If you want to rank higher on Google and generate more organic traffic, you need a high-quality backlink profile. 

As proof, consider Ahrefs’ recent research from late 2023. Their team discovered a positive correlation between the amount of referring domains a site has and the amount of organic traffic it generates. 

In other words, more referring domains means more traffic! 

They also found that pages with more referring domains rank for more keywords. 

However, link-building is a time-consuming process that typically proves to be too much for most businesses. 

That’s why they choose to outsource link-building instead. 

This is where a business pays an experienced digital marketing agency to build backlinks for them, saving them the hassle. They also get to capitalize on the agency’s existing expertise and link networks, which is definitely one of the perks (but not the only one by a long shot). 

Link-building requires quite a bit of expertise, staffing, and an existing infrastructure to truly yield results, which is why more and more businesses are choosing to outsource. 

Yet, it can be challenging to find a suitable link-building partner, let alone actually achieve your goals. 

Fear not; we’re here to help. 

In this article, we’ll provide a step-by-step guide to outsourcing your link-building, so stay tuned to learn more. 

What is Link-Building Outsourcing?

Outsourcing occurs whenever a company hires an external provider to perform tasks that are typically handled internally. 

In other words, it’s where you hire someone else to do your work for you. 

Therefore, link-building outsourcing involves hiring an individual or digital marketing agency to build backlinks for your website. 

It’s common to outsource link-building since it’s such an involved, time-consuming task (that at times can be extremely tedious). 

Most small and medium-sized enterprises don’t want to bog down their staff with link-building duties, and hiring an in-house link-building team is extremely expensive. Consider the fact that hiring just one employee costs companies anywhere from $4,000 to $20,000 – and that DOESN’T include salary or benefits. 

When you factor in the average salary for an experienced SEO link-builder, which is around $98,000 (according to ZipRecruiter), hiring just one could cost your company $118,000 for one year of employment. 

Compare that to the average cost of an outsourced backlink, which is $500 – $1,000 per link. If you had a budget of only $20,000, you could still build 20 – 40 high-quality backlinks through outsourcing. That same $20,000 wouldn’t even cover the recruiting costs for adding a single link-builder to your team. 

When you crunch the numbers like this, it quickly becomes clear why so many companies choose to outsource their link-building: the cost savings alone are worth it. 

What does the link-building process involve?

We’ve mentioned a few times that link-building can be a cumbersome process, but why exactly is that?

Here’s a quick look at the core components of link-building (coincidentally, these are also the tasks link-building agencies will perform when you outsource to them):

• Developing custom strategies. Each website will have unique needs when it comes to link-building, which is why professional link-builders always develop custom strategies. They need to conduct a thorough audit of the website’s current SEO performance and backlink profile to understand what work needs to be done. The client’s industry and niche also matter as certain link-building methods work best for certain industries. 
• Analyzing competitors. The purpose of link-building is to outrank your competitors on search engines like Google, and you can’t do that without analyzing them first. Expert link-builders always analyze their clients’ competitors to uncover any pressing backlink gaps, which are where a client’s competitor has a lot more backlinks than they do. This lets the link-builder know precisely how many backlinks they need to build to ‘close the gap.’ 

• Conducting email outreach to bloggers and website owners. This is one of the more time-consuming and tedious aspects of link-building. Identifying a backlink opportunity online isn’t enough. To make it a reality, a link-builder has to reach out to site owners, bloggers, and journalists to secure backlink placements. Common techniques include trying to write guest blogs, adding valuable link insertions (like backlinks to relevant products), and fixing broken links. It can take a lot of emailing and prospecting before a single link is built, which is why some find the process frustrating (and choose to outsource). 

• Creating content. Content creation can also be part of the link-building outsourcing process, although it depends on the provider. Some agencies stick with outreach and fixing broken links, while others opt to create content like guest blogs, infographics, and videos to attract backlinks. 

• Monitoring progress and analyzing reports. A link-builder’s work is never truly done, as after the links are built, it’s time to analyze the results. Link-builders constantly check to see when their backlinks take effect, and if they were able to achieve their desired goals, such as outranking a competitor. If their goals weren’t achieved, it’s back to the drawing board. 

As you can see, quite a bit goes into link-building. The fact that it’s such a comprehensive process is yet another reason why companies choose to outsource it. 

What are the Benefits of Outsourcing Link-Building?

Besides saving you from a complicated and tedious process, there are plenty of other benefits to outsourcing your link-building. 

We’ve already mentioned how outsourcing is way more cost-effective than hiring an in-house SEO team, which is why smaller companies love it. 

Here’s a look at the other benefits that we haven’t mentioned yet. 

Outsourcing gains you access to SEO expertise 

It’s not just that link-building is a time-consuming process; it’s also extremely intricate and changes all the time. 

As a result, it’s not something anyone can pick up and learn within 30 minutes. 

Instead, link-building takes years of experience and expertise to master. Not only that, but link-builders have to stay on top of countless Google algorithm updates, SEO trends, and new strategies. 

What worked yesterday in link-building most certainly does not work today. 

Instead of giving yourself a crash course in SEO and trying to stay on top of algorithm updates, it’s much easier to just outsource link-building to the professionals who have been doing it for years. 

It’s a scalable solution 

Scaling is an extremely difficult process for any organization, not just startups. 

Why is that?

It’s because it inevitably becomes too costly to manage the human capital involved. In other words, as you scale your operations, you have to scale your team, too, which comes at a cost. 

The great thing about link-building outsourcing (and outsourcing in general) is that you don’t have this problem. 

As your business expands its capabilities, you can scale your link-building efforts without having to hire additional in-house staff. 

The results?

Your business will continue to grow, and so will your online presence! 

You gain access to existing infrastructure 

Link-building en masse isn’t something anyone can do. It takes an existing infrastructure to be able to consistently build backlinks from lots of different domains. 

While an individual working alone can build a backlink or two, they won’t be able to help a company that needs to build 100+ backlinks to close a gap between them and a competitor. 

By outsourcing your link-building to an experienced agency, you gain access to their existing relationships, partnerships, and outreach capabilities. Needless to say, this makes the process way more effective. These agencies are used to building tons of backlinks at breakneck speed, and they have the infrastructure to make it happen. 

Superior risk management 

Believe it or not, link-building is actually quite a risky endeavor. 

This is because there are certain link-building tactics that violate Google’s guidelines and qualify as ‘link schemes.’ 

Google doesn’t want websites building tons of backlinks just to rank higher in its search results. 

Why is that?

It’s because Google’s reputation as a quality search engine is on the line. If a website wants to rank at the top of Google for keywords related to their business, they may engage in manipulative tactics like using private blog networks (PBNs). 

These are vast networks of ‘dummy sites’ that only exist to link back to a core site (the one attempting to rank #1 on Google). As a result, these websites are garbage and provide no value to users. 

Also, if Google allows sites to rank #1 that use manipulative tactics, their content may be subpar in quality, or they may make false claims (which can lead to lawsuits and other bad things). That’s why Google cracks down on PBNs and other link-building techniques that violate its guidelines with manual penalties. 

If your site receives a manual penalty, it will disappear from the search results, rendering you practically invisible to your audience. 

By outsourcing your link-building, the professionals you work with will know how to avoid costly penalties, which is a plus. 

How to Outsource Your Link-Building: A Step-by-Step Guide 

Okay, now that you’re clear about what outsourcing can do for your business, let’s learn how to put it into practice. 

Before you go hiring the first SEO agency you see that offers outsourcing, ensure that you complete the following steps first. That way, you’ll avoid hiring an agency that won’t help you achieve your SEO goals (and may actually do more harm than good). 

Step #1: Ensure your website is ready to outsource link-building 

Most link-building agencies charge by the link, meaning you’ll purchase services from them on a link-by-link basis. 

This means a few things:

1. Your outsource provider won’t fully take over your link-building strategy (unless you go with a managed service) 
2. You need to know how many links you need to build to achieve your goals beforehand
3. Your on-page and technical SEO needs to be on point for the backlinks you build to have an impact 

The last point is the most important because, without flawless on-page and technical SEO factors, it’ll be difficult to rank for your most important keywords. 

For example, if your technical SEO is out of whack and you have duplicate content (two pages trying to rank for the same keyword), both pages may disappear from the SERPs (search engine results pages) entirely. 

At that point, it won’t matter how many backlinks are pointing at each page since they aren’t even ranking. 

Steps to take before outsourcing link-building 

Before you pay an agency to build links for you, ensure that:

• Your content is valuable, engaging, and well-written 
• Each page contains at least 1,000 words (less than that is labeled as ‘thin’ content by Google) 
• Use relevant keywords you discover through research (you can use our free keyword planner to find them) 
• Include keywords in title tags, metadata, URLs, image alt tags, and the first 100 words of your content 
• You don’t have any indexing errors (you can check for them using Google Search Console’s Index Coverage Report) 
• Fix any broken links (especially if they direct to important pages) 

Signs that your website is ready to outsource link-building 

Once your SEO is in order, you can start to consider outsourcing your link-building. 

Signs that you should start outsourcing include:

1. Your content is ranking on search engines, but not as high as you’d like 
2. Most of your direct competitors have higher domain authority than you 
3. You’ve put together a comprehensive SEO strategy, and link-building is the only missing aspect 
4. A web page you can’t outrank has more backlinks than you do 

These are all signs that your SEO strategy needs link-building in order to truly thrive. In each scenario, valuable backlinks are what will move the SEO needle most, especially when trying to outrank competitors or improve domain authority. 

Step #2: Give yourself a barebones link-building education 

Before researching outsourcing providers, you should have a basic grasp of the core tenets of link-building. 

Why?

You should because if you don’t, you risk getting taken advantage of by less-than-truthful digital marketing agencies (trust us, they’re out there). 

Familiarize yourself with concepts like domain authority, link juice, backlink audits, and common link-building techniques. Knowing the lingo will also help you understand the reports a link-building agency will give you on their progress and successes. 

To make things easy on you, check out our extensive link-building guide from our Learning Hub. 

Step #3: Determine your budget 

At this point, you know for sure that you need to outsource your link-building, and you’re familiar with the basics.

You know the difference between a high-quality backlink and a total waste of time, which will save you from getting hustled. 

Now, it’s time to plan out your budget. We’ve already mentioned that the average backlink prices range from $500 – $1,000 (some ‘premium’ links are far more expensive than that). 

While the costs tend to be far lower than hiring in-house, link-building still doesn’t come cheap. 

There are lots of reasons for this including:

• The amount of outreach involved
• Required expertise 
• Strategizing
• Content creation 
• Placement fees 

You should come up with a monthly budget for backlinks, as you’ll want to remain consistent with your link-building efforts. 

Let’s say you have $20,000 allotted for link-building each month. At that rate, you could build roughly 20 – 40 links each month, which isn’t bad. If you’re trying to bridge a backlink gap consisting of around 200 links, it’ll take 5 – 10 months to reach your goal. 

This is the kind of math necessary to determine a link-building budget, so get to number crunching. 

Step #4: Select a provider 

Alright, now we’re at the most important step. It’s finally time to start doing some online research! 

When it comes to outsourcing link-building, you’ll have two options: freelancers or digital marketing agencies. 

Here are the pros and cons of each:

• Freelancers cost less but often lack the resources and capabilities of an agency 

• Agencies have top-tier resources, infrastructure, and staffing – but are on the pricier side 

Ultimately, your choice will come down to your SEO needs. 

If you only need to build a small number of high-quality links to outrank the competition, you may be better off using a highly-rated freelancer (specializing in building valuable links in your field, of course). 

On the flip side, if you need to close a sizable backlink gap (think hundreds of links), then you’re much better off going with an agency. They’ll have the resources and connections to build lots of links at once, which is what you need if you’re trying to close a huge gap. 

Here are other crucial factors to look for when looking for outsourcing providers:

• Glowing testimonials and reviews (both on the provider’s website AND third-party sites) 
• Specific expertise (they should know your niche) 
• Years of experience and a solid track record 
• A pricing structure that aligns with your budget (it’s nice to have premium options for future scaling) 
• Understand their communication structure (how will they report results to you? How can you get in touch to ask questions?) 
• Use tools like our SEO audit tool and backlink checker to check their website (actions speak louder than words; they should have flawless SEO metrics and lots of backlinks) 

Red flags to watch out for 

Lastly, here are some red flags that should have you turning tail and heading in the opposite direction:

• Fast turnaround. Agencies offering fast turnaround for link-building are often up to manipulative tactics that could land you in hot water with Google. Quality link-building takes time. 
• Cheap links. Freelancers and agencies offering dirt-cheap links are not to be trusted. You get what you pay for, and a $5 link won’t do anything to help your rankings. 
• Making guarantees. This is another sign of untruthfulness, as it’s impossible to make 100% guarantees with link-building. 

Start Outsourcing Your Link-Building to Achieve Long-Term SEO Success 

To recap what we’ve covered so far, outsourcing link-building is a great way for smaller companies to save time and money. 

Yet, you need to make sure that you’re ready to outsource before making the decision. 

Are you looking to outsource not just link-building, but ALL of your SEO?

Then you definitely need to look into HOTH X, our fully managed SEO service. It’s where we hook you up with a dedicated campaign manager who will develop a comprehensive SEO strategy for your business. 

Rather than just outsource your link-building, why not outsource the entire SEO process so you don’t have to worry about it?

HOTH X includes link-building, on-page SEO, and technical SEO all in one package, so don’t wait to try it out!   

The post How to Successfully Outsource Link-Building  appeared first on The HOTH.

The hard truth is they probably do, but the good news is you can learn their secrets, too. 

By conducting an SEO competitor analysis, you’ll learn:

• Where a competitor gets their backlinks from 
• Their top content strategies 
• What their URL/internal linking structures look like 
• Their top sources for organic traffic 
• How they use CTAs and lead magnets 

In short, a competitor analysis is your ticket to learning new SEO strategies and uncovering valuable opportunities for backlinks.

It’s the embodiment of the phrase, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

In this article, we’ll equip you with a 5-step guide for conducting an extremely in-depth SEO competitor analysis. 

And no, it doesn’t involve signing up for paid tools with hefty price tags. 

Keep reading to master the art of learning from your competitors (and discover some nifty free-to-use tools).  

What is SEO Competitor Analysis?

An SEO competitor analysis is where you analyze a competing website’s performance on search engines like Google. 

This means looking at their:

1. Keyword rankings 
2. Backlink profile 
3. Organic traffic numbers
4. On-page optimizations (keyword usage, content quality, etc.) 
5. Social media presence 

Bear in mind that you’re not analyzing these factors just to appreciate them. 

Instead, your goal is to uncover your competitor’s underlying strategies to see if there’s anything you can capitalize on. 

For example, whenever you take a look at a competitor’s backlink profile, you could come across a website in your niche that they guest posted on. 

Since you now know this site accepts guest posts, you could also pitch a post of your own, which could lead to a valuable backlink for your website.

That’s how easy it is to learn from your competitors. 

