities that nearly every organization has to jump-start from plateau to high-growth SEO. Not every one of these will make sense for every site, but each deserves analysis and investigation.
For this post, I'm going to assume you're a moderately advanced SEO and you've already optimized pieces like on-page SEO, made your snippets rock with killer titles & meta descriptions, fixed every technical issue that might have held you back, and gone through a few rounds of keyword research and content creation/amplification. This process is about what comes next.
The 5 SEO Growth Opportunities:
- New Keywords & Content
- New Verticals & SERP Features
- Additional SERP Domination
- Moving Up the Buyer Funnel
- International/Multi-Language Targeting
If you're hitting that plateau, and finding year-over-year growth has stalled for organic search traffic, explore the descriptions below and make a smart call about what deserves your attention for the year ahead. Sometimes, that option may not be obvious, in which case: experiment, iterate, measure, and then determine how to prioritize.
New keywords & content
This option comes up most often when search traffic growth starts to stall but rankings remain high. Growth-focused organizations aren't satisfied dominating rankings for keywords they already own, so they chase an ever-expanding list of terms and phrases that could bring valuable traffic.
Thing is, a lot of the time, this makes sense. It's an obvious move, but this is one of those seemingly elusive times when what's obvious and what's right often as not line up.
The keys to success with expanding your keyword list (and content creation targets) are:
1) Understanding your audience and the keywords that will actually drive value
Sadly, sometimes we get so focused on rankings and traffic that we forget that alone, these serve no purpose. If your new-found SEO boost brings in loads of new visits with little measurable impact on short or long-term conversions (even to the next stages of the funnel like return visits or email signups or a visit to the product pages), you might be barking up the wrong tree. It's OK to treat some traffic as purely brand-focused, and some content as likely-to-earn links but unlikely to convert visitors. But if the ratios get out of whack, it's your job to rein it in and get back to sensible targeting.
2) Knowing your domain's ranking ability
In niche after niche, there are a few powerful sites who can put up even mediocre content and rank well for it. In essence, they've trained Google (and searchers) to prefer their content on those topics. But, this power takes an incredible amount of time and energy to earn. Thanks to our recent acquisition of SERPscape, I can actually quantify this:
Well, OK, technically this is all Russ Jones' work (thanks buddy!), but the numbers make it clear. The overwhelming majority of sites only rank for a small handful of keywords, and it's only a few who ever break through and earn consistently high rankings across a large set of commercially-valuable SERPs.
If you have this goal (and long term, anyone seeking to dominate a sizable market should), you'll need to pursue that healthy mix of crazy, we'll-never-rank-for-it stretch goals, comfortable targets, and easy hits. Domain authority is one metric that can help, but given the complexity of topical authority in Google these days, there's also a sixth sense professional SEOs develop that should be applied here, too.
3) Hitting your sweet spot for amplification and links
We've learned recently that social media almost never works as the sole source of links that help earn rankings. But, we also know that without links, content is very unlikely to rank. Thus, the content we produce needs to aim for the kinds of amplification that can drive direct traffic and value, as well as the kinds that can earn links and rank. That's a challenge for almost every content creator, especially those who also try to make that content fit a promotional or revenue-driving goal (a very rare and impressive accomplishment indeed).
In my experience, the content that has the best likelihood of nailing these is going to be at the intersection of three things: content about which you (the content creator) have great passion, content where you can add unique value that previously has not existed (or hasn't been easily available) on the web before, and content that resonates with your audience and creates an emotional desire to share and amplify.
Nail that consistently and you'll be back on your way to the flywheel of SEO growth.
New verticals & SERP features
The list of verticals available through Google is astounding, but you can rely on Mozcast to help sort through the noise to ID the signal:
Via Mozcast's Feature Graph across 10,000 daily-tracked SERPs
If a vertical is in less than 1% of search results, it probably doesn't make a great target unless you have a very specific niche market where that feature's penetration is considerably higher.
