Friends and fellow SEOs, I just need a few minutes of your time. This is gonna be short and sweet.
If you're optimizing a page to rank well for a keyword or set of keywords, you probably use some sort of checklist to make sure you're doing the right things. That might be through an SEO plug-in like Yoast or through Moz Pro's On-Page Grader, or it might be just be a mental checklist. The problem is, there's a crucial set of flaws in how I've seen a lot of marketers and SEOs approaching on-page SEO in the last few months, and I want to help.
These five mistakes and biases are popping up too often in our field, so let's address each with simple, tactical fixes.
#1: Kill those keyword repetition rules
I know. Many tools, free and paid, check for how many times a keyword is used on a page and in certain elements (like alt attributes of images or meta description tags or in bold text). The SEO software world's on-page suggestions, Moz's included, are far behind Google sophistication in this sense, but you don't have to be. Use tools' simple rules and checks to make sure you're meeting the minimum bar, but don't fall for advice like "1 use of the keyword phrase every 100 words" or "at least 4 uses of the keyword in HTML text."
The MozBar's on-page suggestions are pretty good for this (though even it has some flaws, e.g. 75-character URL limits strikes me as too short), and don't get bogged down in much X number of repetitions malarky. Remember that Google cares a lot about how visitors interact with your content. If searchers don't click on your listing, or do, but bounce back to the SERP because you're not delivering the content or experience they want, you'll soon be off page one (see Brafton's excellent, recent case study on this).
Bottom line: Yes, it's still wise to use the keyword that searchers type into Google in your title, your description, and on the page. But repetition-based rules are not gonna boost your rankings, and may inhibit your usability and content quality, which have far greater impacts.
#2: Searcher intent > raw keyword use
Serve the goals of the searcher. Deliver the experience they need and the answers they want. This is vastly more important than any simplistic keyword use rule.
Want a quick and easy way to figure out what searchers are seeking around a broad keyword? Do some basic keyword research!
E.g. I popped "faberge eggs" into Keyword Explorer, looked at the suggestions list, chose the "are questions" filter, and BOOM. KWE is giving me insight into exactly what people want to know about the eggs: What are they? How do you make them? How much do they cost? How many were made? Who was Faberge?
You don't have to use KWE for this; most keyword research tools — even free ones like Ubersuggest or AdWords — will get you there. The goal is to understand what searchers want, and deliver it to them. For example, there are a lot of image searches for Faberge Eggs, suggesting that photos are critical to delivering the right user experience. The many questions and searches related to price and construction suggest that some folks want their own and, thus, providing links or information about how to craft replicas or where to buy them probably makes great sense, too.
In my experience, it's vastly easier to create content of any kind that serves your visitors first, then retrofit that content with keyword rules vs. the other way around. I get deeply worried when I see marketers or content creators putting the cart before the horse and focusing on keyword use as though some precise placement will incite Google to rank you ahead of all those content pieces that satisfy and delight their searchers.
Bottom line: Discover what searchers want and deliver it to them before you worry about keyword use or repetition in your content.
#3: Related topics and keywords are ESSENTIAL
Raw keyword repetitions and simplistic rules don't take you far in 2017, but... related topics absolutely do. Google wants to see documents that intelligently use words and phrases that connect — semantically, lexically, and logically — to the queries searchers are using. Those topics help tell Google's on-page quality analysis systems that your content A) is on-topic and relevant, B) includes critical answers to searchers' questions, and C) has credible, accurate information.
Let me show you what I mean:
Check out that badass featured snippet. It's not the #1 ranked page. And strangely enough, it's the page with the fewest links and linking root domains on page one of Google's SERPs. But it NAILS the content optimization, providing the right answers in the right format for both Google and searchers.
Seriously, that's the competition — 9 sites you've definitely heard of, whose media brands and domain authority would make you think a come-from-nowhere underdog wouldn't stand a chance in these SERPs. And yet, there it is, like a beautiful Cinderella story dominating page one.
Want to replicate this success? It's not that hard.