Think of it as reverse-engineering the most successful aspects of industry leaders’ strategies so you can bag a bit of that success for yourself!

Why is SEO competitive research so important?

Besides finding ways to boost your own SEO strategy, conducting a competitor analysis will have benefits that stretch beyond better search rankings. 

These benefits include:

• Getting a better idea of your competitive landscape as a whole.
• Finding ways to better interact and connect with target audiences on social media.
• Learning more about what differentiates you from your competition, including what NOT to do.   

An Easy Step-by-Step Guide To SEO Competitive Analysis:

If you want to find success with an SEO competitor analysis, there are some best practices you’ll want to follow. 

These 5 steps outline the most reliable way to:

1. Identify your top competitors
2. Analyze their on-page and off-page SEO tactics 

Let’s dive in! 

#1: Identifying your competitors

First, you need to know who your top competitors are if you haven’t identified them already. 

A reliable place to start is with plain old Google. 

Simply search for your main keywords, and then pay attention to the websites currently outranking you. If you notice the same domains popping up consistently, they’re one of your primary competitors. 

The problem?

This method is pretty slow, so it’s not going to cut it if you’re trying to rank for thousands of keywords. If you run a small site that’s only trying to rank for a handful of keywords, it’s a more feasible task. 

For larger websites, you’re better off using a tool to identify your search competitors, which will take a few seconds instead of a few hours. 

You’ll have quite a few options to choose from, but let’s kick things off by taking a look at our free offering. 

Use our free tool for identifying search competitors

We offer a free Search Competition Tool as part of our suite of SEO tools available on our site. 

It uses data powered by Semrush to identify your top competitors on Google Search. All you have to do is enter your URL and sign in with LinkedIn to get started. 

Here’s what it looks like when we enter our site’s URL:

After we hit View Competition Report, we have to quickly sign in using our LinkedIn account:

Once that was done, we gained access to our competition report:

As you can see, this detailed report includes:

• Your top competitors
• Their relevance to your brand 
• Common keywords you share with top competitors
• Organic keywords
• Organic traffic
• Organic cost
• Adwords keywords

Just like that, we have a thorough list of our top competitors, which we can use for an analysis. That sure beats tracking these domains down by Googling the thousands of keywords we share in common!

This is the benefit of using our free tool: it saves you time and money.

Ahrefs Batch Analysis Tool 

You can also use Ahrefs to analyze your organic competitors if you’re already a paid subscriber. 

Ahrefs is one of the most comprehensive and positively reviewed SEO platforms, so it’s definitely worth the investment (we use it all the time). 

In terms of analyzing competitors, Ahrefs’ Batch Analysis Tool provides in-depth SEO metrics for up to 200 URLs. 

The catch?

You already need to know the URLs of your top competitor for the tool to work. That’s why we recommend using it in tandem with our free tool. 

That way, our tool will let you know who your competitors are, and Ahrefs’ tool will provide a comprehensive analysis of their SEO. 

Here’s how to use it.

Enter up to 200 URLs into the tool, but stick to one URL per line. 

You also have the option to select:

• The protocol to analyze, such as HTTP + HTTPS (or one or the other). 
• The target mode. When left on auto, Ahrefs will automatically determine which mode to target. Manual options include exact URLs, prefixes, individual domains, and domains with subdomains. 
• The web page’s indexing status. It’s most commonly set to Live, but other options include Recent and Historical (if the page isn’t currently in Google’s index). 

For this example, we only analyzed our website. Here are the results:

Metrics provided here include:

• Ahrefs rank
• The Domain Rating (DR)
• The number of referring domains.
• Number of backlinks
• Social metrics
• Organic search traffic

The tool’s data is easily exported in both UTF-8 and UTF-16 for further analysis in programs like Microsoft Excel and OpenOffice. 

Interpreting the results

Different analysis tools will give you varying information about your competitors, so bear that in mind. Also, don’t get too hung up on rankings alone! 

The company currently dominating the SERPs might actually not be your main competitor. 

You should always consider the following:

• Your niche. Who ranks well for specialized, long-tail keywords that are relevant to your business’s products and services?

• Similar services. Who else offers products and services similar to yours, even if they aren’t showing up in every search? 

Different competitors can be important to different aspects of your market, meaning they may not directly compete with you. 

An example?

Let’s say your website sells skateboard decks. 

When researching competitors, a skateboard blog containing tips and tricks is consistently ranking for the same keywords as you. 

However, they’re not a direct competitor to your business. 

Since they’re strictly a blog, they don’t sell any products or services, meaning they aren’t trying to steal your business. In fact, targeting a website like this for a guest post would be a fantastic way to:

1. Introduce your skateboard products to their audience 
2. Share some of their authority via link juice (ranking power) passed through a backlink 

The same applies to skateboard websites that are strictly news-focused as well. 

Also, you need to consider the scope of websites you’re considering competing with on the SERPs. 

This is because it’s essential to choose your SEO battles wisely. Otherwise, you could quickly find yourself in an unwinnable situation. 

For instance, if you notice that a competitor dominating first-page rankings just so happens to be a HUGE corporation with significantly more resources than you, it won’t be worth your time and effort to compete with them. 

Why is that?

It’s because SEO is largely a numbers game. 

Large corporations tend to have virtually limitless resources for content creation and link-building. As a result, they tend to have extremely high domain authority scores that make competing with them on Google virtually impossible. 

You’re much better off choosing to compete with businesses that are relatively the same size as yours (although a little bigger is okay, just not enterprise-level). 

#2: Competitor keyword analysis

Next, it’s time to start analyzing the competitors you found, and the best place to start is by analyzing their keyword strategy.

Doing so is pivotal for evaluating the strength of each competitor, and also for locating weak points that’ll offer you a way to outrank them. 

As long as you’ve chosen your battles wisely, you should theoretically be able to outrank any of your competitors once you get a grasp on their overall SEO strategy. 

Why is that?

It’s because if they stumble upon an SEO goldmine, such as a trending topic or backlink opportunity, you can always copy it through competitive analysis. 

As far as keywords go, a competitor keyword analysis is valuable for:

1. Finding relevant keywords that you aren’t targeting 
2. Uncovering keywords that they’re outranking you for 

Whenever you find a keyword they’re ranking for, but you aren’t, consider if it’s worth creating a piece of content for it. Ask yourself this question:

Will you be able to outdo the competing piece of content? Are there more insights you can add that they didn’t? Does their content lack videos, images, and infographics?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you should whip up a piece of content for the keyword and see how you rank. If you truly outdid the competitor’s content, and if no backlink gaps exist, you should be able to outrank them! 

To better understand how to conduct a keyword analysis, we’ve broken it down into two phases: opportunities and gaps. 

Find keyword gaps

When analyzing a competitor’s keyword profile, you need to keep an eye out for any keyword gaps that exist. 

A keyword gap occurs whenever there’s a significant difference between the keywords you rank for and the keywords a competitor ranks for on search engines. In particular, the kind of gap we care about occurs whenever a competitor ranks for more keywords than you do. 

This isn’t good because you’re potentially leaving lots of money on the table if you aren’t ranking for crucial keywords related to your products and services. 

To stop your competitors from hogging all that business, you need to identify and close keyword gaps. 

We just so happen to have another free tool that’s perfect for this task: our free keyword and content gap tool. 

To use it, enter your domain and up to 3 competitor URLs. Hit Compare Domains, sign in with LinkedIn, and you’ll have a report detailing: 

• Missing Keywords: Keywords your competitors rank for that you don’t.
• Weak Keywords: Keywords you both rank for, but where your competitor outranks you.
• Strong Keywords: Keywords where you outperform your competitors.

You should use your keyword gap analysis results to note two things.

See where you’re lacking 

Are there any keywords that all of your competitors’ sites are ranking for and you aren’t? 

To determine why this is happening, start by looking at how much content they offer for those keywords.

It could be that they offer an exceptional amount of information and resources for their content, or they could have more backlinks. 

Once you uncover why they’re outranking you, it’ll become clear what steps you need to take to dethrone them. 

For instance, if you find out they have more backlinks pointing at one of their blogs, then you’ll know that you have to build more backlinks to outrank them. 

Do a TF-IDF analysis

You can also do a TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document analysis) to discover the keywords a competitor uses on a page, plus how often the keyword appears on that page. You can also discover low-competition keywords that you might not know about yet.

Use this free TF-IDF tool to find out how often a keyword appears on a particular page juxtaposed against how often it is expected to appear on said page. 

The evaluation may reveal that your competitor’s page includes other related terms and phrases that you haven’t included in your keyword list. By including these specific keywords and phrases, you could boost your position in the rankings, which is why it’s worth giving a TF-IDF analysis a shot. 

Close keyword gaps

Based on your analysis, start creating new content for the keywords you identified in the gap analysis. 

This could take various forms, such as developing new landing pages, blog posts, or product descriptions that are optimized for each keyword. 

Also, don’t forget about your existing content! 

You can always add new keywords to existing posts, such as related phrases that you uncovered during your TF-IDF analysis. 

Whenever you create new content to close keyword gaps, remember that quality trumps everything else. 

So, while you definitely need to properly optimize the page for each keyword, the quality of each post is what will mean the most to both readers and search engines. 

If you want to outrank your competitors, your content must outdo theirs in a big way. 

This means going into more detail, citing new sources, and adding things like videos and infographics. As long as you knock the content out of the park quality-wise, you should be good to go. 

#3: Analyze on-page SEO

Next, it’s time to take a look at your competitors’ on-page SEO efforts. 

What’s on-page SEO?

It refers to all optimizations made on the front-facing side of your website, such as content quality, internal links, keyword usage, and metadata. 

In particular, you should navigate to your competitor’s top-performing pages to peep their on-page tactics. 

You should pay attention to:

• How often your competitors publish content.
• The type and quality of content that they are pushing out.
• The keywords that they are actively targeting.
• The headline lengths, title keywords, and title tags that they are using.
• The metadata that they are using for their pages and posts.
• Their internal linking structure.

Not only does this provide you with an effective template on which to base your content and SEO efforts, but it may also reveal gaps in your competitors’ content that you can exploit with your content marketing plan.

For instance:

• Do they fail to cover certain topics in significant detail?
• Are they failing to push out certain types of content and media?
• Do some posts and pages have a low word count?

Pinpointing weaknesses like these will help you uncover ways to dethrone your competitors from the #1-ranked spot. 

Ahrefs Site Structure Report

Analyzing a competitor’s on-page SEO is made far easier with a tool like Ahrefs. Its Site Structure report will help you analyze the architecture of a website to understand its performance on search engines like Google. 

Here’s how to run the Site Structure Report using Ahrefs. 

First, log in to your account and select Site Explorer from the toolbar at the top of the page. 

Next, enter the URL of a website you want to analyze and hit the Search button. 

This will bring you to the Overview of the website’s SEO performance. However, we want to find the domain’s best-performing content to analyze. 

To do so, navigate to the Top Pages report under Organic Search on the left-hand sidebar. 

This will give you a detailed breakdown of the domain’s top performing pages on Google’s SERPs, which is a huge help for performing a competitor analysis. 

Here are the top metrics to pay attention to:

• Site hierarchy: How is the site organized? Is there a clear hierarchy from the homepage to category and content pages?
• Internal linking: Are there strong internal links pointing to key pages? How are links distributed across the site?
• Content clusters: How is the content grouped? Are there identifiable clusters or silos of related content?
• Depth of pages: How many clicks deep are important pages from the homepage? Pages that are too deep might not be easily crawled or indexed by search engines.
• Technical SEO issues: Identify broken links, redirect chains, or other technical issues affecting the site’s performance.
• Orphan pages: Are there any important pages that are not linked to from other parts of the site? Orphan pages can be a missed opportunity for internal linking and SEO.

Once you have a solid grasp of their on-page SEO strategies, you can move on to the next step. 

#4: Analyzing competitor backlinks 

Backlinks are one of the most crucial ranking factors on Google and other search engines. 

Therefore, it’s only natural that a competitor’s backlink profile would be included in the fun of a competitor analysis. 

9 times out of 10, if a competitor is outranking you despite flawless on-page and technical optimizations, backlinks are likely the culprit. 

They probably have A) significantly more backlinks than you or B) higher quality links from more authoritative websites. 

Google views backlinks as votes of confidence, which means high-quality backlinks can significantly boost your site’s authority and search rankings. 

Here’s what you need to know about backlinks:

High-authority sources: Look for links from well-known media outlets, influential blogs, educational institutions, and industry-specific publications. These signals carry more weight in Google’s eyes.

Relevance: Are the linking sites relevant to your niche or industry? Links from related websites are more valuable than those from unrelated sources.

Context: Consider how the backlink is presented. Is it embedded naturally within the content, or does it appear in a paid or sponsored link section? Natural, editorially-placed links are most desirable.

How to analyze competitor backlinks

The first step to conducting a backlink analysis is to choose a tool to use. 

Once again, our free suite of SEO tools saves the day, as we have a backlink checker tool you can use. 

Like our other tools, it’s incredibly easy to use. 

Enter a competitor’s domain, hit View Backlinks Report, and you’ll have a list of their backlinks ready for your analysis. 

Here’s what it looks like:

The tool shows you:

• A domain’s total backlinks and referring domains 
• Individual URLs that you can visit for further analysis (like to see if the site accepts guest posts) 
• The anchor text used for the backlink 
• Whether the link is dofollow or nofollow
• The backlink’s authority score (ranging from 1 – 100)

When analyzing a competitor, focus on backlinks coming from reputable sources, such as:

1. Major media outlets 
2. Recognized online publications 
3. Authoritative blogs with lots of followers 
4. Reputable business directories 

Once that’s done, use your insights to reverse-engineer your competitor’s success for your own benefit! 

Ask yourself these questions:

How did they get recommended by industry authorities? Is it possible for you to do the same? Can you secure similar coverage from news stories and press releases? 

Keep an eye out for easy win backlink opportunities, such as competitor backlinks that are broken. If you have a similar piece of content, you can contact the webmaster to provide your piece as a replacement. Business directories that you aren’t listed in are other easy wins, and so are resource pages. 

#5: Identifying available gaps in the market

Besides keyword and backlink gaps, you should also look for essential differences between you and your competitors. These could be weak points in their strategies or unique selling points (USPs) that help you stand out in your market. 

In particular, analyze these 5 factors: brand authority, content marketing, technical SEO, page speed, and linking issues.

Brand authority

The first step in comparing your site to your competitors is to assess their authority. 

This refers to whether or not they’re a known name in the industry and how trusted their domain is by search engines. 

Key metrics to check here are Moz’s Domain Authority and Ahrefs’ Domain Rating, both of which score a website’s ability to rank on search engines. 

Factors that contribute to a domain’s authority include:

• Content quality 
• Organic traffic 
• Backlink profile 
• On-page and off-page optimizations 

When comparing a competitor’s backlink profile, you should stick with Ahrefs’ DR. This is because it strictly analyzes a domain’s backlinks. 