The process here is simple: if a vertical or feature appears in a substantive number of search results globally and/or in a considerable number of the SERPs you care about to attract your search visits, it's almost certainly worth some effort. Google News, Shopping, Reviews, Images, Knowledge Panels, Tweets, Local Boxes, and more all have the potential to take away a lot of the clicks that would ordinarily go to "classic blue links"-style results. If you can own that SERP real estate before or even in addition to your competition, your traffic growth opportunities have considerably more room to rise.
One important note: YouTube on its own is the world's second-largest search engine. If video isn't coming up as a big opportunity for you, double check that math! For almost every niche there's a good possibility that video can bring in terrific audience attention and branding value, even if the traffic isn't as direct as from Google itself. Video SEO has changed since Google's move away from rich snippets for non-YouTube content, but it's still a massive search channel.
Domination through multiple results or slight ranking boosts
Many, many times, I've looked at a set of competitive search results, seen Moz ranking in the top 3, and thought, "We're good here; maybe I'll target something else." But, that mentality may be costing me some real opportunity:
Multiple listings in the same set of search results isn't just about getting more real estate, but about boosting traffic and click-through rate for both. Some analyses (that I sadly cannot locate anymore and didn't properly bookmark) have shown that two listings in the search results can have a greater CTR than just position X + position Y. Like great romances, the effect of dual listings is greater than the sum of its parts.
Likewise, thinking that #2 or #3 are "good enough" is also probably costing me the chance to scale search traffic considerably. Depending on the CTR curve you like best, #1 is averaging 1.5x–2.5X as much traffic as #2, and in SERPs where verticals or SERP features may be intruding, it could be even higher.
Via my Moz Analytics account
Ignore that SEO traditionalist in your head that bypasses keywords where you already rank in the top 3 or top 5, and double-down on the SERPs where you're just inches from 1st place (or another great piece of content away from a double-ranking).
Moving up the buyer funnel
I can't count the number of times I've started helping an organization think through SEO and discovered that the only keywords they pursue are those that lead directly to conversions.
Repeat after me: "SEO is not PPC."
That means in SEO, you don't need to limit your keyword targets to only those with a given conversion rate. Your ROI equation can be years in length because organic search will keep sending visits for years if you earn and maintain high rankings. It also means that your keyword and content pairs shouldn't be limited to those producing conversions at all. At Moz, for example, we know that the path to conversion can be long and winding.
A couple years back, we found that the average person taking a free trial of our software had visited Moz's website 7.5X before signing up. SEVEN AND A HALF! What's more, those who visited more times before they converted tended to be better customers—they used more features, were less likely to cancel, and were more likely to participate in our community, too. It's been wonderful knowing that the goal of most of our content is simply to make raving fans out of the people who interact with it, not to necessarily turn those visitors into buyers as quickly and efficiently as possible.
This lesson doesn't just apply to us—you, too, should be thinking about where your customers' journey begins and what they're searching for long before they ever consider your product (or any solution) to their problems:
#1 - It tends to be considerably less competitive to target terms and phrases that have lower commercial/direct-conversion-intent.
#2 - The keyword and content universes higher up the funnel often expand exponentially, giving you vastly greater opportunities for search traffic growth.
Imagine you're helping a local roofer in Seattle, WA with their SEO. The current keyword options are probably very limited and hyper-competitive (e.g. "seattle roofing," "roof leak seattle," "roofing contractor seattle," and so on). But, move up the funnel and suddenly a whole world of possibilities reveal themselves ("roof protection," "comparison of roof sealants," "seattle roof weatherproofing," "best shingles for roofs in windstorm," etc). I know local small businesses who've built their entire conversion funnel around educational content posted through photo tutorials to their website and videos on YouTube. They end-around the traditional conversion-focused keywords by earning a loyal audience that amplifies their work through word-of-mouth, often when they've never even been a direct customer!
Plus, although it technically falls under the paid search umbrella, RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads) mean that if someone's already visited your site once and you know you want to reach them again if they search for more downfunnel keywords, you can bid higher and more effectively for them in Google AdWords.
