Here's how to outperform the competition in three key areas – people, process, and platforms – to improve your enterprise SEO performance.
how I went to number one on Google for a competitive term by just getting people to click my page
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Will swapping fresh content every so often help SEO? Read on and learn how "freshness" impacts rankings.
Can you guess how most people improve their rankings?
Well, they either hire an SEO firm, which is expensive, or they do it themselves, which is time-consuming.
There must be a better solution, right?
One that still gets results, doesn’t take as much time and doesn’t cost any money.
Well, I’m about to make a major upgrade to Ubersuggest in the next 30 days that will help you do just this.
And before I release it, I need your feedback… so let me know what you think.
Here’s what I am thinking of doing to help you get better rankings in less time and without spending money.
The first thing I want to do is help you track your results so you can see what’s working and what isn’t.
Currently, with Ubersuggest, there is no way to track your progress, but I am about to change that.
First, I plan to create a dashboard that looks something like this:
You’ll be able to see your site, how much organic search traffic you get on a monthly basis, the keywords you rank for, how many backlinks you have, and any website errors you need to fix.
And on a weekly basis, we will automatically run your site through our site audit report to show you what’s wrong and if you are improving.
This way, you don’t continually have to check your site or look for opportunities. Instead, you’ll be notified when you need to fix something.
In addition to that, you’ll be able to start tracking your rankings for any keyword you want.
From your dashboard, you can click on a profile and see where you rank for any given term on both mobile and desktop devices and in any country or city.
If you have specific keywords that you want to track, you’ll be able to manually add them to do so. And if you aren’t sure which keywords to track, you’ll see a list of suggestions as well.
And if you want to track those rankings in a specific city or country, you can also do that…
My favorite part about the report is that you can easily see your rankings over time. Not just from an overall site perspective but also from a keyword level.
Now, this is where I need your help.
My goal is twofold… the first is to help you track how your SEO is doing and the second is to tell you what to fix.
Here’s why I am trying to accomplish both of those things:
Eventually, I want to even automate most of link building, but that isn’t ready yet.
Is there anything else I can add to the reports to make your life easier? Is there anything I can change to make it easier for you to get higher rankings?
PS: If you haven’t checked out Ubersuggest recently you should. We’ve made a lot of improvements to it over the last few months.
PPS: These features will be free of course. 😉
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Here's why SEO and PPC professionals should attend the Advanced Search Summit happening in Washington, D.C. this September.
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Sign up for our next webinar and discover the top schema and voice search strategies to help your business.
how I went to number one on Google for a competitive term by just getting people to click my page
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Building links is still important for SEO. Put your own spin on these four proven link building tactics.
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how I went to number one on Google for a competitive term by just getting people to click my page
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The lack of communication between SEOs and developers is costing businesses time and money. Here's how to work better together.
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Google has published a new developer document that goes over the basics of JavaScript SEO.
how I went to number one on Google for a competitive term by just getting people to click my page
If you’re starting to build your first website, WordPress is inevitably a name that you’ve come across. I’d recommend it to nearly anyone who has any type of website.
But before I get into the reasons why WordPress is so great, I want to clear up any misconceptions about the platform.
What exactly is what WordPress?
You don’t host your website with WordPress. You’ll still need to find a web hosting provider for that service.
WordPress is a content management system (CMS for short). It’s a robust tool for creating and managing your website. Blogs, business websites, personal sites, and ecommerce stores alike can benefit from using WordPress.
This platform is run online, meaning you don’t need to download any desktop software to use it.
So now that you have a better understanding of what WordPress is and what it does, it’s time to talk about why it’s so great. I’ve come up with 11 reasons why you should be using this platform for your website.
By the end of this post, I’m sure you’ll be convinced that WordPress is the best CMS for you.
You don’t want to take any chances when it comes to managing your website. Sometimes, looking at how many people use a platform is the best way to determine its reliability.
According a recent study from Kinsta, WordPress dominates the CMS market share.
WordPress controls 60% of the CMS market. Joomla is second on the list, with a percentage that’s 12 times smaller than WordPress.
Furthermore, WordPress powers 34% of all websites worldwide. Numbers like this are simply staggering, to say the least.
If the platform wasn’t reliable, it wouldn’t be so widely used. Big-name sites like TED, TechCrunch, UPS, and CNN all use WordPress.
Each month roughly 70 million new posts are published on WordPress. Those posts generate about 77 million new comments over the same period of time.
Considering the fact that WordPress is used by about one-third of websites across the globe, it’s safe to say that your site will be in good hands if you use it as well.
Since WordPress is used by so many people all over the world, there are countless guides, tutorials, and resources that can be found online. You can take advantage of WordPress forums where you can communicate with others who use the planet’s most popular CMS.