Step one: Use related topics and keywords. The MozBar makes this easy:
I believe there are a few other tools that provide this functionality, including the Italian SEO Suite, SEOZoom. The MozBar gets its suggestions by crawling the pages that rank for the keyword, extracting out unique terms and phrases that appear on those pages more frequently than in other content across the web, and then listing them in order of relative importance/value.
It makes sense that words like "Peter Carl Faberge," "Tsar," "Imperial Easter Egg," and "Faberge Museum" would all belong on any content targeting this search query. If you're missing those terms and trying to rank, you're in for a much more difficult slog than if you employ them.
Step two: If there's any chance for a featured snippet in the SERP, aim for it by optimizing the format of your content. That could mean a list or a short explanatory paragraph. It might mean a single sentence atop the page that gives the quick-and-dirty answer while beckoning a searcher to click and learn more. Dr. Pete's guide to ranking #0 with featured snippets will give you more depth on how to get this right.
The best part about this is that few SEOs are doing this well right now. Many don't even know these processes or tools exist. And that means... it's still a competitive advantage if you do it :-)
Bottom line: There are keywords beyond synonyms or raw repetitions that can help you rank and claim the featured snippet position. You can find them manually or with tools, and employ them in your content to dramatically boost on-page SEO.
#4: Stop assuming links always beat on-page
This one's dead simple. We need to change our biased thinking about links and content from the days of 2012. Back then, it was still the case that a few more links with anchor text would move even an irrelevant, low-quality page of content above better and more valuable pages. Today, it's vastly more likely that very-well-linked-to pages (as in the example above) are getting their butts handed to them by marketers who go above and beyond with their on-page SEO efforts, winning despite a link deficit because they deliver the content and the experience Google (and searchers) want.
Bottom line: If you're ranking on page 2 or 3, blunt-force link building shouldn't be the only tool in your wheelhouse. Modern on-page SEO that better serves searchers and more intelligently considers content formatting and word usage and searcher satisfaction has got to be part of the equation.
#5: Pages matter, but so, too, do the sites hosting them
In 2012, Wikipedia and big sites like them dominated many results simply by virtue of their raw link authority and importance. Today, domain authority still plays a role, but it's not just link equity or the size and popularity of the site that matters. There's an element of topical authority and expertise in Google's algorithm that can deliver dramatic results to those willing to lean into it.
For example, in the SEO field, Moz has topical authority thanks to our years of writing about the subject, earning links from the field, becoming associated with the subject, and the close semantic connection that the words "Moz" and "SEO" have all over the web. The entity *Moz* surely lives in some Google database with a close word-association to SEO, just as SeriousEats lives alongside recipes, Dribbble lives alongside design, Zappos lives alongside shoes, and Zillow lives alongside real estate.
Last year, I showed off this slide when talking about the power of brand associations:
In many cases, it's not just about optimizing a page for a keyword, or earning links to that page, but about what your brand means to people and how the entity of your brand or organization might be associated with topics and topical authority in Google's eyes. This means that "on-page optimization" sometimes extends to "on-site optimization" and even "off-site brand building."
If Moz wanted to start ranking well for keywords far outside its current areas of thought leadership and topical relevance, we'd likely need to do far more than just go through the on-page SEO checklist and get some anchor text links. We'd need to create associations between our site and that content space, and indicate to Google and to searchers that they could trust us on those topics. If you're working on ranking for sets of keywords around a subject area and struggling to make progress despite nailing those two, topical authority may be to blame.
How do you build up authority around a topic? You associate your brand with it through online and offline campaigns. You publish content about it. You earn links from sites that talk about it. Your brand name gets searched for by people seeking it. You develop a following from the influencers around it. You become synonymous with it. There are thousands of tactics to pursue, and every organization is going to do best with the tactics that work for their audience, play to their strengths, and enable them to uniquely stand out. Just make sure you figure this into your calculus when considering why you may not be ranking, and what you may need to do differently.
Bottom line: Websites earn associations and connections with subject matter areas in Google. To earn rankings, you may need to address your entire site's brand focus, not just an individual page's keyword targeting.
As always, I look forward to your thoughts around these issues and the tips I've given. I know many SEOs are already on top of these, but given how often I still see old-school on-page SEO practices in play, there's clearly still an opportunity to stand out by getting them right.