International/multi-language targeting
For larger organizations seeking to expand their markets, growing beyond your local country and/or local language may be an avenue of considerable opportunity. It's not easy, and in SEO, it can require starting nearly from scratch (depending on how you're pursuing international expansion—new TLD extensions vs. subfolders, etc). This is not my area of expertise by any means, but I love what Eli Schwartz says about the practice in his post: don't assume, and don't stereotype.
Do your keyword and market research first! Don't assume (see?!) a practice, product, service, or niche will be equally large in a market simply because it has similar economics, population, or even language. The English love Marmite, but it's just not gonna fly in the US (or really any other country for that matter). American TV producers seeking to export Desperate Housewives of City X will likely find themselves up a creek. And Bavarian home mural painting services will find themselves stymied pretty much everywhere but Bavaria (which is sad because I find them delightful).
Note: This list obviously isn't comprehensive for all forms of web marketing or even all inbound/earned channels. Content, social, email, community, paid media, etc. could all be worthy of consideration. But if your team focuses on SEO or if you believe organic search is where the best opportunities lie, the tactics you want are probably contained within these.
P.S. One more—it's sometimes interesting to experiment with how adding or subtracting paid search ads can impact your organic traffic. We've seen case studies where it's had both effects, so don't assume!
What sorcery is this? After your whiteboard Friday, and now this? Rand, you are always doing an excellent job with moz.
BTW, it's Mark here from Innovate. And as a SEO perfectionist, here's my view:
Perfecting website optimization is already complicated thing, yet venturing to uncharted sees of off page SEO isn't only time consuming yet unbelievably mind racking. However, no matter how I look at it, perfect web optimization is too much for a filler statement. There's no such thing as perfect to those who want to be on the top - this too is a filler, LOL.
My point? Website Optimization is a never ending task - you probably know it already. But as we move forward to offline SEO, things like technicality doesn't matter anymore. We're moving on to a whole new world of PR, where communicating clearly and leaving everlasting impression to your target audience is a matter of cracking the right hemisphere of your brain.
So far so good. With SEO consistently improving, mediocre companies can continue competing with its large competitors on equal grounds. Overall everything is going upwards with SEO and I don't think it will end soon in the near future.
Cheers to my SEO colleagues. :-)
It's called Rand's Sorcery. :)
This is one of the types of broad thinking articles that appear here on Moz, and dramatically change the course for the following months for my business. About time...
Here is my take..
Working with affiliate marketing, I see how all of these can be pursued for growing sales via search, or funnels that rely heavily on it. The first strategy of adding more keywords and content to the list is what comes intuitive after traffic volume comes to a plateau. In affiliate marketing, this happens more often than not. The company whose products you were selling starts to lack in innovation, new lines of products or marketing altogether. A messy place to be in, since there is no way to move the marketing for them. Adding more content and keywords, then, seems like the best solution- slowly transitioning towards another product, another sub-niche. We are kind of doing exactly that now (the workout programs that were selling well are bringing less and less sales despite rankings staying as they were- some even increased...)
Moving up the buyer funnel can be tightly related with the first strategy of conquering new keywords and phrases, and creating new content. Educational content that drives traffic and converts on the metric of trust. It doesn't even have to be search- we tried this with Facebook advertising too. Create it for the sake of serving search intents, and then don't be afraid to try other channels of distribution as well- nine out of ten they will help your search marketing.
The example about the mattress sizing page you mentioned in the last WBF can be a perfect example of new keywords and content, and broadening the funnel as well. I can only imagine the sale numbers if that was the site of a mattress selling company.
Another natural progression I think for many SEOs is CRO. Once you have all the extra traffic coming in, you can increase revenue and conversions by identifying opportunities to improve the experience of the pages that the organic traffic lands on.
Conversions don't have to mean just purchases, either. It can include things like e-mail sign-ups and social shares as well (which can lead to even more traffic and organic backlinks). All of these things are like a multiplier on your SEO traffic.