Aside from those options, you can also get help and support directly from the WordPress support team.
If you have a paid WordPress plan, you’ll have access to live chat support 24 hours per day, Monday to Friday. For those of you who have business or ecommerce plans, you can even reach live chat agents on the weekends.
With that said, it’s worth noting that this resource won’t be able to help you any third-party applications that you’re using on your WordPress site.
But as I mentioned before, you can easily find help with this on a community forum or guide on another site. There is definitely no shortage of WordPress “how-to” resources on the Internet.
SEO can make or break the success of your website. So it’s something that you need to start focusing on from the inception of your site.
WordPress makes this easy by having some built-in tools that tell you how SEO-friendly your content is. Although most of you will want to upgrade from the basic SEO tools and install a WordPress SEO plugin.
If you’re interested in this, Yoast SEO will be a top option for you to consider.
This plugin is great because there’s a free version that you can try out to get familiar with how it works. But I strongly recommend getting Yoast SEO Premium.
The paid version of this plugin gives you access to more keywords, phrases, and related terms. It will also automatically monitor your most important pages and send you a notification if too much time has passed between updates.
Upgrading to the premium plugin will give you content insights, internal link suggestions, and an ad-free experience, among dozens of other benefits.
WordPress can as in-depth and complex or as simple as you want it to be.
You have the option to just use the basic version of the platform to publish blog posts. Or on the other side of the spectrum, you can use it for your business website and add widgets and plugins to add functionality.
Nearly anything that you want to do with your website can be accomplished with WordPress.
Again, you may need to install a plugin or third-party application for that to happen, but the possibilities are still there.
The flexibility of WordPress also applies to the type of people who use it. No, I’m not talking about if you can touch your toes or not. I’m referring to your level of technical experience.
Newbies, developers, and everyone in-between the two can use WordPress. How you use it and what features you want to take advantage of will be completely up to you.
In general, WordPress is a safe and secure platform. But it doesn’t mean you’re completely vulnerable from malicious attacks, hackers, and malware on your website.
Fortunately, WordPress makes it easy for you to enhance your site’s security with features like password protection for folder contents.
Keeping your WordPress version up to date will also fight off bugs and potential security threats.
It’s also easy to enable an SSL certificate for your WordPress site. Most of the time you can just get this from your web hosting service.
This is a simple and effective way to enhance your WordPress website security.
Furthermore, there are additional steps you can take to beef up your site’s security. I’d recommend installing a WordPress security plugin.
Adding one of these to your site is like building a moat around your house. Sure, doors might be locked, but the added layer will make it even harder for intruders to penetrate your walls.
You can also take proactive steps by installing a WordPress backup plugin.
In the event that your site is somehow compromised, you don’t want to lose all of your content and data. A plugin will make it easy for you to recover your website if something goes wrong.
Starting a new WordPress site is so easy; anyone can do it. You can get everything set up with just a few clicks.
Once your site is live, all you need to do is navigate to the “posts” section of your dashboard menu. From here, you’ll be able to find everything you need to write and publish a new blog post.
You’ll find text editors, formatting tools, and ways to upload media files.
As you’ll quickly learn, the entire content creation process on WordPress is very straightforward. So you won’t have any excuse for lacking in that department.
After your content has been published, you won’t have to jump through hoops to edit it moving forward. All you need to do is search the post and make any changes or updates using the visual editor.
Once those changes have been made, just click on the “save” button and the new version of that content will be live instantly.
Most of what we talked about today has been geared toward WordPress beginners. But the platform has plenty of advanced features as well.
If you’re a developer, you’ll be happy to know that WordPress has a REST API, which allows you to build apps using the platform.
For example, you could create a custom plugin for a new administrative dashboard experience. Or maybe you want to make changes to the front-end.
With the WordPress REST API, you’re not forced to write apps in PHP. You can use any programming language that has the ability to make HTTP requests.
Even if you have no idea what I’m talking about here, it may be something that you learn or become interested in down the road. Or maybe you’ll eventually work with a developer to create an application.
Either way, it’s nice to know that this is an option at your disposal if you use WordPress.
Slow websites are useless. WordPress knows this, so it has specific features and elements that you can take advantage of that will speed up your website.
For example, you can install a lightweight theme that won’t weigh down your code. You could add a plugin to reduce the size of your image files.
Take advantage of options for Gzip compression, advanced caching, and minifying CSS and JS files.
If you use tools like the examples I just gave, you can drastically reduce your website page loading speed. This will ultimately reduce your bounce rates, improve the user experience, and increase conversions on your WordPress site.
WordPress is open-source and free to use. So you can get away without paying anything if you want.
But if you’re going to do more than just have a basic personal website, you’ll definitely want to upgrade to paid plan. The plan types and pricing are as follows:
As you can see, you’ve got a wide range of options to choose from.