Love it, Rand! Great insight as always. I also like https://answerthepublic.com/ for topic and keyword research and to add more depth to content
Hi AwesomeEves,
I usually use Answer The Public too! And just 1 month ago I've discovered LSIGraph: https://lsigraph.com/
hahaha - the background clip is amazingly well done. Great resource too - thanks.
We have a similar, but superior feature which is also free to use, but we suck at marketing compared to the guys from Answer The Public: https://serpstat.com/keywords/questions/
How is it better? Well, for one, it has "how to" questions, which ATP fails to provide for some reason, even though they're the most popular. And then there's the amount of data, the difference is... notable.
I signed up for a free account after reading your comment and searched for "credit card". Answer The Public reported 152 questions, your tool reported 944. :-O
How you can pull so much more data?
We're stealing data from a secret soviet bunker, apparently Stalin was a big fan of collecting keywords and one of his stacks was recently found in a bunker near Kyiv, so...
Or maybe we just spend more time parsing the results. I'm not entirely sure how it works :D
Awesome tool.
I like the use answerthepublic.com for answer box opportunities. Definitely helps a ton when writer's block sets in!
Wow, this is an awesome tool :)
Thanks for checking out my latest post all. A few questions to kick us off:
Hey Rand,
In the pro audio editing world, Avid's Pro Tools is absolute king.
The application (Mac/PC) comes with hundreds of keyboard shortcuts, all published in the software's manual (PDF).
For those who'd rather see than read, I visualized all of them (Mac/PC):
https://www.protoolskeyboardshortcuts.com/pro-tools...
Thought this would be a nice "like a boss" example.
Thanks a ton for all your good work.
Huge fan!
Interesting tactic on the SERP: https://www.google.com/search?q=pro%20tools%20keyb.... It's getting multiple top results, but I wonder if having 10, 11, and 12 keyboard shortcut pages is the best UX or best long-term bet with Google. Working for now I suppose!
I'm seeing 1 thru 3 over here.
Good point, thanks - so far, so good :)
I'm seeing a lot of searches where Google is returning multiple results from a single site, sometimes in the #1 and #2 spot.
Google seems to really value the topical authority. Some people are either too lazy or just lack the budget, depth, or skill to produce sites that are topical. I still see lotta shops wanting a turn-key solution. It's just not going to work!
It's hard because in web applications, you have to deal with routing and some people think you can just produce a dynamically generated website. Just won't happen! So in the end, just like in PPC world, you wan't to focus on that nav as much as possible and the quality score. This would support building out the page and using a group of terms from your keyword research, some how tos, more conversational content to the page. You sometimes have to go static and manual.
So I don't see or have ever worked on a site that has dominated without structuring content in this manner. https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKE... you'll see it when you load the page. "East" in the url.
By taking extra effort google indexes multiple pages, (really helps in conversion too, there's trust there) the site has a some sort of a mobile friendly design (not the fastest) but the click through is really nice and there's an immense focus on quality of quick consumable data and structure. The biggest challenge is putting useful content and researching before you can pull the trigger. Sometimes you can really get stuck there!
I think most people don't follow the 80, 20, 10 rule. But building it slow and scaling overtime for the keywords you want to target plays a huge role in your topical authority and actual google rank.
This article really goes hand-in-had with the On Page Whiteboard Friday. The more effort you put into the UX/UI and point number 8! Where you can "give" content and it become shareable, then everything else sorta comes together.
Also this site example is far from perfect, but I did not build any typical backlinks. I just let this thing age naturally and at times the click through was not great and that's because the site was just not finished! However, in some sections I put a lotta effort in the UX/UI offering that nav feel to it and it totally got better.
I hope people can understand that you can recover the UX/UI and I did this part-time as sorta a test project. But it ranks with big dawg sites on keywords market at 39 to 54 keyword difficulty. I'm sure as the content and reputation gets out to help users get rid of the middle man, the links will pop up.
Which brings up another point, I think some website ideas are just not good enough or don't really solve a big content problem to build links naturally. Unless you took an amid approach on a key marketing medium and avoid ranking or having to rank with Google altogether. But the validation is in the high Google ranks and most people will really lean in on this before responding to any paid advertising or influence marketing mediums.