CRO is absolutely an essential next-step from SEO. I had a client years ago who was ranking for some huge terms but wasn't making any sales. They had tons of traffic and no bookings. I found out they (a tour operator) were ranking for things like "morocco flag" and "train times casablanca" because they have several Wiki-type pages dedicated to these things. Any search for these terms was resulting in traffic but 95% bounce and 0% bookings.
Agree conversion is so much more than just purchases. We currently have a client getting thousands & thousands of SERP impressions and nearly zero clicks (.08% on some big terms) with rankings between 1 and 3. Getting those clicks FIRST also helps sales.
Awesome article. I love the way you add actual stats, figures and research with your content.
Lately, one my client told me that we had a conversion via a keyword that we didn't even optimize for. i.e. that keyword was nowhere in the entire content we had (website + blog)
Take my example for instance;
And it that whole time, I never reached on Moz website, blog or any resource while using " SEO Software" , " Marketing Software" or any of the "Conversion" targeted keywords. Its the "content" that drove me to Moz.
Having said that, I'm one of those 7.5 visits / before buying person, which is more likely to stay with the product, use more features ( obviously) and maybe likely to interact in communities.
Great article! This was a great mental boost after a long week of battling plateaus. Already getting started on next week's progress. Thanks!
Awesome and really good article.
Wonderful article :) gracia
in Turkey there are so many issues spinning around. Moz is the only place where we can trust and appl the techniques.
"International/multi-language targeting" Kind of curious to read about this one. It has been great to know about targeting multiple language. Thanks for your research rand. And congrats this is also like your always best post.
Hey Rand are you stalking me?! This is exactly what I was thinking this morning for one of my sites!
Ok now I'l read the actual article :-)
It's so weird though, this is not the first time I have that feeling of "Man I need X right now for Y Client" and BOOM, Moz throws a good piece of content on X subject. It happened so many times that I'm starting to think that it's all part of a ploy! Moz = Illuminati confirmed.
No but seriously, excellent content strategy & production.
You will have to introduce me to this development team that doesn't cause new issues!
This is a constant issue for me as developers just have no interest in SEO at all, so when they produce a new page/template or feature quite often it breaks other features. This has resulted in my answer to "What are you gonna do now" to become "make it so you don't break it the moment I turn my back".
For example I am currently writing a tool that will check canonical URL's to see if they have changed on a sample set of pages, the idea being that if after a website refresh suddenly a number of canonical tags change we can catch it early and fix it before too much damage is done.
I believe we all eventually experience hitting the plateau. It can be hard to get out of that jaded mentality and start making relevant and significant goals that will get the momentum that yields results back again.
This article came at a perfect time since there are always those minor tweaks and changes you over look and realize they can make the difference your current SEO efforts need.
"SEO is NOT PPC" - I almost feel like I should make a poster and frame this quote =P
You mentioned you couldn't locate more examples of multiple top 10 rankings from the same domain.
Here's a good one: Moz is currently ranking #1 and #2 for the competitive keyword, "link building".
Keep up the 10x content, Rand! :)
Good point!
Just like when working out, once you hit your plateau, it's time to hit different muscles. Great post!
GREAT post, thank you for the insights. I use the "flywheel" analogy a lot and actually conduct trainings and teach class utilizing this. SEO is a constant machine and when you reach that plateau phase it's when you get to be the most creative. This is why SEO's should not just focus on-page but think as MARKETERS and utilize tactics that may be good for long-tail, industry trends, branding and social awareness which in turn, will be good for SEO. Don't think outside of the box...realize that there is no box.
nice article. But i have few doubts regarding with ranking factors, if some one gives me an idea would be thankful to you. factors that we do ( off page seo right now? can anyone tell me, how you follow.) and how we increase our keywords position in search result of google. I do regular blog post and blog commenting, still i found only small change in my keyword position. Awaiting for anyone consideration.
Thanks
Linda
One of those just in time articles. This will help me move one of my clients forward again.
Marmite - 'you either love it or hate it' - horrible stuff and I'm British.
Great Article !