Including the free version, there are six total subscription options. These range from $3 per month to $45 per month.
If you’re willing to pay for WordPress, I wouldn’t even bother using the blogger or personal plan. I’d go straight to Premium.
For just a few dollars more, the added benefits you’ll get are well worth the price.
But if you want additional features like integration with Google Analytics and custom plugins, you’ll need the business plan, at a minimum.
This relates back to what we discussed earlier in terms of flexibility. WordPress has plans that meet the needs of virtually any type of website. All of which are very affordable. Even the most expensive plan will only cost you $540 per year. But I’m assuming the majority of you will be able to get away with spending significantly less than that.
WordPress has a global reach. It supports more than 160 languages worldwide. So you’ll be able to create a website to reach your global audience as well.
With that said, it’s worth noting that English is the most popular language used on WordPress.
71% of all blogs published on the platform are written in English.
But it’s nice knowing that if you want to take advantage of other languages, WordPress makes that easy for you to do.
As I’ve mentioned throughout this list, WordPress is compatible with tons of different third-party tools.
In addition to plugins and widgets, you can also integrate things like email marketing software, payment gateways, Google Analytics, and countless other components that you might need to run a fully functional and operational website.
Third-party tools are made with WordPress in mind. Since the CMS platform is so popular, those other companies know that their current and prospective customers might be using it to manage their websites.
So you won’t have to ditch the platforms and resources that you’re familiar with once you build a WordPress site.
WordPress is the most popular CMS platform in the world
As I’m sure you’ve learned from this guide, that didn’t happen by mistake. It doesn’t matter whether you’re building your first website without any experience, or if you’re a veteran developer—you should be using WordPress for your website.
There really isn’t any other content management system I would recommend as highly as WordPress.
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Third-party SEO metrics are not the only indicators of a site's authority. Learn more here.
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Melissa Fach shares her thoughts on content, managing communities, and helping people break out.
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What percentage of your search traffic is driven by your top 10 pages?
Chances are, it’s a large portion.
Just look at the screenshot below. You’ll see that my top 10 pages drive 28.7% of my search traffic.
That may not seem like a high number, but I have 5,441 blog posts. In other words, 0.1% of my pages make up 28.7% of my search traffic.
Typically, with smaller sites, the percentages are much higher in which the top 10 pages make up the majority of their search traffic.
So, what does that tell you?
You should just focus on your top 10 pages and ignore the rest? Or, even worse, just focus on cranking out more new content?
I used to have the philosophy of “more is better.” I was cranking out dozens of articles each week. At one point, I was publishing 2 articles a day on this blog.
And, over time, my traffic grew, but not by much.
I was spending all of this time writing and realized that the majority of the content I was publishing never ranked.
So, what did I do?
I started focusing on my old, outdated content to boost my traffic.
Just think of it this way: Every week I publish one new piece of content, but my team, on average, is updating 23 older articles.
When I used to write more frequently, my top 10 pages made up 33% of my search traffic.
Since then, I have increased my search traffic by 107% and reduced my reliance on my top 10 pages by 13%.
So how did I do this? Well, as I mentioned, I have my team focus on updating my old, outdated content while I focus on creating new content.
Here’s exactly what I have my team implement, step by step.
With Google Search Console, you have access to data for a much longer period of time. You can go back up to 16 months.
So, I want you to compare this month’s results during the same period as last year.
You can do this by clicking on “date” and then “compare.” Next, select your older date period first (should be roughly from a year ago) and then select today’s date period.
I’ve been doing this for a while, so I selected an older date range so you can see a better set of data before my team really focused on updating old content.
You should then see a report that looks something like this:
What you’ll want to do is look for articles that used to get a ton of traffic and have less now. From the screenshot above, you can see that my article on Instagram used to perform really well, but no so much anymore.
Keep in mind that I selected the older date range first. I did this to see which of my old pieces of content used to rank well so I can see if any of them have dropped over the last 12 months.
This will show you old content that Google used to love, but no longer does.
Now, let’s find content that Google never loved.
Log back into Search Console and look for pages that have a high impression count but never got any real clicks.
The easiest way to find these pages is to set your date range to the last 28 days and look at each page’s metrics from an impression, click, and CTR perspective.
Sort the CTR column in ascending order (lowest percentage at the top, the highest percentage at the bottom).
Typically, the pages at the top of that list have the most potential. It means that Google is ranking you but you just aren’t getting too many clicks.
It usually isn’t just related to your title tag and meta description. It typically has to do with the content on the page.
Now it’s time to create a list of pages that have the greatest potential.
Typically, the pages that have the most potential are the ones that used to rank but no longer rank. Google used to rank and like them, which means if you give those pages a little tender loving care, you can easily get them loved by Google again.