If you’re looking for a more head-to-head comparison for overall SEO, then Moz’s DA is the way to go. It considers a domain’s backlinks but also considers other crucial ranking factors. 

Content marketing

It’s time to take an in-depth look at a competitor’s content to find any gaps. 

Ask the following questions: 

Do they create high-quality content backed up by research, authority, and plentiful sources? 

Is their content thorough, user-friendly, and attentive to all potential browser questions? 

Do they offer supplementary supporting pages for their product pages? Do they use multiple different content marketing channels?

Note the weaknesses in each competitor’s content so that you can fulfill these needs for users instead. 

Furthermore, don’t leave yourself out of a content analysis like this. Use these same parameters to measure your content marketing efforts, noting the gaps you need to fill. 

Technical SEO

Beyond a website’s use of keywords, Google’s crawlers analyze multiple other technical factors to decide which pages to rank highest. 

Considering technical SEO factors as part of your analysis will help you spot more vulnerable competitors while also ensuring your own site is up to scratch.

You should take note of the following elements on both your and your competitors’ websites.

Page speed

The bigger a site gets, the more bogged down it gets with content and product pages. This can take a serious toll on a website’s loading speed. 

Google interprets this as a measure of the site’s user-friendliness, which is why they developed the Core Web Vitals Test. 

It measures a website’s loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. 

If your site’s speed isn’t up to snuff, Google is less likely to recommend it in its search results. 

How can you tell if your page speed is sufficient?

The best way is to use Google Lighthouse, which is a suite of free tools that includes PageSpeed Insights, a handy tool for measuring site speed. 

If your speed needs improvement, Lighthouse will make suggestions for speeding things up, which is very useful. 

Linking issues

As an extension of the technical SEO factors mentioned earlier, internal linking is a crucial factor in the crawlability of a site. 

A website should be structured with easily accessible URLs, the correct meta tags for pages and articles, breadcrumbs, anchor text, and snippets. 

Besides that, a logical internal linking structure is a must, where every page contains at least one internal link (preferably more). 

This makes it easier for Google’s crawler bots to discover new pages on your website. A web page that has zero internal links pointing at it is known as an orphan page, and it’s next to impossible for users and web crawlers to find. 

Ahrefs’ Site Explorer has a Site Structure report that can help you optimize your internal linking structure. 

If your site is structured well, you’ll be Googlebot-friendly. 

Conversely, if you find that your competitors do not match the above criteria, you’re in good standing to overtake them.

Final Takeaways: SEO Competitor Analysis 

We’ve covered A LOT so far, so let’s recap. 

While a competitor analysis may seem exhaustive, it’s essential if you want to rise to the top (and stay on top) of the search engine game. 

In fact, you should try to schedule an analysis like this every 6 months to ensure you’re keeping up with the Joneses SEO-wise. 

Do you lack the time and know-how to conduct your own SEO strategy and competitor analysis?

Then, don’t wait to check out HOTH X, our fully managed SEO service, where we take the entire process off your hands. 

Also, if you have any additional questions, why not schedule a free call with one of our experts today? We’re here to simplify your SEO success, so don’t be shy about getting in touch!  

The post SEO Competitor Analysis: Step-By-Step Guide appeared first on The HOTH.

If you guessed optimized anchor text, then you’re 100% correct. 

Both established and new SEOs tend to overlook optimizing their anchor text, as they’re too focused on acquiring as many backlinks as possible. 

Yet, anchor text is a ranking factor, as it provides valuable context to search engines about the web pages your links point to. 

Moreover, anchor text ratios are equally as important to establishing a ‘natural-looking’ link profile. 

What are those?

Anchor text ratios refer to the percentage of anchor text types you use throughout your homepage and inner pages. 

Believe it or not, there’s in-depth strategizing involved in choosing the type of anchor text you use for every internal link, external link, and backlink. 

Options include using exact matches for your keywords (i.e., link building), partial match key phrases (i.e., link-building is essential), your brand name (i.e., The HOTH), and more. 

How do we know this works?

Here at The HOTH, we’ve conducted extensive research into top-ranked Google results from countless industries to discover what a #1 ranking link profile looks like. 

We were able to determine undeniable similarities in the anchor text ratios of top-ranked Google results. 

In other words, we uncovered the magic ratios for achieving top-tier backlink profiles, so read on to learn how to master anchor text optimization for your website. 

Understanding Anchor Text

Anchor text refers to the words that comprise a hyperlink. 

For example, if we wanted you to check out our Rankings Drop Guide (hint: we do), we would insert a hyperlink to it (like we did).

As you can see, the text rankings drop guide is ‘anchored’ to a hyperlink to our blog post covering common Google rankings drop issues. 

Anchor text applies to any type of link, including internal, external, and backlinks. 

Sometimes links don’t contain any special text and use the bare URL as the link (i.e., www.thehoth.com), which are known as ‘naked’ links. 

While it’s easy not to think too much about anchor text since it seems so basic, it actually plays a big role in your SEO (and user experience). 

In fact, your anchor text is how search engines understand the context of A) the page you’re linking to and B) how it relates to the web page containing the link. 

Not only that, but anchor text also provides much-needed context for your users. 

For instance, let’s say that you want to link to a related blog post in one of your articles. If you don’t provide context for it through anchor text, it will confuse your readers – as they won’t know why it’s there or where it leads. 

Here’s an example:

Gardening is an excellent hobby that anyone can enjoy (click here), which is why we’ve put together this beginner’s guide. 

The anchor text here is far too generic and doesn’t provide any context, which is why optimized anchor text matters for search engines and users.

Google’s History with Anchor Text Ratios

In the early days of Google, less importance was placed on ‘natural-looking’ backlink profiles.

As a result, anchor text containing target keywords was the most powerful – causing many SEOs to spam their anchors with keywords. 

The tactic provided impressive results, too, as keyword-rich anchor text often led to stellar rankings. 

That all changed in 2012 when Google rolled out one of its most infamous algorithm updates, Penguin. 

It was one of Google’s first attempts at ridding their search results of keyword spam, and it was enormously effective. 

Nearly overnight, SEOs relying on keyword-rich anchor text saw their rankings come crashing down in a big way. 

In the eyes of Google, spammy keyword anchors only served to game their algorithm – leading to high rankings for websites that weren’t necessarily of the highest quality (or relevant to user search queries). 

Ever since Penguin, SEO has been all about making your backlink profile appear as natural as possible. 

Hence, the need for utilizing anchor text ratios came about. 

Instead of relying solely on keyword-rich anchor text, websites need to mix things up with different types of anchors. An example would be blending partial match anchors, brand anchors, and exact match keyword anchors.  

That way, your backlink profile will appear ‘natural’ to Google, as on paper – it looks like you acquired links from lots of different sources without trying to game the system. 

As stated in the intro, we’ve rigorously researched the top-ranked Google backlink profiles to determine the picture-perfect anchor text ratio. 

Before we get to that, it’s essential to understand the different types of anchor text that are viable for SEO. 

Understanding the Different Types of Anchor Text 

There are numerous ways you can go about writing anchor text, and not all of them are good for your SERP rankings. 

However, sticking to one type of anchor text isn’t a good idea either, as it’ll make your link profile appear unnatural to Google. 

Here’s a look at the different types of anchor text you can use to create your anchor text ratio. 

Generic anchors 

First, let’s look at the type of anchor that you should NEVER use for anchor text that you want to help your SEO. 

Generic anchors are basic phrases like:

• Buy now
• Read more 
• Click here
• Go here 
• Act now 
• This website 
• This page 
• This one 

Google does not value these types of anchors due to the lack of context they provide for the page you’re linking to. 

These anchors don’t provide a great user experience either, as your users won’t know what they’re clicking on beforehand. 

While generic anchors can sometimes work when combined with the CTA at the end of blog posts, your best bet is to avoid them – especially if you want your anchor text to affect your SEO positively. 

Branded anchors 

A branded anchor is when you use your brand name as the anchor text for a link. 

In our case, a branded anchor would look like this: 

Visit The HOTH to learn more about our expert white-label digital marketing services. 

Branded anchors are SEO-friendly, especially for backlinks and non-blog-related areas of your website. 

In fact, most of the backlinks you acquire naturally will probably use branded anchors, as it tends to be the default choice for most website owners when adding links to other sites.

This is where a catchy and well-known brand name will really help you out, as some of the most recognizable companies (think big names like Best Buy, Amazon, and Apple) get loads of backlinks just by others mentioning and linking to their brand. 

Another perk is that branded anchors appear very natural to Google, so using them is always a safe bet. 

Natural anchors 

Sometimes a link doesn’t contain a target keyword or a brand name and simply blends in with the rest of the content. 

This is known as natural anchor text, and it should play a part in your overall anchor text ratio.

Why include anchors that don’t provide any value to your SEO strategy?

While it may seem counterproductive to not include at least one keyword in the anchor text, sometimes your best bet is to refrain. 

Remember, your #1 goal is to build a natural backlink profile that doesn’t scream over-optimization. 

That’s why you need to include natural anchors along with branded and keyword anchors – as it’ll keep your link profile squeaky clean. 

Strategically, it makes the most sense to include natural anchors whenever there’s no relevant keyword that applies to the link without sounding awkward or forced. You should also use natural anchors when it doesn’t make sense to use your brand name. 

Pro tip: Just because you aren’t using keywords doesn’t mean you can’t provide much-needed context to search engines through natural anchors. Ensure that you write anchor text that provides a preview of what you’re linking to, as it’s best to avoid generic phrases even when writing natural anchors. 

Image anchors 

Sometimes anchor text doesn’t have to contain text at all, like when an image doubles as a hyperlink to another web page. 

Whenever you use an image as a link, the alt text serves as the anchor text for search engine crawlers. 

Since crawler bots lack computer vision, they won’t be able to see any images that you include in your content. The alt text lets them know what the image displays, as well as how it relates to your content (if you wrote it properly, that is). 

You should include the web page’s target keyword in the alt text, as well as a brief description of what the image shows. 

Including an occasional image-based link can be good for your anchor text ratios; just remember to include alt text. 

Naked anchors (URLs)

As mentioned previously, a link is considered ‘naked’ when it uses the URL instead of anchor text.

A healthy, natural backlink profile needs to have some naked URLs included in the anchor text ratio, so don’t forget to use them. 

Exact match anchors 

Now we’re getting into anchors that use your target keywords. Exact match anchors one of your keywords as the anchor text (i.e., link-building). 

You’ll want to use a majority of your exact match anchors for your inner pages and blog content, as you’ll mainly stick with branded anchors for your homepage. 

Remember not to go too crazy with exact match anchors, as that’s what wrecked the rankings of countless websites whenever Penguin dropped way back in 2012. 

In fact, exact match anchors should comprise the smallest portion of your anchor text ratios, as they’re by far the riskiest for getting content flagged as spam. 

Partial match anchors

These anchors also use keywords, but only in combination with other words (i.e., our proven effective link-building strategies). 

Partial match anchors are a safer bet for using keywords, as they have additional words providing further context – which appears more natural and less a blatant attempt at including key phrases.

What are Ideal Anchor Text Ratios?

Now that you’re well-versed in the different types of anchor text, it’s time to learn how to form the perfect anchor text ratio for your website. 

There is no one-size-fits-all ratio that works for every web page, as you’ll want to use unique ratios for your homepage, blog content, and inner pages.

To determine these ideal ratios, we looked at the link profiles for thousands of #1-ranked results on Google. It took countless hours of research, but we uncovered undeniable similarities in the anchor text ratios for top-ranked results.

Here’s a look at our findings. 

Homepage anchor text ratio 

If you want your homepage to be as SEO-friendly as possible, here’s the anchor text ratio that you should strive for:

• 80% – 95% of your links should feature branded anchors, URLs, and natural anchor text. 
• Only 10% of your links should contain partial match anchors. 
• 5% or less of your homepage links should have exact match anchors. 

Branded anchors, naked URLs, and natural anchors should almost entirely dominate your homepage strategy. 

That’s the best way to boost your SEO profile and appear natural to Google’s crawlers. 

The proof?

Here’s a look at the anchor text ratio of Overstock.com’s homepage – one of the most notorious online retail companies. 

As you can see, their homepage’s anchor text ratio follows our recommendation of primarily using branded, natural, and URL anchors while ignoring anchors containing keywords (they even have 0% exact match anchors). 

Inner page anchor text ratio 

By inner pages, we mean your blog content, landing pages, and product pages. These pages are where you should use the most keywords in your anchors while still using discretion. 

Here’s the anchor text ratio we recommend for your inner pages:

• 35% – 45% of your links should contain branded, URL, or natural anchors. 
• 50% – 60% should contain partial match anchors. 
• No more than 10% of your links should include exact match anchors. 

Even on your inner pages, you should use exact match anchors sparingly, so stick with partial matches whenever possible. 

Closing Thoughts: Anchor Text Ratios 

If you want to reach the top of the Google SERPs, your backlink profile needs to contain the right anchor text ratios. 

The last thing you want is to see your rankings tank because you used too many exact match anchors, so ensure that you’re strategic when writing anchor text. 

The ratios found in this article come from thousands of hours of real-world research, and they’re based on link profiles that Google feels are natural and high value. 

Do you need help forming a link-building strategy (including anchor text ratios) for your business?

Then you need to check out our Link Outreach and Link Insertion Services from The HOTH. Our link-building experts will help you dominate the SERPs for your niche, so don’t wait to get in touch today.

The post Anchor Text Ratios: Why They Still Matter for SEO Strategies appeared first on The HOTH.

That’s why reps place so much emphasis on that first point of contact – like really knocking it out of the park with a riveting sales pitch or an engaging product demo. 

Yet, most prospects won’t immediately make a purchase, as they may need some time to weigh other options, gain approval from their team, or free up enough time to complete the sale. 

While this fact can discourage some, it’s crucial to stay persistent with your efforts – hence the need for sales follow-ups. 

According to data, 80% of sales require 5 follow-up calls, which may seem excessive at first. 

After all, many sales reps shy away from following up too much in fear of seeming too pushy. 

However, 5 follow-ups are par-the-course for most customers, as Marketing Donut points out with their research – 92% of reps give up after four ‘no’s,’ but 80% of prospects say ‘no’ four times before saying ‘yes.’ 

So don’t give up if a prospective customer doesn’t say yes straight away, as most will not. 

That doesn’t mean that you should go nuts and follow up with your prospects every single day, either. 

It takes tactfulness to determine when to follow up & which method to use (i.e., phone calls, text messages, follow-up emails, etc.) – so stay tuned to learn how. 

Why Should You Follow Up with Customers?

First, it’s important that we make a clear distinction. 

There’s a big difference between spamming uninterested prospects with messages and properly following up with qualified leads. 

The former will get you absolutely nowhere with your marketing strategy, while the latter will yield tons of new business. 

Many salespeople have an irrational fear that their follow-up messages will be seen as spam by their prospects, which is why they adopt such a skittish attitude towards it. 