I run a travel blog just as a hobby of mine. Started it around 2 years ago and the DA is around 16 at the moment, but with optimising for featured snippets, I outrank some large travel bands for branded(!) questions I pulled from Moz and Ubersuggest. Most of these questions generate 200-300 visits each month.
Revelancy will do that for you. Google is really about a referral engine, more relevancy you have, the better you'll perform no matter DA. However that Topical Authority; yeah!
A pair of weeks ago I get really surprised because I thought that DA was the main point to be well positioned in SERPs but the article talks about this: no matter your DA if your content is very relevant to Google for a specific topic.
My advice is always the same. Everything matters yes. But the most important thing while working in SEO is the content generation.
Why? Well there are some reasons:
I mean, everything matters, but theres a point when theres no sense in optimizing your page more and more, and you just have to generate cool content. If this content is interesting , it will do all the work.
I can see where you are coming from but with the new Algo changes in search the cool must also be accompanied with useful to really keep it in the ranks.
Great post!
And this is exactly why SEO really is the new "Product". Or at least in a way.
The great news here is that our jobs became a lot more fascinating than what they were 5 - 10 years ago. Back then, more than on anything else we focused on optimizing titles and counting links. And the truth is that it's only thanks to the process Google finally went through.
Personally, today I deal with things I wouldn't even dream of back then, including the site's product, user experience, data, speed, availability on multiple languages and platforms and of course the content itself, even if not directly.
And I love it.
Another thing I find very interesting is that the SEO industry now talks and cares about the brand itself more than ever before. The branded searcher intent WBF from a year and a half ago was an eye opener for me, and was the main reason why we later hired an entire in-house PR team.
In short, it's only harder to rank better today because the standard is higher. And that is fantastic news.
Exciting times ahead.
Yeah, Rand! as a SEO Professional, we do something similar and it works. Checking SERPs for finding out what is asked by people is a winner practice. We always ask ourselves what people need and if the results satisfy that need. If not, we know we have more possibilities to rank there.
I do agree, one should stop thinking about on page SEO factors like the way we were thinking about these, few years back. Preference should be given to content quality and website structure in On page factors as it mostly affects UX.
The only way to do proper on page seo is to concentrate on user experience every time when we need to make On page changes.
I like the direction all of the this is going and that is to better server the searcher. Creating items within the content to better serve is key for that to work I think. In the past find the keyword and blast it throughout the content, images, url ect, but the odd thing about that was it really did not serve the user well.
I like the goal of aiming for that snippet space just for the reason that it challenges the SEO to make the very best informative piece of content.
These are all fantastic tips on how we need to optimize in 2017 thank Rand and the entire Moz community for keeping us up to date.
My takeaway: get to work publishing great content readers will find valuable, worry about optimizing for the bots second.
Pretty much, keyword research will play a huge role. Grouping the terms not over doing it in silo'd page will be key, however, relevancy should drive you!
To be honest, #1 still works in many countries. In the Netherlands at least, keyword stuffing still works too well. I see low quality content in the top 10, when they should not be. I keep asking myself why. Is the Dutch language too hard for Google to become more semantic? Is our little country not important enough for Google? Besides keywords stuffing, I also see too many PBN's still working too well as well as footer links and doorway pages...
Moz's post is just like an ocean for me, whenever I go in it (i.e. read it) always get many other useful tips and info besides what I want. Like in this post, I was reading for Moz tool and with that, I got some valuable references like "Answer The Public".
This is great, Rand. THIS is what SEOs need to be doing to rank in 2017. Your example of the worldofwonder.net ranking alongside those huge sites, and getting the featured snippet, really drives the point home.
I'd love to see Moz update their page grader tool to incorporate some of these concepts.
Educational and truthful as always. In our industry we see this with competitors who have been in business for ten years and who have also been doing strategic marketing and branding. Time is a factor, but not always decisive. Thankfully our small, family owned company has been able to rank next to the big guys thanks to content and building topical authority. It is a work in progress with us and we have seen improvement in ranking in the past three months only due to content editing, re-publishing and internal link improvement. Site speed has also played a role.