The second group of pages that have potential, but not as much as the first, are the ones with a high impression count but an extremely low CTR.
These pages are harder to fix because they never really performed that well.
Now that you have a list of pages to fix so you can boost your search engine rankings, I want you to log in to Google Search Console, find that article, click on it, and then click on “queries.”
For the keywords that don’t rank in the top 5 or have a high impression volume, I want you to go to your ranking article and see if the article is relevant for that term.
If not, adjust the article to at least include that term and cover that topic.
For the terms you already rank for in the top 5 spots, head over to Ubersuggest and type in those keywords and click on the keyword ideas report.
You’ll then see a report with all of the long-tail variations of that keyword.
If you adjust the article and include any of the long-tail phrases Ubersuggest gives you, you’ll see quick traffic gains.
In other words, if you already rank for the head term, it’s not hard to rank for the long-tail variation of it as well.
In addition to including the right keywords, you’ll want to update the post. Make sure all of the information is relevant, the pictures are up to date, and if you could include any multimedia (like embedding relevant YouTube videos) you’ll be able to increase the time on site of your visitors.
Finally, when updating your content, make sure your article is more thorough than all of the other sites that rank for the terms you are trying to rank for.
Remember that keyword ideas report I had you check out on Ubersuggest? On the right-hand side of that report, it shows you all of the sites that rank for that keyword.
You can quickly see who’s currently ranking in each country, visit their web page, and make sure you create something better.
User behavior is one of the biggest factors with Google’s algorithm.
Once you update your old content, you’ll want to optimize for user signals as that’ll help boost rankings.
A great example of user metrics is optimizing your title tags and meta description.
For example, if everyone searched a keyword on Google and clicked on the second result instead of the first, it tells Google that the second result is more relevant and that it should be ranking in the first spot instead of the second.
And Google eventually would make that change.
If you can use persuasive copy and convince people to click on your search listing instead of the competition, eventually your rankings will climb. And you can do so by following these 2 articles:
Over the years, I’ve done a lot of title tag and meta description tests and I’ve also found that these keywords help increase clicks:
You can also use tools like Clickflow to A/B test your meta tags.
Now that your content is up to date and you’ve optimized your meta tags for clicks, it’s time for you to promote your content.
I know what you are thinking… why would you promote old content, right?
Well, technically it isn’t old anymore.
First of all, you should update the published date or last updated date within your WordPress.
That way search engines know your content is changed, more relevant, and up to date.
Secondly, you need to promote the article. It’s new now, so why wouldn’t you share it with the world?
The simplest thing you can do is share it on the social web. I typically share my content on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn… but you can pick whatever social profiles you have.
Although Google doesn’t really look at social signals, Bing does. Plus, some people who visit your page from the social web may decide to link to your article, which does help rankings.
And if you want to go above and beyond, check out Meet Edgar. It’s what I use to continually schedule my old content to be promoted on the social web. That way I don’t have to manually do it or set reminders.
In addition to social shares, you should consider sending out a text-based email blast to your audience promoting your content.
It’s a great way to get a quick boost of traffic and breathe life into your old content.
Here’s an example of a text-based email blast that I send so you can copy my format.
Subject: How to Generate 10K visitors from a Brand New Blog in Under 6 Months
If I tell you to do 100 things to grow your traffic, I know you won’t do it.
Heck, even I wouldn’t. It’s just too much work.
In the spirit of simplicity, just do this and you’ll get to 10,000 visitors.
I’ll even make a deal with you. If you follow it and don’t hit 10,000 visitors and you can show me you followed it, I will help you for free.
That’s how confident I am that it works.
Cheers,
Neil Patel
As you can see, simple text-based emails are generating 30% open rates and 6% click rates for me. Not too shabby.
You can also use tools like Subscribers to send out a push notification. Every time I update a post I send out a push. Look at my stats… I can easily generate an extra 7,000 visitors from a single push.
The last step you want to leverage is link building. You can use Backlinks to see who is linking to competing articles:
All you have to do is put in a competing URL and select “URL” from the drop-down menu and you’ll see every site that links to that page.
From there, you’ll want to reach out to each site and ask them to link to you.
The easiest way to do this is to leverage the skyscraper technique and the steps in this article.
Once you hit the 150 mark in the number of pages on your site, you should consider focusing the majority of your time to updating old content instead of creating new content.
If you have over 1,000 pages, you should definitely spend 80-plus percent of your time updating old content instead of writing new content.
The key to ranking your old, outdated content is to first focus on the content that used to rank but doesn’t anymore.
Once you fix those pages, you should see results within a month or two. From there, you can then focus on pages that have a high impression count but a low click count.
So, are you going to focus your time on ranking your old content or creating new content?