They need to know that as long as you’re following up with a qualified lead that hasn’t outright declined interest in what you’re selling, follow-up messages are fair game.

While you still need to be tactful with how and when you send your follow-ups (i.e., don’t go crazy and call them every day), you can and should send as many follow-up messages as it takes to get a response. 

There are plenty of real-world examples where reps finally landed a sale after following up with prospects 40 – 100 times. 

As an example, James Altucher cold-emailed hedge fund billionaire Stevie Cohen for an entire year before finally receiving a response – a true testament to the power of persistence. 

The point is that you should never give up on a qualified lead that goes cold. If you continue to receive no response, keep trying to contact them every week until you do. Even if you get a definitive no, at least you saw it through until the end. 

According to the data gathered by Scripted, 44% of salespeople give up after only one follow-up call, which is leaving quite a few sales on the table, given the other stats that we know are true (such as 80% of sales requiring five follow-up calls). 

The Benefits of Customer Follow-Ups 

As long as you take the right approach, following up with your sales prospects will yield numerous benefits for your organization. 

Besides sending follow-ups to your most qualified leads, you should also follow up with your existing customers to ensure they’re satisfied with your products and services. 

That will ensure that your existing customers remain loyal and continue to choose your brand over the competition. 

Follow-up messages let your established customers know that you care, and they help boost conversions for your prospects. Here’s a closer look at the top benefits you’ll enjoy from improving your ability to follow up with customers. 

Following up shows you care 

Whether you’re pursuing a qualified lead or want to check in with one of your existing customers, follow-up calls and emails let your customers know that you care. 

That’s especially true when following up with your established customers. 

You’ve already made the sale, but you’re checking in to ensure their continued satisfaction with your products and services. 

Also, be open to customer feedback when checking in with existing customers. If you’re willing to listen to their suggestions for improvement, it shows that you care about catering to your customer’s needs – which can pay off in a big way. 

According to a survey by Acquia, 75% of American consumers are more likely to show loyalty to a brand that understands them on a personal level, which is why listening to feedback is crucial. 

Beyond that, the survey also found that once customers commit, they tend to remain loyal for life.  

Also, following up on leads shows that you care about landing the sale and that you’ll do whatever it takes to gain their business. 

82% of buyers will at least consider accepting meetings with sales reps that reach out to them for this very reason. Tenacity pays off and can even be flattering to customers, so don’t be shy about pursuing active leads with all your might to boost sales.

It improves your customer experience (CX)

While this benefit primarily applies to following up with your existing customer base, pursuing sales leads can also boost your CX. 

If you’re consistently following up with a lead in a way that’s tenacious yet tactful, it serves as a preview of what it’s like to be one of your company’s customers. In particular, your follow-ups can serve as a window into what your customer support will be like. 

So if you’re sending well-written follow-up messages in tandem with the prospects’ schedule (i.e., not calling them on a day when you know they’re busy) – it can reflect positively on your organization as a whole. 

That can actually help you land the sale – as stellar customer service is a top factor (56%) for building customer loyalty. 

Follow-up calls with existing customer relationships are even more important for your CX. That’s especially true if a customer has had a negative experience with your brand. 

The follow-up will give them a chance to vent about their experience, and you’ll get a chance to apologize, resolve the issue, and retain their business. 

Customers appreciate when brands care enough to reach out and resolve their issues. In fact, 59% of customers state that fast, consistent, and satisfactory answers to their queries is key to gaining their trust & loyalty. 

It gives you a chance to address any issues

You never know when a prospect or existing customer will run into issues with your products and services. 

It could be that they have an additional question regarding your product, or they could have run into a problem when trying to use your product. 

Either way, your follow-up calls and emails are the perfect opportunities for catching & resolving these issues before they can affect your reputation or cause you to lose a sale. 

It’s important to follow up with new customers (especially if they bought a new product) to see if everything is working out the way they wanted. To make your follow-up emails even more helpful, you can include a list of FAQs new customers tend to have about your products and services.

Following up also gives you a chance to address and resolve any issues your potential customers may have. 

For instance, let’s say you really impress a lead with a product demo, but you don’t hear back for a week. By following up to check in with the prospect, you uncover that they have additional concerns regarding pricing. 

They’d like to buy your product, but after convening with their higher-ups, it was determined that they lacked the funds to make it happen. 

Rather than losing the sale, you inform them of special offers that will knock down the price of your product (or of lower-tier subscription plans that won’t hit their wallet as hard). 

That’s a simple example of how following up can help you catch and address issues that would have cost you a sale otherwise. 

Following up reminds customers that you exist 

The average person today receives dozens of emails, phone calls, texts, and voicemails every single day. 

So if you send a qualified lead a follow-up email, the chances of them seeing it and actually spending the time to read it are quite slim. 

That’s why you shouldn’t get discouraged if your prospects don’t respond to your initial follow-up emails. 

In fact, it may take 10 or 20 emails before you actually get a response. 

Remember, keep following up with leads until they reply. If they tell you in no uncertain terms that they’re not interested, leave them alone and remove them from your follow-up list. However, if you’ve yet to receive a reply – it’s probably because the prospect is far too busy and hasn’t had the time to respond yet. 

Sending regular follow-up messages to your prospects will remind them that you exist, which is crucial to do in today’s oversaturated market. 

Don’t forget that while you’re sending emails in hopes of a response, your competitors likely are at the same time – so keep trying. 

The Best Ways to Follow Up with Customers 

Now that you know not to be shy about following up with qualified prospects, it’s time to learn the best methods for doing so. 

There’s a lot that goes into deciding how and when to follow up with a customer, not to mention which contact method to choose. 

Should you text, call, or email your existing and prospective customers?

Beyond that, you need to determine how often to reach out without overstepping your bounds or disappearing entirely. 

Checking in with prospects and customers is an art form, so let’s take a look at the best practices for customer follow-ups. 

Vary your contact methods 

There’s no one-size-fits-all contact method for getting in touch with customers, as everyone has different needs. 

For instance, if you only send follow-up emails to your prospects, you may run into customers that never check their email. As a result, every follow-up message you send shoots off into a black hole, never to be seen again.

However, if you do a little digging and discover that despite never checking their inbox, the client is very active on LinkedIn and other social media platforms – messaging them through there is the way to go. 

Conversely, sending an email may yield better results if you try calling a client but receive their voicemail every time. 

It’s important to utilize more than a few contact methods for each client until you receive a reply. 

The only exception to this rule is if the customer provides you with their preferred contact method. In that case, you should stick to it like glue – otherwise, you may wind up annoying the prospect. 

You should be mindful of your contact methods even when following up with your existing customers. 

If you’re trying to follow up with a new customer but aren’t receiving replies through text or email, you can try looking them up on social media or try calling their phone number. Going the extra mile to contact them can build trust and ensure total customer satisfaction. 

Write stand-out subject lines 

Your subject lines will make or break your follow-up emails. 

Since the average inbox contains hundreds of unread emails, if your subject line doesn’t immediately catch the eye, it’s likely that its next destination is the trash. 

Generic subject lines like “Just Checking In” should immediately be discarded for this reason. They’re far too easy to overlook, especially when they’re buried in a pile of emails with equally generic subject lines. 

Without a catchy subject line for your follow-up email, the odds of your customer seeing it are akin to finding a needle in a haystack. 

Want to know how to instantly boost your open rates with one simple trick?

Include the recipient’s name in the subject line. 

This small tactic has a powerful impact, as one study showed that personalizing email subject lines could boost open rates by 29% – and click-through rates by 41%. 

Besides personalization, other tips for writing stand-out subject lines include the following:

• Elicit a sense of urgency by including a timeframe (i.e., specific meeting dates, special offers about to expire, etc.)
• Ask direct questions to the recipient in the subject line (Is This Of Interest to You?)
• Mention the value included in the email (i.e., blog posts, videos, whitepapers, etc.)

Keep things short and sweet 

The last thing you want to do in a follow-up message is ramble on and overstay your welcome. 

You’re here to check in with a qualified lead or an existing customer, which means you need to get in, get to the point, and get out. 

Don’t waste a few paragraphs updating them on the state of your business, and get straight to the value you have to offer. After all, it’s a follow-up message, not a newsletter. 

Also, EVERY follow-up email needs to include a call-to-action (CTA) at the end. 

What’s that?

A call-to-action is a brief line of text that informs your customers what you want them to do next. Here’s an example of a CTA:

We’d love to offer you 30% off your first visit, so don’t wait to take advantage of this offer now. 

This sentence lets your prospects know you want them to take you up on your special offer. Also, you’d need to use the last few words of the sentence as anchor text for a hyperlink to one of your product pages. 

If you’re following up on the phone, you definitely need to be concise. People have busy schedules, and they won’t have long to chat with you, so you need to make that time count. 

To respect your customer’s time, it’s a good idea to let them know approximately how long the call will take at the beginning. A busy prospect will be less likely to rush you off the phone if they know the call is only going to take two minutes from the start. 

Don’t get too clingy but don’t disappear 

To follow up with customers like a pro, you need to master the balancing act of knowing when to follow up and when to leave your customers alone. 

Purchase decisions take time, and you can’t expect to make a sale overnight. 

That’s why you shouldn’t send too many follow-up messages at once.

In general, following up once a week is enough to suffice. It hits the perfect sweet spot between staying in touch and not getting too clingy. 

Of course, you also need to consider the specific needs of your clients. 

If you know that a prospect is taking a two-week vacation, following up with them during that time isn’t a smart idea. 

Sometimes potential customers will let you know the best times to contact them, which you should adhere to without fault. Sending a follow-up message at an unexpected or unwanted time can seriously backfire, so be mindful when deciding when to send your messages. 

Wrapping Up: How to Follow Up With Customers 

Are you being persistent enough with your customer follow-ups?

If not, it’s never too late to start being more tenacious when pursuing your qualified leads. 

You never know when you’ll receive a reply giving you the go-ahead for another meeting or to make a purchase. 

People are extremely busy today, so don’t be shy about following up numerous times using various methods until you receive a reply. 

Do you need help formulating your company’s winning digital marketing strategy, including effective customer follow-ups?

Get in touch with us to learn more about HOTH Performance, our premiere CRM tool.

Our marketing experts can also provide managed SEO services to take your online visibility to the next level, so don’t wait to check us out.        

The post How to Follow Up with Customers: Being Proactive & Tactful appeared first on The HOTH.

Then you need to implement an eCommerce SEO strategy to make that dream a reality. Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to tweaking your on-page and off-page content to cater to search engine algorithms. 

When done correctly, you can secure a top-ranking spot on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. 

Ideally, you want to penetrate the top 5 results to increase your online visibility and generate the most organic traffic. 

Why does this matter for eCommerce sites?

It does because 43% of all eCommerce traffic comes from organic Google search results. Not only that, but 23.6% of eCommerce orders come from organic visitors from search engines. 

With a top-ranking spot on Google and landing pages designed to convert, you’ll enjoy loads of new potential customers and sales, which is why eCommerce SEO is well worth the effort. 

Yet, there’s quite a bit to know if you want your eCommerce website to reach the top of the SERPs. Quite a bit goes into developing an SEO strategy, and there’s no shortage of fierce competition out there. 

Luckily, our extensive guide is here to teach you everything you need to know. Stick around to discover how to build a winning eCommerce SEO campaign. 

What Makes eCommerce SEO Unique?

There’s a reason why eCommerce SEO has its own specialized category – and that’s because there are many factors that make it different from traditional SEO. 

Everything from the keyword research you’ll conduct to the backlinks you’ll go after will have an eCommerce twist to them. 

For instance, instead of searching for informational keywords to rank for, you’ll want to target product searches and transactional searches (i.e., ‘coffee filters’ is a product search, and ‘buy coffee filters’ is a transactional search). 

Not only that, but there are many on-page SEO tweaks you’ll need to make to your online store that are unique to eCommerce. 

Your internal site structure, category pages, internal link structure, and user experience are all factors you’ll need to tweak to find success with eCommerce SEO. 

eCommerce SERPs

There’s also a difference in the types of searches your potential customers will make. 

Most of the time, the organic search results will appear at the top for informational keyword searches. Occasionally, there may be a featured snippet or knowledge bar on the side, but that’s about it. 

As a quick example, if we search for ‘encyclopedia’ on Google, a snippet appears defining the term, and then it goes straight to the organic results. 

Product searches are very different, as their SERPs tend to be more populated with shopping features. 

For instance, when we type ‘buy coffee filters’ into Google, the top of the page (called position zero) is occupied with a SERP feature called shopping results. 

It’s a carousel of coffee filters for sale from websites like Amazon and Target. Each item features a picture and a price, which is convenient for shoppers. 

Below the shopping results, another SERP feature pops up before we reach the organic results. 

This one is called the local pack, and it features a Google Map showing all the local stores where you can buy coffee filters. Beneath that, we finally reach the organic search results. 

As you can see, searchers have quite a bit to scroll through before they reach the organic listings. That’s why it’s even more crucial to rank in a top spot for eCommerce SEO to ensure you get the most visibility. 

Keyword Research for eCommerce Websites 

Every type of SEO strategy starts with keyword research, and eCommerce SEO is no exception.

Why is that?

It’s because your keyword research serves as the foundation for all your SEO tactics. 

Without a list of keywords that your target audience regularly searches for, you won’t be able to do the following:

• Create content. You’ll need to use your keywords in your blogs, videos, infographics, and any other type of content you plan on releasing. 
• Make on-page SEO tweaks. To rank on search engines, your keywords need to appear in your content and your title tags, meta descriptions, product pages, product descriptions, and more. 
• Make technical SEO tweaks. Even your technical SEO requires target keywords, as you’ll need to use them in your URLs and site architecture. 
• Off-page SEO. You also need to have a list of relevant keywords when listing your sites in directories and making social media posts. 

These are all reasons why your eCommerce SEO strategy MUST begin with keyword research. 

Not only that, but all your SEO efforts will live or die by the quality of your keywords. 

If you choose irrelevant keywords, your content could wind up in front of the wrong audience, which won’t lead to much traffic generation – and what little traffic you do get won’t be interested in your products. 

eCommerce-friendly keywords 

Beyond that, you need to target the right types of keywords to bring in potential customers looking to make a purchase. 

If you focus on informational keywords, such as ‘how-to’ phrases, you’ll attract the wrong type of user. For the most part, your goal with eCommerce SEO is to attract customers that are ready to buy instead of educating your audience. 

That’s not to say that informational keywords don’t have their place in eCommerce. For instance, if you’re selling expensive products that tend to have longer sales cycles, you’ll want to target informational keywords to educate your audience before convincing them that they need your products. 

A majority of the time, though, you should target product keywords and transactional keywords. 

As a result, your keyword research efforts should center around product-focused keywords that your target audience searches for regularly. 

How do you find those types of keywords?

There are quite a few ways, so let’s take a look at each one. 

Using Amazon and Google Suggest 

A fantastic way to uncover relevant keywords is to use the suggestion feature of both Google and Amazon. 

Whenever you start to type words into Amazon or Google, a list of suggested keywords will pop up. The good news is that these are targeted keywords that users search for on a regular basis, so you can use them for your SEO tactics. 

While Amazon is technically your competitor, as the largest eCommerce platform in the world, they’re a goldmine for product keywords. That means you can use their massive investment into SEO for your benefit. 

Here’s how to use Amazon’s suggested feature to uncover relevant keywords for your audience. 

Simply go to Amazon.com, and start to enter keywords that describe your products. After entering a few letters, Amazon will spit out a list of relevant, targeted long-tail keywords that you can use. 

Why does that matter?

It does because long-tail keywords have a habit of converting better than short-tail keywords, and they also have much less competition. 

You can use this strategy for every product on your website, so don’t be shy about putting Amazon’s suggestion feature to use. 

You can also repeat the same technique on Google search, as it also has an auto-complete suggestion feature containing valuable keywords. 

Google is unique in that it lists keyword suggestions in two locations. 

Besides the autocomplete feature in the search bar, Google also lists related keywords at the bottom of the page in a section called Related Searches. The long-tail keywords that you’ll find here are equally as valuable as the ones generated by the search bar, so you can use them, too. 

The Keyword Tool Dominator for Amazon 

Besides autocomplete, you can use the Keyword Tool Dominator to uncover product keywords from Amazon. 

All you have to do is enter a keyword into it, and it will generate an extensive list of relevant long-tail keywords related to your products. 

Why use this tool over autocomplete?

You should use them both in tandem to see the best results. In general, though, the Keyword Tool Dominator will provide more keyword ideas than the autocomplete feature. For instance, the average autocomplete list consists of around 8 keyword ideas, while the Keyword Tool Dominator can generate up to 100 at a time. 

As such, this tool will make extensive keyword research go a lot quicker. 

The autocomplete feature can work if you only need to find a few keywords. Yet, if you’re searching for 100s of keywords for all your products, using the Keyword Tool Dominator will drastically speed up the process. 

The tool also gives you some unique options for filtering your results, including the following:

• The ability to add phrases that the keyword must contain or not contain 
• Minimum and maximum word count 
• Minimum and maximum rank 
• A toggle for if the keyword ranks in the Top 10 or not 
• Whether the keyword is a precise match, normal match, or broad match 
• The country and marketplace 
• The Amazon department 

As you can see, you can get incredibly specific with what type of keywords you want to see, which is why this keyword research tool is so valuable. 

Amazon’s category pages 

Another page you should take out of Amazon’s book is how they format their product categories. 

This is an area that many SEOs overlook due to the belief that category pages don’t convert as well as product pages. While that is generally true, they still generate sales, so you shouldn’t ignore them. 

The fact is that most eCommerce websites use random keywords to optimize their category pages. The thinking is that as long as they have keywords in the content, it won’t matter what they are. 

This isn’t true, and many eCommerce sites end up costing themselves sales as a result. 

That’s why you should conduct in-depth keyword research for your category pages to give them a logical structure. Your customers will appreciate organized categories with appropriate keywords, as it will make browsing your eCommerce site far easier. 

Search engine algorithms will also rank you higher if your category pages contain the right keywords, so it’s worth putting in the time to do the research.

What’s the best way to find keywords for your category pages?

Once again, you should turn to Amazon. They have a fantastic structure for their product categories, and you can use their keywords for inspiration. 

Finding category page keywords 

Start by selecting ‘All’ to see every category on the website. While that’s probably far too broad, the subcategories are where this tactic starts to shine. 

There are dozens of subcategories on Amazon, so you can get as specific as possible with your niche. 

Another technique is to click on the ‘Full Store Directory’ under ‘All’ to see a complete list of all Amazon’s departments and subcategories on one page. 

Let’s consider an example where you sell gardening tools. Start by clicking on the Home, Garden & Tools departments to find category keywords. That will take you to a list of subcategories, including Garden & Outdoor. Once you click on that, you’ll see a list of more subcategories, including Gardening Tools. 

Bingo! Once you click on it, you’ll see a list of category keywords for their gardening tools in the sidebar, which includes the following:

• Gardening axes 
• Bonsai tools 
• Bulb planters 
• Hand edgers 
• Cultivators & tillers 

These are all excellent product category keywords that you can use on your eCommerce site, so feel free to use them. Besides Amazon, there are plenty of other eCommerce businesses you can use to uncover category keywords – including your direct competitors. 

As an example, if you sell garden tools and want to find more category keywords than the ones you found on Amazon, you can turn to websites like Home Depot and Lowe’s, which have plenty of category keywords for gardening tools that you can use. 

Using a keyword planner tool 

Another way to find suitable keywords for your niche is to use our free Google keyword planner tool. 

What’s that?

It’s an SEO tool that not only helps you find keywords but also provides essential metrics for them, such as search volume and keyword difficulty. 

In fact, you can use this tool to vet all the keywords that you find using other methods like Google and Amazon suggest.

Here’s an example of how it works. 

Going with the gardening tools example, you find the long-tail keyword ‘garden axe’ from Amazon’s Gardening Tools category page. 

From there, you input the keyword into the planner tool, complete the CAPTCHA, and then view the results. Besides the keyword garden axe, the tool will also generate a list of related keywords that you can use. 

In this case, it provided us with 49 other results in addition to the original query. 

You’ll get to view the following metrics for each keyword:

Search volume

This number refers to how many people are actively searching for the keyword. For the keyword garden axe, it has a search volume of 140, which is decent. 

In general, you should use keywords that have a search volume of 100 – 1,000 searches per month for the effort to be worth your while. 

CPC (cost-per-click)

This metric is for PPC (pay-per-click) ad campaigns, as it lets you know the cost-per-click of the keyword on Google Ads. Garden axe has a relatively low CPC at $0.39. 

What’s a good CPC?

It will depend on the types of ads you run and how much traffic you generate as a result. The golden rule tends to be a 5:1 ratio of profit to ad cost. 

In other words, you’ll want to make 5 times more in revenue than it costs to create the ad. 

So in the case of a CPC of $0.39, if you can make $1.95 off each click, then you’re in the green. 

Competition

This is another PPC metric that refers to how competitive the ad placement is for the keyword online. Garden axe has a competition score of 1, which isn’t too bad. 

In fact, its low competition is reflected in its meager CPC. 

That’s because keywords with high competition cost more per bid due to the increased demand. As a result, high-competition keywords will have higher CPCs, and they’ll also be more difficult to rank in a top position. 

To stay on the safe side, do your best to find keywords that have decent search volume but not much in the way of competition. 

Results

This displays how many results show up for the keyword on Google. Garden axe has 35,400,000, which is a ton. 

That means there are thousands upon thousands of web pages containing the keyword garden axe. 

We can also assume that a great deal of those web pages are selling garden axes and gardening tools, making them your competitors. 

The good news?

Despite the vast number of results, the keyword difficulty is still relatively low. That means you won’t have that hard of a time ranking in a top spot if you’re thorough enough with your optimization. 

Difficulty

Also referred to as a KD (keyword difficulty) score, this metric refers to how difficult it will be to rank in one of the top spots due to the number of competitors. 

If this number is too high, it’s best to try another keyword. 

That’s because it’s a sign that many other websites are using high-level SEO tactics to rank for the keyword. It could also mean that the top spot is occupied by an enterprise-level website that has hundreds of thousands of high-authority backlinks (think sites like Facebook, Amazon, and Wikipedia). 

That’s why it’s best to stick to keywords that have lower difficulty scores to A) make your life easier and B) increase your chances of securing a top spot on the SERPs. 

Garden axe has a modest score of 19, so we can still go for it. (For reference, anything above 70 is considered high). 

Search trend

Our keyword planner provides a line graph representing the interest in the keyword over time. 

If it’s trending up, then the keyword is gaining in popularity and will likely generate a ton of traffic. If it’s trending down, then the keyword is losing momentum. 

It’s essentially a pocket view of Google Trends, another free tool you can use to bolster your digital marketing strategy (along with Google Search Console and Google Analytics). 

Garden axe peaked in popularity a while ago, but the trend is rising again, which is a good sign. 

Most keywords rise and fall in popularity over time, which is why being able to see a line graph of their trends is so valuable. 

For instance, you could wind up with a dud without checking a keyword’s trend. Let’s say you find a stellar keyword relevant to your audience with a sky-high search volume and a very low difficulty score. 

Time to double down and create tons of content for it, right?

Well, not yet. 

By taking a quick look at its trend graph, you notice that it peaked in popularity a few weeks ago and is currently on a nosedive. 

That means that the high search volume that you planned on generating a ton of traffic is about to disappear. What’s even worse is that you’re about to spend a ton of resources creating content for a keyword that’s about to become irrelevant. 

That’s why checking the trend for a keyword is so crucial, so make sure you do so for every keyword on your website. 

Using Wikipedia to find keywords 

Lastly, Wikipedia is another fantastic resource for finding keywords. 

Why is that?

Much like Google and Amazon, Wikipedia is impeccably organized with keywords and categories, all of which are SEO-friendly. 

That means you can take advantage of their massive keyword database for your benefit. 

Of course, you should run any keywords you find through our keyword planner to ensure that they have a desirable search volume, low difficulty score, and an upward search trend. 

As a bonus, finding keywords related to your niche on Wikipedia is very easy. 

All you have to do is enter a keyword that describes your products. To keep things simple, we’ll stick with the gardening tools example. 

By entering gardening tools into Wikipedia, we’re directed to a web page discussing hand tools and power tools, complete with a ton of relevant keywords, including the following:

• Hatchet 
• Trenchers
• Axe
• Sickle 
• Sythe 
• Pitchfork 
• Trenchers 
• Leaf Blowers 
• Chainsaws 

Beyond that, each one of these keywords links to another web page that can provide more ideas for you. 

Using Wikipedia, Google, Amazon, and our keyword planner tool in tandem is a reliable and effective way to uncover eCommerce keywords. 

eCommerce Site Architecture 

By now, you should have an extensive list of keywords to use in your eCommerce SEO strategy. 

You now have what you need to flesh out the rest of your SEO campaign, including your site structure. 

What’s that?

Your website’s structure/architecture refers to how all your web pages connect and relate to one another. A logical site structure is a critical ranking factor for any SEO strategy, but it’s doubly important for eCommerce. 

That’s because your eCommerce site is bound to have many more pages than your average website due to the products you sell. 

It’s common for an eCommerce website to have hundreds or even thousands of pages, depending on how many products they sell. For instance, Amazon has millions of landing pages for its products, which is why an airtight site architecture is a must for them to operate. 

You’ll want to create a layout that makes it effortless for your customers to find what they’re looking for on your website. 

That’s another reason why well-thought-out category pages (and keywords) are so crucial for eCommerce SEO. 

How to implement a logical site structure 

The SEO best practice for site architecture is to keep every web page within three clicks or less from your homepage. 

You can think of your homepage as the central hub for all your product and landing pages. That’s because the further you navigate away from your homepage, the more your authority begins to deteriorate. 

What’s authority?

In a nutshell, ‘authority’ in search engine terms refers to how much Google trusts and values your content. You obtain authority through backlinks, which is a link on an external site that ‘points back’ to your website. 

An example would be a link on a guest blog post that directs to your eCommerce website. The more trustworthy sites that you have linking to your website, the more Google will trust you and view you as authoritative. 

It’s similar to citing sources and references at the end of a research paper. 

The catch is that most of your backlinks will point to your homepage. As a result, your homepage will contain the most authority out of any other page on your website. Therefore, the further you drift from your homepage, the more your authority will deteriorate. 

That’s why you don’t want any page to be more than 4 pages away from your homepage to retain its authority. From page 5 and beyond, your authority will begin to wane, so be wary. 

It’s also essential that your old pages redirect to new pages for your content to stay fresh and rankable on search engines. 

Avoid orphan pages 

A notorious no-no for any type of SEO is to have orphan pages on your website. 

An orphan page is one that has no internal links pointing to it, thus making it nearly impossible for someone to visit. 

Search engines like Google use your internal linking structure as a guide for understanding your website, and orphan pages throw off their algorithms. Beyond that, an orphan page stands next to no chance of ranking if it does get crawled and indexed. 

That’s because links are an integral part of SEO, as they convey authority, relevance, and quality to a web page. Without them, your orphan page will have extremely low domain authority, so it likely won’t show up on page one of Google (if it shows up in the results at all). 

When designing your site architecture, ensure that every page has at least one internal link pointing to it (preferably more than that). Also, if possible, each page should include one or more relevant and authoritative external links somewhere in its content. 

How can you find out if you have any existing orphan pages?

All you need is a website crawler like Screaming Frog and a complete list of your site’s web pages. Run a crawl for all pages that have zero inbound links, and analyze the results of the audit. 

That will quickly point out any orphan pages you may have, and resolving them is as simple as adding an internal link to them on your homepage. 

Two problems facing eCommerce site structure: thin content and duplicate content

eCommerce SEO strategies tend to hit two snags, pages that have what Google considers thin content and pages that are considered duplicate content. 

The primary issue is that both problems come with the territory of an eCommerce website. Since you likely sell products that come in different sizes and colors, you’ll likely have many product pages where the only changes are the colors and sizes – with no change to the copy, price, or even the product name in some cases. 

As far as thin content goes, simpler products are likely to have brief descriptions, which can lead Google to flag the page as having thin content. 

Google generally considers any page with less than 300 words to be thin content. Their thinking is that for a web page to add value; it needs to provide more information than 300 words. 

That’s why most blog posts have a lengthier word count of about 1,000 – 2,500 words. 

For an eCommerce site, some product filter pages and product attribute pages may only list a few items. Also, it’ll be tough to include lengthier product descriptions for simple products (think paper clips), which can be challenging for eCommerce store owners. 

Fixing the problems 

Here’s how you can fix both issues. 

Adding blog content to your eCommerce store is a great remedy for the thin content issue. By simply including links to your blog posts on each page (complete with a few lines from each post as a preview), you can drastically bump up the word count to avoid thin content. 

You can also add more detail to your product descriptions (if possible), as well as add:

• Product specifications 
• Pricing information 
• Customer reviews 
• Related items that people also search for 

These are all candid ways to not only add to the word count of each page but also to make enhancements to your store. 

Adding specs can provide helpful information for users looking for precise sizes (such as nails and screws). Customer reviews can help convince prospects to part with their hard-earned dollars, and a related items carousel can improve your average ticket size. 

Next, there’s solving the duplicate content issue. 

For product pages that only serve to show different attributes, such as color and size, you can use canonical tags to designate one ‘master’ version of each product that shows up on search engines. 

For instance, if you offer a shoe in seven different colors, including every single page on the SERPs will lead to duplicate content. Therefore, you mark the base shoe (probably in black) with a canonical tag. That will tell Google that this is the version that you want to appear in the search engine results pages. 

For the other six colors, you mark them with a noindex tag, which will cause Google to ignore them. 