Hey guys,
I've built an authority site over the course of about a year. Currently, we publish about 3-5 posts a day, both short articles (600+ words) and long-form (3000-6000 words). That's DAILY.
Don't do any blackhat stuff, gaining links in a natural way. Recently have been accepted to Google News and so on.
My rankings have been dropping steadily for the last 1.5 month. Every week we're getting less and less traffic from Google, while we're publishing more and more, and gaining backlinks here and there.
What's going on?! Any ideas?
We're on a dedicated server, with a CDN, a CloudFlare, completely optimized for fast speeds and mobile usability. We're active on social media and get shares, etc. All content is original, from different writers, very well written and helpful. Some are plain whiteboard articles, others have a lot of engaging media - images, videos, etc. We're active on YouTube, updating the channel about 2-3 times a week with new videos, and very active on other social platforms with updates several times a day.
I keep a close eye on Search Console. We're not penalized in any way. Rankings just continue to drop steadily. And the pages or sites that are in our places now are definitely not better, neither in content, nor DA, nor publishing schedule, nothing. Our site is much more user-friendly, have a lot more content of high quality compared to others that are now outranking us, etc.
I'm not getting this. What's happening? I have literally no clue what else to do right now.
I'm intrigued by your SEO journey graphic, primarily because I'm around the 12 month mark of serious SEO focus and hitting a major upswing. I don't like upswings because I get used to them and don't like the fall. :) I'm interested to see how this pans out over the next 18 months or so.
For sites that have existing static content on over 3000+ pages, would it be best to create new content targeting new/same keywords or improve the existing content on the top 20% of pages where most of the traffic is coming from?
I like your post Randy,
very usefull information, always top quality content from you and the MOZ team. I should bookmark the whole moz blog!!!
This article just made me open 14 new tabs to be read. It's THAT interesting for me. And yes, "SEO is not PPC".
I agree with you, not to be alone with our key words that we have chosen but also to continue innovating in content and also new keywords that will continue to help us in a few
If you simply are an individual and you have a blog or a website, as I do, as they are today things may not have the budget to hire someone professional to do an SEO in-depth audit of your site or take care of optimizing for SEO.
But this is no reason to try to improve or at least try to know what we can improve your site, because as everyone knows, if you have a good presence on the internet, do not exist.
If we have optimized everything, there is always one more thing we can do ...
Very good developed and explained. I dont get tired of reading, aargh, i must bookmark it for later!
Nice one, I see a lot of agencies undertake an initial SEO exercise, then are happy to sit on auto-pilot and keep that contract rolling over.
Wow You won again @randfishkin, Nice information shared by you, waiting for some more unique case studies
Great article, I particularly liked the bit about peripheral search and the conversion funnels by targeting them further down the line. We do try and engage with our customers and visitors on a level that is not all about the product but about varying topics and keywords in our niche, that way we can try get them to further trust our brand, before converting them to a customer and hold on to them longer.
Finally..... what's wrong with Marmite Rand??? But then again I am British :o)
Thanks Rand :-)
Nice explanation of multiply results. I've seen even triple results.
Really good one & inspiring, Rand!
Thanks!
Been puzzling over the data from SERPscape for a while.
The figures of 777 subdomains that show in the top 2 pages for over 50,000 pages seems low, especially when you consider how many large ecommerce shops there are and how many travel / booking websites with high volumes of pages.
And the use of the phrase 'subdomains' - does this refer to the practice of setting up multiple webmaster tool accounts by subfolder so you can analyse more than 1,000 queries/ keywords that your website is visible and optimised for?
"SEO is not PPC." ... Ain't That The Truth :) -- Thank you for the the list of verticals, as always, fantastic post!
SEO is a constant hard to optimize the website and can draw benefits and good positioning work, and sometimes leads to headaches to improve your website and make it a little better.
I really liked your post and I hope to learn more and improve my work.
Yes Exactly, Next part is important.