Semantically connected content is what wins, but of course UX is a major contributor to user satisfaction and brand positioning.
A personal favorite site I read and actually learn from when in comes to semantic interlinking is www.brainpickings.org. The author is a good writer and her way of interlinking is certainly strategic and semantically organized.
But other than that Moz is the place to learn. Thank you!
Vasi
Corsia Logistics
Great article! I wonder how much of a role the title of the faberge eggs article played in getting the featured snippet. It's a great title that probably leads to high CTR.
Google Suggest and my competitors pages are my best source for finding related topics. After combining those topics the chance is likely that my page adds more value than the others. Especially while using rich content features such as infographics, tables and images. Of course user friendliness is crucial as Praveen states above.
You said here Rand that it's important to discover what searchers want and deliver it to them before you start worrying about keyword use or repetition in your content.
Now I'm not an "SEO freak" :) which is why I never pay much attention to keywords while creating a content... I simply give in to my creative process and follow the train of my thoughts and I always have got good results thanks to the quality of my content.
Great Article Rand,
My Notes from this article,
What is LSI technique?
Caleb, LSI is Latent Semantic Indexing. It's a way of assigning keywords a score based on how related they are to a specific topic or concept. Here's one of Rand's posts on it, originally published in 1879 I think! https://moz.com/blog/latent-semantic-analysis-vs-t...
Is Google Algorithm update going back for SEO of the site?
Excellent Work Sir Rand ... I totally agree with it, still think that these changes will somehow increase more competition in the Industry. What do you say?
We agree entirely with #2. Content has always been the driver of quality traffic to our site which operates in a lucrative niche. We try to give the visitor a visceral experience and provide lots of relevant information without complicating the page. Large high res images also play an important role.
Great post, glad we're on the same page!
Best,
PopArt Studio
Thanks for your article, now I´m worried and need change some blog articles of my blog jeje. I was thinking that SEO by Yoast advice me, but its keywords advice are bad. Be careful!
I'll second AwesomeEves suggestion for Answerthepublic for related topics :-)
Great article! Sure get a good CTR, Congratulation, Rand ;)
I have a question. I would like to position my website in the top positions, I do everything, but I never get it ... any recommendations?
Well... all of this is present and old stylish seo is obsolete... at least in theory, as I use my keywords on google and the first SERP is plenty of domains not following these rules at all. Feb 2017, and I see how competing domains are overexploiting keywords with high high density at HTML and their backlinks anchor are being exploited too... not logical. What happens to google?
As a professional writer, keyword stuffing is not my target. Yes, I and all the marketers love to see their pieces on the top of the search result. But, the main aim of writing is to help the readers. Here is a problem I face and that is:
I can easily understand how to satisfy a searcher who searches with "how to", but I don't know how to help the searchers those who searches with a buying intent keyword. Would you mind to share a tips on understanding this type of searchers intention!
I usually write a few product reviews, a few tips to take care of that products and a short guide to use that product for a commercial keyword. Here is one a buying intent keyword targeted epic content which seems to me an ideal content: https://www.sportinggoodsinfo.com/best-in-ground-ba...
But, I don't know what is actually ideal. Looking forward to hearing from you. Thanks!
Hey Folks,
I don't think we should stop any practice completely whether it is too much older. It never makes too much difference. But Yes, we should add OR follow new tactics to grow up gradually.
Thanks!!
Oh my, I need to rewrite all pages on my website
Don't panic, it can't be that bad.
Hello Rand,
This is a great piece of writing! Some of the best and accurate advice easily explained. I have been working on SEO with many businesses, small and large, for many years in an effort to help them grow their business in an honest and powerful way. I have learned about the advanced SEO methods that need to be inculcated in our work from this post. I look forward to more great and insightful posts like this in the future.
Cheers,
Cody Oelker
It's Again a awesome information shared by. However I was wondering how google crawlers will come to know about the relevant page content if we gonna stop showing relevant and genuine keywords? what criteria crawlers get the content on the page?
thanks for sharing such a good update.
Thanks
I manage a small roofing company in Nebraska. We have for years been trying SEO with different companies and we just couldn't get any serious traction. Because of the lack of control anyone has over what google does, you never know if you are just working with a bad SEO or not. So we work with a company and would give it a year, then move to another company and give it awhile, then stop for awhile because we would get discouraged. This went on for awhile. We are slow during winter around here, and this year I made a point to read everything online about SEO so once and for all I could understand what the hell it really is. I started 2 months ago and spent about 2-3 hours surfing around, most of the information was to technical at first but I pushed on reading everything I could find. I found soon after starting that I had to start to parse through most of it because of out dated practices. Then I found Moz, Rand and whiteboard friday's, it changed everything SEO for me. I finally get it is as much as a guy that only know the basics about computers. Even though I grew up with them and started playing Oregon Trail in the 2rd grade:)
This post puts the icing on the cake. Just 2 days ago I came to the same realization that Rand pointed out here. That SEO (at least for my business) needs to become a on and off line marketing approach. I have been separating the 2 for so long and it has been hurting our results. We need to promote the website and our content with online and offline efforts. I came to this realization because I signed up for Moz pro and notice that a competitor of mine. A company we have been trying hard for the last several years to over take in the rankings world has many of the same scores as we do, but they rank higher and get more traffic, lots more traffic. Even though I feel we have a better website than they do, and we more and better content. We still could never gain any ground. So, like I said, just 2 days ago waking up in the morning it was snowing, and like every morning I have the local news on to listen for the days weather forecast which comes on every 10 minutes and every 10 minutes before they give the forecast you hear " today's forecast is brought to you by (our competitor)" and this has been going on for as long as I can remember. I must just tune it out by now, but for the rest of the day I had my radar up and wouldn't you know my competitor wasn't just kicking my ass online he was offline too. I had been so focused on SEO I stopped paying attention to anything else. What a mistake and I think Rand just confirmed my thoughts. Thanks for all the help. P.S. Why should you load your video content on vimeo first then youtube?
Semantic closeness, limited keyword repetition, focus on searcher intent, the limitations of link building--all good things to keep in mind in today's SEO. Come to think of it, I think all those things were being promoted here on (SEO)moz back in 2012, as well. Seems the longer we optimize websites, the more things stay the same. : ) Thanks for the reminders.
Yes Rand,
I agree with you and as the time changing the ways of optimization are also changing .Leaving behind traditional ways and follothe ways you told in the post may help us a lot.
Some great things to think about here. I was happy with the search engines cracked down on link spamming. For a smaller company it is encouraging to know that so much can be accomplished with on page SEO.
Good advices! Thanks Rank!
We must do SEO in a natural way and not overload our contents of the same keyword. It is very important also to vary the keyword using long tail words that can give us a greater number of clicks to our site or a good positioning for terms that maybe we would never think of. We must take into account that millions and millions of users are looking for millions and millions of different terms, that we do not all have the same way of thinking, expressing ourselves or talking about it, it is very important to search and find out all the possible terms for a given keyword We want to position.
I couldn't agree more Rand :-)
The article is just awesome.
The are two points you mentioned that I think are extremely important: "Semantic"-search (related keywords) and delivering great content (low bounce rates).
Excellent tips here Rand. Thanks for that.
Featured snippets are really dominating many SERPS now, and Dr. Peter's article is like a roadmap to 'snippet-land'. lol
Hi Rand, fantastic post, I wonder how strongly a person associated to a brand, in this case Rand Fishkin to Moz, but it could be a lawyer to a low practise plays in this word of entities. I find interesting to analyze the digital footprint of the key people associated to a brand to identify how they can help the SEO of the brand that work for.
Thank's Rand, this is great news even here in Sweden... ;)
Hey Hii Rand !!
Amazing informative Article as i always follow you but would you please suggest me something that My website which is (https://recentgovjobs.com/), PA of my website were 20 in January Month but Now in Feb It decreases from 20 to 19 how and Why ?
Why my PA is Decreased ? How & Why PA of Website Decreases ?
Hi Yogesh, thanks for the comment! :) Because blog comments don't get a lot of visibility, I'd recommend contacting our support team at [email protected] -- this is just the kind of question they could answer for you. :) Hope that helps, and have a great day!
Thank you so much Felicia Crawford for reply :)
Regards
Yogesh Kumar
Really good informative post. It's true, we have moved away from those old way of SEO which we use to do, specially with the keywords usage across the page and link building from all area to bring volume irrespective of relevancy or authority. Also, I believe it is more now conversational keywords which make you win. Our website RummyCircle.com is associated with MOZ from long time and we have gained on SEO because of the type of world has changed and MOZ tool and guide has helped us to understand that why certain things can have better impact on organic level. Thanks for all the help.
Good Advice, Rand. I do get tired of the keyword density advice from software analysis.
I think is not so better to use Keyword Repetition for ranking.
Awesome and much required piece of content . Nice tips and suggestions.
I have one question- how to rank fast a simple 5 page website without blog ?
Hi Rand,
I'm a big advocate of creating digestible content that has SEO value (not simply creating content for keyword sake). Over the years - You, Dr. Pete, Miriam Ellis and so many others have helped mold our approach and I'm very grateful for that! It's post like these that really affirm what we (as SEOs) do.
Thanks Mozzers!
Excellent advice for all SEO's.
Content has to be useful to the audience which visits the website and as comprehensive as possible. The text should be natural with no unnecessary repetitions.
The basic rules of On-Page Optimization like having keyword in title, url and all technical and indexing issues should be properly resolved and there should be no problems with it.
I have also observed even in the era of displayed page rank that a PR 1 page used to rank higher than a PR4 page in many cases because the content was more relevant.
An alternative school of thought has also emerged which says that producing the best and most relevant content that satisfies the searchers need is more effective than just getting links to below average or average content
I Loved it. Thanks @Rand for the great tips that are really helpful in 2017 On Page Seo.
Hi Rand,
thank you for smart suggestions!
It's bettet to be useful than to pretend being one.
A great and much required reminder to the SEO community Rand.
Have seen many people still depending on such tools to evaluate SEO value of a webpage and not using their own brains.
Also want to add here, I have met few people who don't consider page loading time as crucial factor for better performance in search engines. To such fellows, I would urge please do consider it as it will tell you (and search engines) how audience is reacting to your web pages.
Nobody likes slow pages as we all are humans and going by our nature we expect quick results in almost all aspects of our lives, including search results.
While there's no doubt that you can outrank pages that has 'more links', the worldofwonder.net example has indeed the lowest amount of links pointing to the domain but when looking at the page level i can see 5 RD links (Majestic). So they might play a bigger role than just the content itself... i think :)
Top 5 - Links
Yes, we can't trust more on the tool. I think brainstorming is the best tool that will reflect better results than any tool. There is the need to inserting keywords in our content. We would need to write the content for our audience than it will be automatically optimized.
Apart from this, we know that nowadays people are more depending on mobiles searches so. our site would be responsive that is an important factor to give priority your site by Google. Site speed would be the matter so you should work on increasing this. We have to install AMP on WordPress site that will help to increase site speed. We also need to fix all crawler issues including the proper use of 301 redirects, optimize 404 page etc will still work in 2017.
Great article as always Rand! Just want to question the searcher intent. Researching keywords that are questions is something that I've tried to implement, but whenever I try to find a good phrase the search volume is always "no data" (in MOZ KWE). I do use tools like Ubersuggest and Answer the Public for questions, but is it worth pursuing not knowing the search volume?
Validate volume through an adwords campaign is a step that most people don't do and yet something i consider very important (especially for mid-longtails) :)
Excellent article, Randy, I think you do it a good job. I really appreciate you taking the time to address that pages do matter and how important Topical Authority is today. I've certainly taken a few steps back from MOZCON16 to really force me and my team to focus on powerful content, formating of content for user experience.
Granted we are still a little old school in certain On Page SEO elements like H1 Tags, H2 Tags, use of H3s and internal linking; which I think is still important, we started using better grouping of keywords in our keyword research. As a result, we've seen one of our niche sites really perform against some established websites. In some situations I still think there somethings you just cannot get around, however, adding Topical Authority and through a more Branded focus mindset in how you write you content with a natural mixture of focus keywords and similar phrases will signal to Google "eventually" you should rank for certain terms.
This is especially the case for new sites and new networks. It can take Google sometime to figure out what your network is about and you'll find yourself constantly improving your On Page SEO and UI/UX. Essentially the entire thing is a journey, because in the end your click through rate will tell you how good it is and your rankings will tell you how friendly you really are for search engines through being user-first focused.
The MOZ Keyword Tool Set is amazing and for anyone reading this, I highly recommend checking out the Keyword Explorer, lexical grouping, and the Keyword Research Training that MOZ offers.
Rand, answering you question #2 - SEMrush has two solutions for finding semantically related keywords. SEO Content Template and SEO Ideas - both gives you a list of semantically related keywords, all advice based on analysis of top 10 domains ranking for this keyword. We do believe that relevant and semantically reach content can lead to the top :)
Great article Rand.
I keep reading about need for doing keyword research before deciding on the content. And even though I know this can't be right, every time I come across this nonsense I stop and wonder if I'm missing something. I'm glad you cleared it up with excellent examples too.
I love the questions part of keyword explorer for things like this; I've had a massive boost in traffic from new posts using them. However my question is how to include those questions and related topics in old posts, that were optimized for keywords.
Should I only be doing this for content that doesn't rank highly on its own, or is it worth doing on those high ranking pages too?
Great post Rand! I always wonder how people like to focus only on linkbuilding of a page instead on putting more energy on content which could result in even great user experience.
Clever ideas and well researched resource.I enjoyed reading this valuable blog post. All we know keyword research plays vital role but a small on page mistake make it harder to rank on SERPS. We can see keyword stuffing in several blogs, these kind of people may successful to get good rank but this success lasts only for next update. Thanks for raising this awareness. Keep sharing.
Love it, Rand! Great insight as always.
This is spot on. great advice. Using the right keywords, Paired with the perfect content, Even if a small business can compete with the big guns.
Remember Wonderwheel? Served this purpose well.
Nowadays roughly speaking CTR = intent. You won't hear anyone admit how strong of an impact it is but no other element captures intent.
Cheers,
Brent @ Mometic
Hi Rand,
To answer one of your question, one of my posts (PA 1 and DA 3) ranks in top 3 for few keywords. Almost all the other results on page 1 are heavywieghts in terms of at least one of PA or DA. The only thing I did was respond to few relevant answers on Quora with a link to this post, and it just started rising up in the ranking. It's a high-value post on the topic and users spend good amount of time on this page. I've seen similar result, though not this good, with another post. Currently, I'm doing the same for an extremely competitive keyword. Avg. page time for this page is close to nine minutes on this page (all the traffic from Quora). Let's see how it pans out for this keyword.
I'm not a professional digital marketer, and am learning the stuff for my own website.
Great information, Rand.
As an SEO trying to squeeze out every bit of topical information to the broadest audience possible, this article really helps me out in understanding the fine details on Featured Snippets and delivering short, relevant, information to question-based search queries.
Personally, I have not been able to put as much time into understanding the Moz Pro tools as I'd like. Hell, I had no idea there was a filter on the KWE for "are questions." Just knowing this fact now gives me an endless supply of blog topics that will allow me to deliver more detailed content worthy of Google's snippets in my industry.
Again, great information. Looking forward to the next post!
Great post Rand!
Honestly I don't believe when you write a good content you should count the number of "targeted keywords", I saw many content pieces that are ranked on the 1st page without checking the ratio between content to targeted keywords.
Count of links is also irrelevant, while the quality is way more important.
I think that paid is very important to build the presence if you are a newbie, and also start to develop your influencer marketing strategy to gain visibily
I love the thought about brand equity. I can't tell you how often I'm clicking on the #3-5 search results because I've heard of the site before.
Well-said, Rand. Repetitive keywords remind me of a business involved making and selling nightstands. The company would popup every time someone would search up “one night stand” They had to modify their keywords to avoid getting unwanted attention. But there was no major impact on their ranking.