Technical SEO for Ecommerce Sites 

Now let’s get into the technical tweaks you need to make to optimize your site for search engines. 

Technical factors that affect SEO include:

• Broken links 
• 404 Not Found pages 
• No XML sitemap 
• Improper indexing
• Slow page speed 
• Not optimized for mobile devices
• Not enough schema markup 

Site speed is among the most important technical SEO factors, as nothing will encourage a user to leave your site more than poor loading times. 

Google also puts every website through its Core Web Vitals test to check its loading speed. If your site fails the test, Google won’t rank you in a top spot. To speed things up, you can reduce CSS/Javascript, compress your images and videos, and switch web hosting services. 

To discover if you have any technical issues, you can use our free in-depth SEO audit tool. 

Content Marketing for eCommerce SEO 

Since you have a list of keywords, a well-structured site, and have made technical tweaks, it’s time to start releasing content to rise through the ranks on Google and other search engines. 

Blogging is one of the most popular content types for SEO for a few reasons. 

First, blog posts are excellent ways to use the keywords you found in your research. Besides using them in your headings, copy, and conclusion – you can base entire posts around keyword topics. Search engines will pick up on this, and they’ll start to rank your content higher for your target keywords. 

Next, blogs can drive lots of traffic to your site from users that are interested in your products, which is great for your conversion rates and click-through rates. 

Also, companies who blog get 97% more links, so blogging is excellent for link-building as well. 

Pro blogging tips 

If you want to find success with your blogs, you’ll need to know a few best practices. 

43% of users admit to skimming blog posts before reading them, so you’ll want to make your blog posts scannable. 

How do you do that?

You do it by making appropriate use of headings. There are different-sized headers, and both readers and search engines pay attention to them. 

The H1 heading is your main title, and it should be succinct and on topic. From there, H2 headings comprise each subtopic, and H3, H4, and so on further embellish each point. 

When formatted correctly, it will be effortless for users to scan your article and get an idea of what it’s about. At the same time, crawlers will use your headings to do the same thing, so using them appropriately is crucial. 

Also, you should make your blogs as readable as possible. 

That means using short sentences and brief paragraphs that don’t contain more than three sentences consecutively. 

Finding content topics 

Your list of keywords is a goldmine for creating high-quality content. For instance, going with the garden axe example from before, you could create a blog post, video, or infographic called 10 Ways to Use a Garden Axe. 

Now your prospects can learn exciting new ways to use one of your products, which is what you want. 

Another great way to develop content topics is to uncover problems plaguing your target audience and offer your products as a solution. 

An example would be framing unwanted weeds in your garden as a pain point, and your garden axe as the ultimate solution. 

eCommerce Link Building 

As stated before, Google gives the most credence to websites that have trustworthy backlinks pointing to them. 

The thinking is if a credible website chooses to link to your website, you must be credible as a result. 

That’s why link-building is a core aspect of any SEO strategy. The more authoritative backlinks you can acquire, the higher you’ll rank on Google. 

Here’s a look at some of the most common link-building strategies that you can start using today. 

Guest blogging 

Guest posting is one of the most common ways to acquire backlinks, and it’s a win-win for both parties. 

First, you find a related blog in your niche and reach out to them about doing a guest post. To sweeten the pot, you can offer them a guest post (and a backlink) on your blog in return. You can run a competitor keyword analysis on Ahrefs to find a list of other blogs in your niche. 

HARO 

The website Help-A-Reporter-Out (HARO) is an excellent resource for backlinks. The website sends out emails a few times a day containing tons of queries from reporters. They’re looking for experts to interview for stories they’re writing online, which is amazing for building backlinks. 

Responding to the query usually means providing your expertise on a subject for a quote they’ll use in their story. Whenever you respond, don’t forget to ask for a backlink in exchange for your quote. 

Broken links 

Another effective link-building tactic is to scour the web for broken links on pages you can replace. 

For example, if you find a broken link for a blog on gardening axes, you could replace it with your post 10 Ways to Use a Garden Axe. Reach out to the website owner and let them know you have a replacement for their broken link. 

This benefits both the website owner and you, as you fix a broken link while acquiring a valuable backlink. 

How do you find broken links?

You can easily find them by using a tool like Dead Link Checker. 

Concluding Thoughts: eCommerce SEO 

eCommerce SEO certainly has unique challenges, but that doesn’t mean it’s not doable. 

A robust eCommerce SEO strategy can propel you to the top of the search rankings even if you only run a small Shopify store. 

That’s why it’s worth following this guide to implement an SEO campaign for your eCommerce store. 

Are you seeking expert help for your eCommerce SEO strategy?

Then you need to check out our in-depth eCommerce digital marketing services at The HOTH, which includes HOTH X, our fully managed SEO services.      

The post eCommerce SEO: How to be a Big Fish in a Huge Pond appeared first on The HOTH.

Setting up a digital marketing agency that sells SEO services takes a ton of time, effort, and money.

Yet, once your agency is up and running, you face the additional challenge of building a robust client base – which means you need to have an airtight system for lead generation. 

There’s a significant reason why the salesmen of the famous movie/play Glengarry Glen Ross place so much stock on obtaining high-quality leads. 

Why is that?

It’s because, without qualified leads, it’s next to impossible for companies to achieve consistent, sustainable growth. 

For the salespeople in the movie, the premium leads are like golden tickets for snagging potential top-tier clients – which means big-time commissions for them and the chance at winning a new car. 

For SEO agencies, qualified leads are just as crucial, albeit for the growth of your company & client base, instead of scoring a brand-new Cadillac Eldorado. 

In fact, 95% of marketers claim that lead generation is their #1 goal, with 53% allocating half of their marketing budget to it. 

However, to find new leads on a consistent basis, you’ll need a lead generation strategy, which is what we’re going to provide you with today.

Learning how to generate qualified leads & potential customers that transform into new clients is an art every SEO agency needs to learn how to master if they want to find continued success in the future – so read on to learn how. 

What are SEO Leads?

An SEO lead is an individual or a business that’s shown interest in your SEO services. It may be that they need help building backlinks, making technical SEO adjustments, or they might need a fully managed SEO campaign. 

Their needs will vary, as the SEO industry is vast. 

Inside the umbrella term search engine optimization, there are many different specialties, including:

• Law firm SEO 
• eCommerce SEO 
• B2B SEO 
• CBD SEO 
• B2C SEO 
• Retail SEO
• Real estate SEO
• Healthcare SEO 

And the list goes on and on. For every type of industry or business, there’s an SEO specialty that goes along with it. 

Due to how inclusive the term SEO is, it can be challenging to source the right kind of leads for the services you provide. 

That’s why there’s great benefit in getting highly specific with the types of SEO services you provide. 

Many new SEO agencies make the mistake of going too broad with their approach. They go for the jack-of-all-trades method, where they try to provide every SEO service under the sun for every type of business. 

Keyword research, link-building, on-page & off-page SEO, they offer it all to anyone interested in doing business with them. 

The results?

They wind up not finding very many clients at all due to how all-encompassing & vague their services are. 

That leads us to the first rule of thumb with SEO leads; the more specific you can get with your services, the better. That’s because the more well-defined your services are, the easier it will be to find clients in need of what you provide. 

Selecting a Niche Focus for Your SEO Services

The first step in learning how to generate SEO leads consistently is to give your agency a concise focus for your services. 

It’s crucial to cater to your talents here, so think about what you do best. 

Does your team always knock it out of the park when acquiring backlinks for clients? Then you should consider making that your primary focus. 

If keyword research is your forte, you can make a considerable living selling that service to agencies & companies. 

Or maybe content marketing is what earns you the most accolades. No matter the service, it’s imperative to pinpoint your strongest areas and then focus on them the most. 

The point is to make what you provide as specific as possible, as that will make generating leads easier down the line. 

Besides identifying the services you excel at, you should also choose a niche for your SEO agency. 

The idea is to carve out a corner of the SEO market for yourself, where you can clearly define what it is you do and why you outshine the competition. 

As stated above, there’s a version of SEO for just about every type of business out there, so you should choose one to focus on. 

Instead of being the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none SEO agency, you can become the healthcare SEO agency specializing in premium keyword research & link-building. 

See the difference?

The second agency has a far clearer idea of what they do, and they seem more convincing and experienced as a result. 

How Do You Find SEO Leads?

Now that you know why it’s essential to have a niche focus, how do you start generating SEO leads?

There are many methods for acquiring leads, including using lead generation tools, referrals, Google ads, and inbound & outbound marketing techniques. 

Yet, finding SEO leads is only half the battle. 

Once you have an extensive list of qualified leads, then the challenge becomes contacting them, convincing them to use your services, and then signing a contract. 

For now, let’s focus on the top ways to find SEO leads so you can work on building a list of prospects. 

Inbound & Outbound Marketing Tactics for SEO Lead Generation 

When it comes to marketing strategies, there are two primary types of techniques – inbound and outbound. 

What are those?

Inbound marketing refers to tactics that bring your customers to you instead of seeking them out. Examples include helpful blog posts and videos that solve user pain points and answer common questions. 

Users will directly seek out this type of content to educate themselves or solve a problem, which is why they’re so effective. With a concise CTA (call to action) at the end of the piece of content, you can convince readers to become customers. 

You can also use inbound content to generate leads via acquiring email addresses. You can use a lead magnet, which is a free piece of content you give users in exchange for their contact information. 

Lead magnets can be PDFs, videos, eBooks, and other types of content. The only rule of thumb is they have to provide significant value to your audience. 

Outbound marketing refers to your efforts to bring your brand to customers, which means using things like PPC ads, YouTube ads, and manual outreach via social media. 

While outbound techniques can sometimes be viewed as obstructive by users, they can be just as effective at generating leads and sales as inbound content. Outbound techniques are also best for discovering new leads outside of your current base of SEO clients. 

It’s best to use a combination of inbound & outbound techniques to uncover the most SEO leads. 

Inbound: listing your website in digital agency directories

We’ll start with the inbound technique of listing your website in essential SEO directories. 

What are those?

A digital agency directory is a website containing a list of marketing agencies with varying specialties. 

These directories are perfect for generating SEO leads because they attract individuals, businesses, and web admins that are actively looking for marketing partners & agencies. 

Here are a few examples of digital agency directories:

• HubSpot 
• Marketo 
• Digital Agency Network 
• Clutch 
• Google Partners 

Some of these examples, such as Google Partners, are completely free for any agency wanting to get listed on the directory. 

Other options, like Marketo, require you to be an existing member of their platform to get listed in their directories.

In addition to digital marketing agency directories, you can also list your SEO agency on traditional directories like Yelp, Craigslist, and Yellow Pages to further expand your reach and online visibility. 

These directories are ‘catch-all’ options that provide listings for many different types of businesses, but they still get millions of hits each day, so listing your agency can be worth your while. 

Outbound: finding websites in desperate need of your SEO services 

Switching to outbound tactics for a moment, there’s no reason why you can’t actively seek out web pages that desperately need your services. 

For instance, if your SEO business involves doing stellar keyword research for healthcare agencies, you could look for physician’s websites struggling to rank on page one of the SERPs due to their poor use of keywords. 

How do you find these types of websites?

The easiest way is to do what nobody ever thinks to do – venture beyond the first page of Google results. 

Dive deep into the SERPs, going to page 10 or so, which is an SEO dead zone. Any healthcare website ranking on this page is definitely in need of your help, so don’t hesitate to reach out. 

Once you’ve found a few promising leads, do some outreach and get in touch with the web admins. Let them know about a few ways to improve their website to prove you know you’re stuff and to intrigue them to learn more. 

How to handle the outreach

Here’s an example of an outreach email you could send to a web admin in need of your outstanding keyword research:

Dear Prospect,

I noticed your website during my research and noticed that despite your excellent design, talented staff, and top-notch services, you’re ranking on page 10 of Google. 

My SEO agency specializes in keyword research, where we target specific search queries and optimize our client’s content for them to rank higher. We’ve identified many keywords that we could target and increase your rankings by a significant margin (think page one of Google, generating tons of organic traffic, leads, and sales). 

If you’re interested in what we do, please don’t hesitate to get in touch for a call. 

Thanks, 

SEO expert 

Just like that, you’ve made a convincing case for the prospect to at least hear you out on your offer. To increase your chances of landing a client even further, you can link to your case studies and testimonials to provide proof of your effectiveness. 

Inbound: creating high-quality content to attract prospects to your website

A classic inbound technique is to create useful content (blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc.) to attract lots of website visitors that are interested in what you do. 

This will help you generate qualified leads for your services. 

The best part?

While many outbound techniques are unsustainable in the long run (such as spending money and resources on PPC ads), content marketing will continuously generate leads for you. 

Once you publish a blog, video, or infographic, it will remain there indefinitely, continuing to attract leads for you well into the future without requiring further investment. 

Something as simple as a well-written blog article can generate leads for you for months and years down the line. 

Yet, for your content to have the desired impact, it needs to be relevant and valuable to your target audience. Otherwise, you’ll just be wasting time and resources creating content. 

That means you’ll need to do some research to uncover which types of content your audience values the most. Beyond that, you’ll need to learn their pain points, problems, wants, desires, and needs. 

To do so, take to relevant social media groups and forums related to your niche audience, and listen to what they have to say. You can also use keyword research tools (like our free keyword planner from The HOTH) to see which keywords are trending and gaining the most traction – as they can give you content ideas. 

For example, if you notice lots of users searching for the keyword ‘back pain remedies,’ you can write a blog post about the most effective ways to relieve back pain. 

Content marketing ideas for generating SEO leads 

There are many different types of content you can use to generate leads and even boost your sales. 

Blogs are extremely popular for content marketing and SEO, primarily due to how easy they are to produce and how effective they can be at generating traffic, leads, and sales. You can choose to write blogs yourself, or you can seek the help of freelancers to knock out the writing for you. 

If you want your blog posts to actively generate leads for you, it’s crucial to include CTAs and lead magnets in them. 

Videos are another prevalent form of content that can generate leads for you, but they’re a bit more time-consuming and expensive to produce than blogs. 

Yet, video content is the way of the future, as video content is expected to account for 82.5% of all web traffic, which will make it the #1 type of content online. So if you aren’t already producing video content, now is the time to start. 

If your budget is limited, you can produce inexpensive, high-quality videos by shooting on a smartphone and using basic video editing software. To generate SEO leads with your videos, go over the top reasons why you provide the best SEO services in your niche. 

You can also create videos featuring powerful customer testimonials and case studies to encourage your prospects to give you a call or, at the very least, leave their contact information. 

Podcasts and webinars are other types of content that are effective at generating leads. For podcasts, do your best to interview lots of relevant guests from the digital marketing and SEO industry. For webinars, let your attendees know how your SEO services can transform their business for the better. 

Inbound: using word of mouth and referrals 

Referrals are one of the most powerful ways to acquire SEO leads and qualified new customers. 

Why is that?

It’s because these leads come from your existing customer base, who can prove to your prospects that you do amazing work that provides real results. 

Nothing holds as much merit as a word-of-mouth referral from a close friend or colleague, which is why you should definitely pay attention to referrals. 

In fact, referrals are so powerful that there are entire businesses (including SEO companies) that thrive off referrals and word-of-mouth hype as their primary marketing strategies. 

How do you get your clients to refer others to you?

The best and most reliable way to do so is to simply provide excellent services for your clients. That alone is enough to get your clients singing your praises to their friends, family, and coworkers.

From there, you can also let your clients know that you’re looking for referrals and that you’d appreciate any they can provide. 

To sweeten the pot for your clients, you can offer discounts or special rewards for referrals. You can see this tactic at work with all sorts of companies, such as getting $50 for referring others to your internet provider. 

Your clients have the incentive of the reward you provide for the referral, and you benefit by gaining a new, qualified client. 

Outbound: outreach using social media marketing 

Social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn are goldmines for lead generation if you know where to look. 

In particular, you should take to groups related to the SEO services you provide and then become highly active within them. 

If you sell healthcare SEO services, then joining health & wellness groups on Facebook is the way to go. You can also frequent medical forums where physicians and nurses post about their jobs. 

Yet, you won’t be able to go for the hard sell approach here, as many social media groups prevent users from outright plugging their products and services. 

Instead of creating posts advertising your services, engage with the users in the group instead. Read their posts, and chime in with some relevant advice. If you can, bring up times that you’ve solved similar problems for your clients with your SEO services. 

By doing this, you’ll build trust within the group, and they’ll appreciate your insights. 

That’s a far better approach than pitching your services without any context, as that will come off as tacky and disingenuous. 

After you’ve engaged with the group for a while, members may begin messaging you for help with their SEO-related issues or even actively seek out your services. 

Outbound: attending relevant webinars and SEO online meetups 

This is a proven effective tactic that many SEO agencies fall back on when they need leads. 

It’s a social technique that involves chatting with attendees and seeing if they require your services. 

To find the most success, you should come up with several different pitches and then use them accordingly. 

Why is that?

It’s because there will be a wide variety of attendees with different needs at each meetup. 

For instance, if you’re speaking with a prospect that’s already very familiar with how SEO works, an in-depth explanation of search engine optimization isn’t necessary and will likely lose their interest. A better pitch for this type of client is to be succinct and get straight to the point. 

Conversely, if you’re speaking to a potential client that has no clue what SEO is, a more in-depth explanation is perfectly acceptable and even necessary. 

That’s why it’s crucial to adapt your pitch to each client, as it will help you acquire as many SEO leads as possible while attending meetups. 

Inbound: generating leads with your website 

Last but not least, you can transform your website into a powerful lead-generation tool with the right tweaks. 

This is where it pays off to have invested in your own website’s SEO. 

If you’re ranking in top spots for keywords like ‘healthcare SEO agencies near me,’ you can turn the traffic you generate into viable leads with the right types of landing pages. 

For the service pages users land on, don’t just offer your services. 

Instead, use a lead generator like a free tool to use in exchange for the user’s email address. You could offer an SEO audit, keyword research, or other types of freebies like PDFs or eBooks. 

These are useful because not every visitor to your website will be ready to enlist your services. 

However, that doesn’t mean that they won’t need your SEO services eventually. 

If you’re able to salvage their email address, you can send them follow-up content and offers. That way, whenever the time comes that they do need healthcare SEO services, your agency will be the first one that comes to mind. 

They already know you, and they regularly receive emails containing helpful and relevant content. As a result, going with your agency will be a no-brainer. That’s why you should always include a lead generator on your landing pages. 

Qualifying SEO Leads 

Now that you have a long list of SEO leads, it’s time to whittle it down to only the most qualified prospects. 

In particular, you need to pay close attention to the company’s structure and any key stakeholders that will be involved in the SEO process. 

You should also examine their online presence, including their current performance on search engines. This will help you not only determine if they’re a qualified prospect, but it will also help you start forming your SEO strategy for their website. 

Include a qualifying form on your website or through email 

A no-nonsense way to qualify your leads is to include an inquiry form on your website or through email. 

This form should contain all the important information you need to determine a qualified lead from an unqualified one. 

While it’s entirely up to you to create this form, here are some suggestions for what it should include:

• What types of SEO services do they want or need
• Their current budget level and how much they’re willing to allocate toward SEO
• When they want to get started 

If they provide satisfactory answers to all three questions, that’s a great sign that they’ll make a valuable client for your agency. 

If the answers aren’t satisfactory, you can ask them to sign up for your newsletter instead of booking a consulting call. That way, if they ever do become a qualified client, they’ll already be in your database, and they’ll know about your services. 

Contacting Your Qualified SEO Leads 

Once you’ve separated the wheat from the chaff in terms of qualified leads, it’s time to get in touch and start to seal the deal. 

Whether you choose to contact your prospects by email or over the phone, here are some pointers you won’t want to forget to include.

Keep things concise 

You’re not here to talk your prospect’s ear off or to send them an email the size of an eBook. Instead, include just enough to hook them and generate interest in your services. 

In other words, you don’t need to harp on and on about the benefits of working with your agency, especially at this stage. 

If you’re typing an email, the sweet spot is to keep it between 50 to 125 words to heighten the chances of receiving a response. 

Make it effortless for clients to take the next step 

Before you pick up the phone or type a word in an email to your client, first think about what you want them to do. 

Do you want them to schedule a consulting call, or would you prefer a face-to-face meeting?

Either way, make what you want explicitly clear in your call or email. If you want them to schedule a meeting with you, make that apparent by saying something along the lines of:

We’d love to meet with you to discuss our SEO services in more detail. Can you please provide a few dates when you’re available?

Just as with CTAs for blog posts, you can’t expect prospects to read your mind when it comes to what you want them to do, so be clear and direct about it. 

Concluding Thoughts: SEO Leads 

If you want your SEO agency to grow and expand in the future, then you need a way to generate a consistent pipeline of leads. 

Referrals, creating content, attending meetups, and finding existing websites in need of your services are all great ways to acquire SEO leads. 

Beyond that, you need to carefully qualify and contact your leads to heighten the chances of them converting into clients. 

Do you need help obtaining leads for your business?

Then don’t wait to check out our white-label digital marketing services at The HOTH. Our team comprises link-building, SEO, and digital marketing experts, so don’t wait to book a call today to revolutionize the way you approach your marketing.

The post How to Get New SEO Leads Without Spending a Ton of Time or Resources appeared first on The HOTH.

Read on to find out how to avoid the infamous Google penalty and keep your online traffic flowing freely.

Let’s start with some basics:

What is a Google Penalty? 

Think of a Google penalty as a traffic ticket for breaking a particular traffic law.

Like those traffic tickets, a Google penalty punishes a website that doesn’t follow Google’s Guidelines and any other practices that Google enforces. 

Although many websites have been punished by big algorithm updates, most websites are also penalized by small manual actions that Google takes. 

In fact, a Kissmetrics study suggests that only 5% of penalized websites submit a reconsideration request every month to recover their rankings.

Furthermore, when Google updates its ranking algorithm, many websites can be penalized as a result. 

With that said, here are a few steps you can take to avoid a Google penalty:

• Remove any backlinks you have that are in violation of Google’s guidelines.
• Remove any duplicate content that is of low quality.
• Remove backlinks from websites that are irrelevant to your topic niche.
• Remove unwanted or spammy comments or forum profiles.
• Consider updating old, outdated posts and replacing them with fresh content.

Additionally, here are a few other shady actions that are in violation of Google’s guidelines:

• Cloaking
• Sneaky redirects
• Doorway pages
• Hacking
• Link schemes

What are Some Consequences of a Google Penalty?

Have your rankings on Google suddenly dropped like a stone? Did your website traffic dry up and blow away? If either or both of those situations occurred, there’s a good chance that Google has penalized you. 

When they do, the ranking for your most important targeted keywords can drop dramatically. 

Even worse, Google will no longer list your website at all in their search results, which can be disastrous. 

When Google’s algorithm updates rolled out called Panda and Penguin, Google de-ranked many websites in search results that did not meet their standards in Google’s webmaster guidelines. 

Google also has a huge team manually reviewing websites and searching for web pages that use “black hat” SEO tactics that are against their rules and regulations.

Black Hat SEO includes:

• Inadvertently improper website maintenance
• Keyword stuffing or hiding
• Using private link networks
• Spamdexing
• Blog comment spam

Furthermore, here are some different types of Google penalties:

• Excessive reciprocal linking
• Manual spam links
• Low-quality link
• Unnatural outbound link penalty
• Unnatural links to or from your website

Some of the most basic consequences of a Google penalty include a drop in SEO ranking and an inability to use organic search to reach out to potential customers and clients. 

A Google penalty means that not only will your website or important pages drop in rank, but if you are removed from Google’s listings altogether, you may lose your target audience because they can no longer find you in results. 

For some companies that rely on their website to bring in business, a Google penalty can cause a severe dent in their financial stream and a concurrent drop in profitability.

With that said, let’s move on to how to avoid Google penalties:

How to Avoid Google Penalties

One great point to make here is that if you optimize your high-quality content, then you aren’t very likely to receive one of Google’s penalties. However, if your pages are lacking with thin content, then your audience will have a bad user experience which tells Google your website isn’t worth ranking.

Recovering from Google penalties isn’t impossible, however, if you think you’ve received a penalty by mistake, you can contact Google by using Google Search Console. You can also use Disavow which is a tool to help you find what’s causing you to lose rank.

Additionally, below are several mistakes you should avoid when marketing via Google so the chance they penalize you remain low and your traffic remains at full flow. 

1. Don’t Stuff Keywords

One of the worst mistakes you can make on Google is keyword stuffing. To avoid a penalty for keyword stuffing, use natural language that mimics how humans converse in the real world. 

Keep your keywords at about 3% of your total word count, as the risk of a penalty increases significantly over that amount.

Furthermore, here are some ways to avoid keyword stuffing:

• Conduct quality keyword research
• Extend your word count 
• Measure your keyword density
• Give each page a separate primary keyword
• Use secondary keywords
• Manage your on-page SEO with tools like SEO Minion

2. Use Well-Written, In-Depth Content

Driving traffic to your website means publishing new content online regularly. That content should be indexed, well-written and useful, at the very least, to avoid a penalty for having shallow content depth.

A good suggestion is to have a dedicated content staff publishing a blog related to your industry with in-depth, well-written, valuable content.

Some types of content are as follows:

• Stay relevant to your topic
• Answer the “people also ask” section of Google
• Share your content on social media to boost brand awareness
• Begin your intro with a statistic
• Understand your target audience
• Use short paragraphs
• Use simple and easy-to-understand words

3. Never Buy Black-Hat BackLinks

One of the easiest ways to get a penalty from Google is to purchase links. Yes, it’s very tempting, especially if you don’t have a lot of links yet, but Google has a way of catching companies that do. 

Rather than buy low-quality links, make it so that others want to link to your content. 

For example, become a source for bloggers, and use branded strategies and content formats that have already been proven to generate links. 

Before moving forward, let’s go over why it’s okay to buy some backlinks but not others. 

Backlinks are a valuable commodity because the weight of backlinks pointing to a website is a major ranking factor. 

In simple terms, you can buy white-hat backlinks for your website, which are natural, high-quality links that come from solid sources and help you generate more traffic to your website. 

With that said, low-quality backlinks from shady websites are not okay.

4. Don’t Reuse Content

Google hates it when you use duplicate content or infringe on another’s copyright. They don’t even like it when you use your content in multiple places, like when you copy and paste content from your website and use it in a guest blog post. 

The easiest way to avoid this penalty is always to use 100% unique content you or your team have created and use it in one location only. And, of course, never plagiarize content from another company’s website.

Here are some tips to avoid this:

• Don’t create duplicate content such as duplicate URLs, slugs, etc.
• Redirect duplicate content to a canonical URL
• Add an HTML link from a duplicate page to the canonical page

5. Don’t Write URLs Solely to Attract Traffic

Writing URLs to rank higher on Google or attract traffic only is a mistake many companies make. Instead, you should write clear and concise URLs that explain to the searcher exactly what they will be getting when they click the link.

An example of this would be titles that are similar to click-baiting. These links or titles don’t explain what the content is about, they are mainly there to get you to click on them. 

These shady methods are just a part of black-hat SEO tactics and should be avoided.

6. Never Hide Content

One of the oldest spam techniques in the book is to hide text so that only Google can see it. This hidden text often uses repeated keywords to manipulate Google and increase ranking. 

Hidden content can also improve a website’s click-through rate and send a user to a page where they can make a purchase, a 20th-century improvement on the “bait-and-switch” tactics used by car salespeople. 

Rather than hiding text, use a “read more” link that, when clicked, will make the content visible to the user. 

Furthermore, if you want to hide content from Google, you can use “no-follow” links so that Google won’t index your information. Doing this will tell crawlers not to show your page in search results (SERP). 

7. Don’t Make Your Website Top-Heavy

Have you ever visited a website and been completely overwhelmed by the ads on the page, to the point where you couldn’t get any valuable information? 

That type of web page is called a “top-heavy” page and is something that Google is adamantly against. 

To avoid being penalized, your website should have ads spread out between unique, well-written content. That way, users will see the content they want and be exposed to the ads but won’t be interrupted by them.

Additionally, a big amount of unoptimized images is usually one of the main reasons your website might become slow or heavy. Hi-res images can consume a ton of bandwidth while loading. 

A HubSpot study suggests that website conversion rates drop by an average of 4.42% with each additional second of load time. 

That’s why keeping your web pages running smoothly is important. You can use tools such as PageSpeed Insights to help you figure out if your website is fast. 

Google search console also has the option to check for mobile usability. Make sure to check your metrics to make sure your website won’t be hit with any penalties. 

8. Write People-First Content

It is common to experience frustration when landing on a website that isn’t exactly what you’ve searched for. Displaying this type of content can result in feeling like you’ve been penalized. 

Bots may fail to index your website, or you may lose domain authority altogether. 

Additionally, Google’s Helpful Content update is a new signal that is being implemented into Google’s algorithm that evaluates content. 

Crawlers search websites and decide if it was made for people to be helpful or otherwise useful information or if it was created just for Google’s crawlers. 

Webmasters have not experienced massive hits as was reported from the Penguin algorithm update. However, experts are expecting new-future core rollouts to change the way some content is ranked. 

Common Questions and Answers about Google Penalties

It’s one thing to say “do this” or “don’t do that,” but we at The HOTH feel our readers can benefit from knowing a lot about what happens when Google penalizes your content and what it can mean for your long-term sustainability. 

Below are several questions we hear and see all the time about Google penalties and our strategies for avoiding them

What is Google’s algorithm, and why does it penalize websites?

At its core, the Google algorithm is a complex system that Google uses to retrieve data from a search index. 

Once retrieved, it will instantly deliver that data to a searcher who has made a query, giving them the best results it believes for that particular query. 

The Google algorithm uses a wide range of ranking factors so that the relevance of all websites is ranked well, and the results a Searcher gets in the search engine answer their query as best as possible.

What are the types of Google penalties?

There are two types of Google penalties; manual actions and algorithmic changes. Both will cause your rankings to tank and, in most cases, your website to disappear from Google listings. 

As the name suggests, manual penalties are done manually by the team at Google. When that happens, they will issue you a message telling you why you were manually penalized. Hence, it’s imperative you log into your Google webmaster tools and check to see if you have notifications from Google.

Algorithmic penalties typically relate to Panda and Penguin and the fact that your SEO went against their specific rules or regulations. If it’s a panda penalty, Google is likely looking at the quality of your website’s content and has deemed it to be poor. 

A Penguin penalty looks more at the backlink profile of your website and any poor choices you might have made in their respect.

How do I fix my Google penalty?

Fixing any Google penalties depends on the penalty itself and what caused it. For a manual penalty from Google, you need first to fix the issue they stated as the cause of the penalty and then ask them to 3 index your website. 

Algorithm penalties take a little longer because you can’t go directly to Google and ask them what went wrong. You usually have to diagnose the problem yourself, including duplicate content, problems with your backlinks, site security, etc. 

Once you do and you fix the problem, you simply need to wait for Google to re-index your website and for your rankings to start improving.

How long does a Google penalty last?

It’s difficult to say how long an algorithmic penalty from Google can last because there’s no way to have Google intervene manually on the problem. 

For a manual penalty, however, it will usually last for about 30 days if the transgression is slight, including some ranking manipulation or backlink purchase. 

Your search rankings and organic traffic will be affected during that time. You may even notice a large loss of engagement measurements on your Google Analytics. 

Additionally, ensure your backlinks are not from spammy or untrustworthy sites when link building. 

With a more serious offense, however, it may take longer to expire. There have been cases where website owners have reported a Google penalty to have lasted for up to two years.

Let’s Wrap it Up!

Avoiding Google penalties while performing your SEO duties for your website isn’t terribly difficult. 

Most webmasters realize when they are going against Google’s rules and, even if they don’t, can look at historical data to find out what Google has penalized in the past.

You can schedule a 30-minute consultation with The HOTH’s SEO experts and get the best SEO advice, so you never have to worry about Google bringing the hammer down on your website!

Additionally, sign up for free now to take full advantage of our free SEO tools and resources!

The post How To Avoid Google Penalties appeared first on The HOTH.

The amazing part?

Tripadvisor will also rank high for ‘top things to do in New Jersey,’ ‘top things to do in Atlanta,’ and countless others. No matter the city, Tripadvisor always has a landing page ready with unique things to do. 

As you can imagine, that type of SEO dominance requires creating thousands (or even millions) of landing pages for travel-related search queries. 

But how is this possible? Do they have a content creation team on call 24/7 to create all the articles?

Believe it or not, it’s not because of magic, nor is it due to Tripadvisor‘s considerable sphere of influence/budget. 

Instead, it’s because Tripadvisor (and other websites like Yelp and Zapier) use what’s known as programmatic SEO. 

It’s a specialized SEO strategy that uses specialized code to create thousands of landing pages for thousands of keywords. 

Programmatic SEO is a way to release a ton of similar content en masse, such as things to do in certain cities or restaurant reviews. E-commerce websites also make heavy use of the technique. 

When done right, programmatic SEO can help generate a ton of search traffic, leads, and conversions. 

Read on to learn more about programmatic SEO, including its benefits and how you can implement it into your SEO strategy. 

What Is Programmatic SEO?

A website like Yelp has unique needs when it comes to search engine optimization. In essence, Yelp is a gigantic directory of local business information and reviews. 

Their model requires thousands of landing pages, each tailored to a unique local business. Not only that, but to find success, they need to appear at the top of online search results for hyper-specific keywords. 

You can see this in action with a website like Yelp, as they often rank first on Google for keywords like ‘best restaurant in (city name)’ or ‘best activity in (city name).’ 

Programmatic SEO is how they’re able to achieve such an impressive feat. A programmatic SEO strategy involves creating thousands of similar yet different landing pages that cater to user search intent. 

It uses a combination of automation and coding savviness to mass-produce landing pages tailored to different keywords. 

In a nutshell, they gather thousands (often 100,000+) of keywords to use for their generated pages. 

They often have a design template for each type of landing page, meaning only the content itself changes from page to page. 

For example, the Tripadvisor page for The 10 Best Restaurants in Charlotte has the same design and layout as The 10 BEST Restaurants in Atlanta. In fact, all their ‘BEST restaurants in‘ articles copy this same layout. The only thing that changes from page to page is the actual content – which is what programmatic SEO is all about. 

After all, spending the time and resources to handcraft each landing page wouldn’t be feasible, even for websites as large and well-known as Tripadvisor and Yelp. 

Why is Programmatic SEO Important/Valuable?

 The good news is that programmatic SEO isn’t exclusively for enterprise-level companies. Anyone can incorporate the technique with a little know-how and some coding prowess. 

Programmatic SEO is an extremely valuable technique for a variety of reasons, including that it’s a great way to circumvent the traditionally lengthy SEO process. 

By mass-releasing landing pages, you can start to see boosts in traffic and revenue far sooner. 

While there’s plenty of hype surrounding releasing the highest quality content possible, SEO gurus often fail to mention the other side of the coin– quantity. 

To them, quality trumps all, and you shouldn’t focus on releasing large quantities of content. 

But is that always the case?

It turns out that it’s not. 

While it’s true that you shouldn’t release a ton of low-quality articles, publishing a large quantity of high-quality content is a good thing– and programmatic SEO lets you achieve that. 

By using programmatic SEO techniques, you’ll be able to create a page for every product, service, and category on your website – all without manually building each page. 

Since each webpage will be optimized for highly specific search terms (often long-tail keywords), they’ll likely perform very well in the search rankings. 

As a result, all these optimized landing pages will generate a ton of organic traffic for your business. 

Who Benefits from Programmatic SEO Strategies?

Programmatic SEO is also a necessity for many types of websites, such as:

• Ecommerce 
• Review sites 
• Travel sites 
• Q&A forums (Reddit and Quora) 

The nature of these websites requires them to have thousands of specialized landing pages, which is why programmatic SEO is crucial to their business models. 

While each landing page has a similar design and layout, the content on each is relevant, unique, and provides a pleasant user experience. You can attest to this if you’ve ever found a helpful review on Yelp or Tripadvisor. 

Beyond that, any business that has an online presence can use and benefit from programmatic SEO. We’ve already mentioned how you can use it to create webpages with minimal effort, which will help you save valuable resources. 

Programmatic SEO will help you get more of your content ranking in Google search results with minimal effort, which is excellent for small businesses and startups. 

Whether you’re an enterprise-level company or an entrepreneur with an e-commerce site, programmatic techniques have the power to drive massive amounts of traffic to your website without the need for extra busy work from your staff. 

As a rule of thumb, the more landing pages your website needs, the more helpful programmatic SEO will be for you. 

Besides generating massive amounts of traffic, you’ll also enjoy numerous other benefits from implementing programmatic optimization techniques, so let’s look at more. 

Bolsters online presence 

Digital marketing is the way of the future, as there are a whopping 2.14 billion online shoppers – and this number only continues to go up. In fact, the total number of online shoppers continues to increase with every passing year. 

That means if any company wants to survive going forward, they need to have a strong online presence. It also means that your potential audience is continuing to grow, which is a good thing. 

Programmatic SEO is one of the most reliable ways to strengthen your online visibility. 

Fact: Google views websites that don’t have much content as less authoritative than ones that have an extensive library of articles. 

The proof?

Google’s John Mueller has said, “it’s hard to view a website as authoritative if it only has 30 pieces of content.” 

That means Google ranks websites with more pages of content (as long as they’re relevant and high-quality) higher than those with only a few pages (even if their quality is outstanding). 

So if a new company wants to gain visibility on search engines, they’ll need to produce not only quality content but also quite a bit of it. That’s a tall task for a startup that lacks a large content creation team – but programmatic SEO techniques can make producing a ton of unique content feasible. 

With clever keyword research and top-tier copywriting, any sized company can use programmatic SEO to increase its visibility on search engines. 

Internal link building 

A robust internal linking structure is an essential part of any link-building strategy. In short, every page on your website should have another page pointing to it through a link. 

Why is that important?

The reason is two-fold. 

First, a logical internal linking structure is essential for Google’s algorithms and crawlers to properly discover, crawl, and index all the pages on your website. If a page on our website has no links pointing to it, it’s known as an orphan page, and it can wreak havoc on your crawl budget. 

Google will only crawl a given number of pages on your website a day (this number varies heavily). If you have orphan pages hanging around, it causes Google’s crawl rate to slow down because it can’t find the natural connections between pages on your site (internal links). 

That can even cause Google to delay crawling more essential pages on your site while it tries to figure out your orphan pages. 

You also need internal links because they help keep users engaged with your website. Instead of clicking off to another page, they may begin reading another blog post – which increases dwell time and reduces bounce rates. 

Programmatic SEO > Link spam 

Programmatic SEO will allow you to create many high-quality landing pages relevant to your target audience – and you can easily include internal links in them all. 

That’s a far better strategy than creating a ton of low-quality pages that only exist for internal links and backlinks – which won’t get you very far. Users won’t engage with useless content, and they’ll become frustrated at its inclusion. 

Not only that, Google does NOT like link spam, so always ensure the content you release is helpful for your audience. 

Frees up employee time 

Is your staff tied up all day manually updating your existing web pages to improve SEO – such as performing technical tweaks, adding keywords, and targeting SERP features like snippets?

If so, that’s a clear sign you need to find a way to produce new pages that are already optimized for SEO. 

That way, your staff won’t have to go back and optimize them after the fact. 

Programmatic SEO will allow you to create thousands of landing pages that are perfectly optimized for the right keywords straight from the get-go. 

Your content creation team won’t have to manually create each new webpage, either, which is another huge timesaver. 

Programmatic SEO works in tandem with other essential tools, such as automation centers and affiliate tracking programs – so once you get everything set up, it practically runs on autopilot. 

As a result, you’ll be able to free up tons of employee hours that you can use to focus on more pressing tasks, such as brainstorming new ways to scale your business. 

How To Do Programmatic SEO 

Since you know what programmatic SEO is and how it can benefit you, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and learn how to do it yourself. 

It starts with keyword research, as most SEO strategies do, albeit on a bit more of a mass scale. Without further ado, here’s a step-by-step guide to implementing a programmatic SEO strategy. 

Find your essential head terms 

You don’t just need 10 or 20 keywords for programmatic SEO – you need at least 2,000. In fact, it’s common for some websites to target 100,000+ keywords for their strategy. 

How do they find so many keywords to target?

They certainly don’t do it one by one. Instead, they target head terms – which are broad-level categories that encompass a ton of keywords. 

Examples of head terms include:

• Travel sites: Things to do, hotels 
• Review sites: Restaurants, barbershops, gyms, etc.
• Retail sites: Electronics, groceries

Head terms should have a ton of search volume, especially when you pair them with modifiers (i.e., the best restaurant in blank). 

Whenever you’re coming up with head terms, you should double-check their search volume to confirm they’re worth targeting. 

Google Trends and our keyword planner tool from The HOTH are excellent tools you can use for this. If a keyword has a high search volume, check to ensure it’s not dropping off in popularity in Google Trends. 

The last thing you want is to invest time and resources into a head term only to discover that it’s waning in popularity (with no chance of relevancy returning anytime soon). 

If its popularity is trending up, that’s a clear sign it’s a head term worth pursuing. 

How many head terms do you need?

It depends on how many different services you provide through your website. A business review site like Yelp needs lots of head terms, while a travel site such as Tripadvisor doesn’t quite need as many. 

Find modifiers for your head terms 

Now it’s time to start adding modifiers to your head terms. While your head terms will have significant search volume, the real deal comes from combining them with modifiers that also have high search volume. 

You can use the same tools as you did before to learn the search volume for your modifiers (Google Trends and our keyword planner tool). 

There are primary modifiers and secondary modifiers for head terms, so let’s learn the difference. 

A primary modifier creates a new subcategory, while secondary modifiers further describe the head term. 

Here are some examples of primary modifiers:

• Coats: Winter coats, coats with lots of pockets, coats with hoods 
• Bars: Bars with live music, sports bars, bars with poker tournaments 
• Electronics: Prosumer electronics, video games, movies 

As you can see, each modifier creates a subcategory for the head term. Winter coats, for example, would contain all the winter coats you have for sale in your store. 

Here are some examples of secondary modifiers:

• Coats: high-quality coats, affordable coats, expensive coats 
• Bars: Top-tier bars, high-end bars, non-alcoholic bars 
• Electronics: Affordable electronics, unique electronics, computer electronics 

If your business is after local customers, your modifiers should follow the formula of head term + location (i.e., Electronics in Arizona). 

Combine your keywords and modifiers 

Lastly, you need to compile your head terms, primary modifiers, and secondary modifiers into a giant list. 

This is where having some coding knowledge pays off. In particular, Python is a preferred language for coding and organizing programmatic SEO keywords. However, any coding software will get the job done. 

It’s also wise to save a copy of your list in Google Sheets to have a backup. 

How many keywords do you need?

It will depend on the scope of your SEO project. If you’re a gigantic travel site like Tripadvisor, you’ll need something like 100,000 keywords. If you’re a smaller business, 2,000 keywords will suffice. 

Creating landing pages on a large scale 

Now comes the tricky part, creating all your landing pages. Bear in mind that you won’t have to make a landing page for every one of your 100,000 keywords. You’ll still need to figure out a way to build tons of pages, but you won’t quite need 100,000 if you base your landing pages on user search intent. 

For instance, the search intent behind several of your keywords may be exactly the same, requiring the creation of only one landing page for them all. 

As with the Tripadvisor and Yelp pages, programmatic SEO landing pages often contain an identical layout. The pictures, design, and information can remain the same on all of them as long as the primary content changes. (i.e., all the 10 BEST restaurant articles have the same design besides the actual restaurant choices). 

Automation can really save the day here if you’re able to replicate one page en masse with a few distinct changes. 

Some programmatic sites take advantage of the two-sided marketplace method. 

What’s that?

It’s where you design the basic layout of the website, and your vendors/users fill out the rest. An example would be a website like eBay, where users provide product descriptions and images for each item. 

Concluding Thoughts: Programmatic SEO 

By now, you should understand how programmatic SEO works, as well as how you can implement it in your organization. 

Travel and review sites primarily use the technique, but any business can use programmatic SEO. 

It’s a great way to supercharge your content marketing strategy by getting large quantities of high-quality content out there. It can also expedite the traditionally slow SEO process, which is a huge plus. 

Do you not have the time, resources, or expertise to conduct an SEO strategy at your company?

Then you need to try our five-star managed SEO services at HOTH X.     

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