The secret most SEO experts don't want you to know
- 31 January 2012
- Written by Craig Wilson
Search engine optimization (SEO) is difficult, right? It requires hundreds, if not thousands, of inbound links and takes months and months to get results. At least that's what most SEO "experts" would have you believe. But that ain't necessarily so.
I was talking to a small business owner the other day who is frustrated with the fact that his business isn't generating many online enquiries. Turns out that his website is not targeting the right terms (well, it's hardly targeting any) and that his head office was enlisting the help of an SEO expert to conduct a link-building campaign. The problem is, they don't need more links. They already have enough to win most of the searches they should be targeting.
I opened up my laptop and took the business owner through a quick exercise.
1. We looked at the Google Adwords Keyword Tool (its free), typing in a range of search terms to identify search volumes and better alternatives. The business owner easily identified a handful of terms that were a great fit for his business. Turns out there are tens of thousands of people searching for services like his each month.
2. We then did a Google search for the term he was most excited about. His company was nowhere to be seen so we clicked on the top result.
3. We opened my NLYZR account and ran a Competitor Analysis using his URL, the top ranking competitor's URL and the desired search term.
Here is what we found. My new friend's website has more inbound links than the competitor. It also has higher PageRank. But the competitor had done one or two little things (either intentionally or by accident) that had allowed him to rank first on Google for that search term. Mind you, the competitor hadn't done a LOT, just enough to win the search. It was very clear that my friend's site could easily win this search merely by addressing the optimisation basics. It would probably require around half an hour to fix.
And that is the secret most SEO experts don't want you to know. You don't need the perfect site. You don't necessarily need tens of thousands of links and months of waiting to start getting results. To win any given search you merely need identify the RIGHT search terms and then be slightly better than the site that is currently first.
The good news is that by running a Competitor Analysis report on NLYZR you can find out in minutes exactly what you need to do to be slightly better. And if the top ranked site is actually really strong and hard to beat, have a look at the other sites on the first page of results. Chances are you can beat a few of them.