Wow Rand,
This is what I was going to look for just after doing some changes on my websites. So thank you! ;
Hello Rand,
I am a big fan of your blog post.and again you came with new and interesting topic.title of this blog is very interesting like what next after website optimization.Its very critical way how i do SMO for site or OFF page SEO.But here is nice about this topic in deep.
So many of us in my profession reach that plateau and are content to just stay there...this is a good kick to push it forward and especially to get back into videos on YT!
Great article Rand. This has come at the perfect time for me as I believe I'm in the plateau stage of my SE campaigns. It's great to read that there is still plenty to be done!
Thanks Rand for this informative post. I will be happy if you give us more clarification about Digital Marketing Funnel.
Its Really Classic post from Rand cheers!!!!
I like this post here Randy!! There always inventing things like Moz did, building a new brand, targeting new demographics. I've seen these slumps after a keyword goal or set of keyword goals reach their zenith!
The incredible challenge we face when explaining the (awesomely described) realities covered by this piece to clients is an almost universal "now" mentality. I have 15 years in digital marketing and not once have I seen a C-level marketer accept conventional explanations for the buyer's journey, and the notion of reaching higher into the funnel. This sounds like a great idea until you explain the brass tacks of the process and investment. IMO, the likelihood for programatic optimization towards informational vs purchase-intent type stuff to occur is far greater when it happens internally, and organically (cough cough). On the agency / consultant side, it's harder. Exceptions exist, just my experience.
Nice Article but My Question is that "- In your Search Graphic 2 Out of 10 Organic website have "https" and 10 out of 10 have TLD .com which domain starting with keyword and strong ppc investor. is there any change to come with new TLD domain .com in Top Ten With hard Work of 6 Month ? I have not Seen Updates since 3 month in Google Organic your keywords Search.
Thanks
Sagar Ganatra
Great write up. As someone who works exclusively with small and medium businesses "moving up the funnel" is just not something many of my clients are interested in initially. For the ones that are interested in it, it requires a bit more work but the long term rewards have been substantial.
One of the ways we've explained it in the past for those with smaller budgets is that SEO should be able to bring traffic in all the way through the funnel, while PPC or remarketing on some level, should be there as a support or conversion push during the consideration page. This really does help keep PPC budget down and very targetted.
There are so many people that ran along with the "content is king" mentality and just grabbed well preforming PPC keywords for SEO content that was done poorly. That just is not the best way to go about it. It can certainly help but that's not all their is to do. Those broad keywords or industry intent without being specific have been wonderful to us and our clients.
I really appreciate seeing these kind of articles that let me know we are on the right path and to learn more about what others are doing.
100% agree with you. Multiple listings in the same set of search results driven traffic and click-through rate for both. We don't need to limit our keyword targets to only those with a given conversion rate.
This is something that needed to be written and I have already gave it to our sales team. The plateau is real and once you hit it not having an answer for a client can be detrimental to keeping the account. Instead showing new horizons though opportunities in keywords, content, and more is what will keep them interested in your services, but also keep revenue coming in. I recently had a client that I have been working with for years that thought we have reached all areas of business then through some research I presented Geo targets and long tail keyword terms that they did not even think of. Now we have a signed contract for another year of work.
Rand and the Moz team thanks for all you do, and shoot I am a MOZ SEO no dobut about it.
I think New Keywords and Content are the options which will always work as the next level of SEO. Only new keywords will save the saturation. SEO is all about visibility and branding. To be very frank, i always wondered and confused many times thinking about what is next after Optimizing the website. But after reading your post, its quite clear that New keywords are always the second most important posit after SEO or optimization of a website.
Great stuff @Rand, practically its very very useful.
We find that content creation works especially well with increases engagement, especially on social media. The goal is to make sure that we write content that resonates with their audience. To do this, we fully research their brand and what makes their audience tick. However, we also know that providing a unique spin for our clients is also a big part of the whole process.
Awesome Rand.
All the things you mentioned here are quite simply more than essential. But truth to be told SEO and all kind of stuff like that is going crazier and crazier through the time.
Personally I treat it like an investment for future, coz you have to account that you may not taste here the instant effect.
Regards: