[brightonmike]

I've been trying to do this for a long time but struggled to have any luck.

The keyword is "[..removed..]" and the aim is a top 3 position - or at very least first page. Currently we are ranked 18, which is the second page.

I use seoMoz, which has amazing tools to help me optimise my site. For our homepage, seoMoz now grades it an A for this keyword meaning I've done pretty much everything I could do to optimise the page for the keyword.

But alas, no effect on our rankings. I don't have the capability to do massive link building. I do bits here and there but again, it seems to have no effect.

Anybody got any ideas? Or is this basically a case of, not going to happen? It's a massively competitive keyword and I suspect those on the first page are ploughing thousands to SEO companies to be there.

If anybody has ideas of how I could beat them - let me know. Thanks.

This post has been edited by brightonmike: 07 November 2011 - 11:00 AM

[rallport]

Yep, looks like a very competitive keyword and tbh, you've done well to rank using onsite stuff alone. Get to the top spots you'll definitely need some decent links as all the results on page one are very well linked.

YOu could have a look at the link profiles of some of the results on page 1 to see where they get their links from.

[Jason Dexter]

The only thing you need to do now is look at your competitors backlinks and devise a good, healthy and natural link building campaign.

I had a quick look at one of your competitors, who currently sit second in Google, and I don't think it would be difficult for you to get your website ranking above them. Pushing your website onto the first page won't be difficult either, I see you're currently 13th.

I just think you need more backlinks. Sit down and draw up a plan of action to get the links and you'll get there. Just have to have patience

[brightonmike]

Jason Dexter, on 07 November 2011 - 09:40 AM, said:

The only thing you need to do now is look at your competitors backlinks and devise a good, healthy and natural link building campaign.

I had a quick look at one of your competitors, who currently sit second in Google, and I don't think it would be difficult for you to get your website ranking above them. Pushing your website onto the first page won't be difficult either, I see you're currently 13th.

I just think you need more backlinks. Sit down and draw up a plan of action to get the links and you'll get there. Just have to have patience

Without saying their names directly (I don't want them seeing this via google alerts) would an acronym of their name be FMN?

If so, I've got them added on seoMoz, and I can see every single back link they have. Purely for that seoMoz is incredible! But yeah, I can sort of see what they're doing, but some of the pages they have links on I have no idea how I could get links on them too.

One trick I've seen being used is using Squidoo to create "websites" that link, Squidoo has a high PR so it seems to work. I've done this though, but Google don't seem to have picked up on it. Hopefully they will soon.

I guess patience is the key word here. I'm just wondering if I can do this - if those in the top positions are paying thousands to be there how can I compete?

[Jason Dexter]

Yeah, they're the one I had a look at.

They'll be doing what's called a link wheel. Basically creating a wheel of backlinks between websites like squidoo which then point to your website. So instead of bombing their site with spammy links, they bomb their squidoo pages and then have them point to their website. This has it's benefits, as it doesn't directly affect their own website, and their own website isn't associated with spam and they get all the power of 30,000 backlinks through one nice, juicey and powerful link.

These can be done, however, without the need to spam forums and can be extremely effective.

[brightonmike]

Jason Dexter, on 07 November 2011 - 10:15 AM, said:

Yeah, they're the one I had a look at.

They'll be doing what's called a link wheel. Basically creating a wheel of backlinks between websites like squidoo which then point to your website. So instead of bombing their site with spammy links, they bomb their squidoo pages and then have them point to their website. This has it's benefits, as it doesn't directly affect their own website, and their own website isn't associated with spam and they get all the power of 30,000 backlinks through one nice, juicey and powerful link.

These can be done, however, without the need to spam forums and can be extremely effective.

So essentially what I need is 3/4 Squidoo pages, all well written, relevant, good keyword usage.

Then, when I am link building, I point the links to these Squidoo pages, which in turn have a link to our website.

Sounds simple enough! Just takes a lot of time. They probably have 4/5 people that all did it at once for a few weeks.

[Jason Dexter]

The key being relevant content. But that's how I imagine they are doing it. Look at the backlinks of their Squidoo pages and see what links they have pointing to them.

Have a delve into their backlinks, see what links they have pointing their Squidoo pages. You might find some interesting stuff in there.

They might not be doing it like that, but that's what my first thought would be.

You're right, they might have a few guys working on their SEO. Or some firm that works on it, but you can do it mate. Just have to put a bit of time and effort into it.

Done any keyword research as well? Might be an idea to look into other charter plane keywords that yield a similar number of searches but at lower competition. But remember to aim for keywords which are likely to be used when people are looking to charter a plane.

[brightonmike]

Jason Dexter, on 07 November 2011 - 10:46 AM, said:

The key being relevant content. But that's how I imagine they are doing it. Look at the backlinks of their Squidoo pages and see what links they have pointing to them.

Have a delve into their backlinks, see what links they have pointing their Squidoo pages. You might find some interesting stuff in there.

They might not be doing it like that, but that's what my first thought would be.

You're right, they might have a few guys working on their SEO. Or some firm that works on it, but you can do it mate. Just have to put a bit of time and effort into it.

Done any keyword research as well? Might be an idea to look into other charter plane keywords that yield a similar number of searches but at lower competition. But remember to aim for keywords which are likely to be used when people are looking to charter a plane.

Really great advice - thanks mate.

I have looked at other keywords but this one does seem to be the absolute #1. We rank top or near top for keywords such as [....] but surprisingly we gain very little out of it - this is probably because to those who already [....], it just isn't the phrase they'd use.

We can get on the Google adwords for [....] fine, but obviously this costs a lot. At the moment we're spunking ££££s on Adwords (double my salary a year...) and we want to try and reduce this budget by getting more natural results.

Trouble is I've got so much going on so SEO never gets the attention it needs. Plus I find it so boring!

I think what I will try and arrange my schedule so one day a week is dedicated entirely to SEO and natural link building. Hopefully this way we can build something up gradually and naturally which should theoretically put us in more favourable light then those who conduct mass campaigns over short periods of time.

Edit: Removed some keywords for the google alerts reasons!

This post has been edited by brightonmike: 07 November 2011 - 10:59 AM

[Jason Dexter]

Does adwords get you any conversions? Is it something that works for your company? I always advise clients to use adwords when running a promotion or offer (although in this case, I understand why you do as a temp measure to get seen). SEO is often a long running process, and you've done well to get it where it is at the moment without it being your main task.

Maybe outsource it to a firm? Or is that not an option and your company want to keep it in house? I'd just set a side a day to concentrate on the SEO, backlinking and such. It's best to have a plan in place so you can see what you have done and what you need to do. Just stick with it and keep plugging away. In a few months you'll see some good results.

[brightonmike]

Jason Dexter, on 07 November 2011 - 11:47 AM, said:

Does adwords get you any conversions? Is it something that works for your company? I always advise clients to use adwords when running a promotion or offer (although in this case, I understand why you do as a temp measure to get seen). SEO is often a long running process, and you've done well to get it where it is at the moment without it being your main task.

Maybe outsource it to a firm? Or is that not an option and your company want to keep it in house? I'd just set a side a day to concentrate on the SEO, backlinking and such. It's best to have a plan in place so you can see what you have done and what you need to do. Just stick with it and keep plugging away. In a few months you'll see some good results.

They outsourced before me, had a horrible experience and got ripped off and lost tens of thousands. So outsourcing is not an option in this case.

We get the majority of leads through Adwords. It does actually generate a lot of business - when it works. A single lead can pay for an entire month of Adwords so in theory it is worth it.

I'd like to be able to rely on it less too, partly because it's only ever going to get more expensive.

[Jason Dexter]

Yeah, that's understandable; once bitten, twice shy and all that. Nightmare when trying to gain trust with clients for me.

So long as it's making the company money and isn't losing money then there isn't any cause for alarm right now. But it's best to manage the costs so they get more profit per lead

[Renaissance-Design]

What's the quality score like for your landing pages? Can give you a few hints on bringing down your costs with Adwords if you like.

[brightonmike]

Renaissance-Design, on 07 November 2011 - 12:25 PM, said:

What's the quality score like for your landing pages? Can give you a few hints on bringing down your costs with Adwords if you like.

For this specific keyword? I have quality scores for keywords. For this keyword it's 4/10.

Google base it on so much more than the landing page though, and according to Google Adwords there's no problems with landing page load times.

I don't think there's an awful lot I can do about the score. I've actually had account consultations directly with Google a few times and they've helped me optimise the account as best we could.

I think what it boils down to is that a couple of companies that offer a similar service (but structured totally differently, so not strictly rivals) have some of the richest investors in the world behind them *cough*Warren Buffett*cough* so they can plough millions into it and ease everybody else out.

[Renaissance-Design]

Should be able to do a lot better than 4/10. PM me the keyword and landing URL?

[brightonmike]

Done. Thanks

[brightonmike]

I have an account review tomorrow with Google, so hopefully we'll make some improvements to the AdWords.

[rallport]

brightonmike, on 07 November 2011 - 03:10 PM, said:

I have an account review tomorrow with Google, so hopefully we'll make some improvements to the AdWords.

Hehe, I've had those before. It;s essentially a glorified sales call

[Renaissance-Design]

rallport, on 08 November 2011 - 12:48 PM, said:

Hehe, I've had those before. It;s essentially a glorified sales call

Agreed. Over-optimising ads means Google charge less per click, so it's not entirely in their best interest.

[brightonmike]

I disagree. I don't know who you spoke to but the guy I spoke to today was very useful. For example he made the very logical point that I should create tailored landing pages that reflect the search string the user visited via - rather than them just landing on a generic homepage.

I have had them before, quite a few times. I find it depends a lot on who you get.

I know ultimately the aim is for them to make more money but if it helps us make more money too - I don't care.

This post has been edited by brightonmike: 08 November 2011 - 02:46 PM

[smithjojo]

Really thanks.....
because i don't have much more idea but now i applied all this important thing
and please share lots of thing related to seo.
Thanks..!!!!

[The Web Surgery]

Jason Dexter, on 07 November 2011 - 09:40 AM, said:

The only thing you need to do now is look at your competitors backlinks and devise a good, healthy and natural link building campaign.

I had a quick look at one of your competitors, who currently sit second in Google, and I don't think it would be difficult for you to get your website ranking above them. Pushing your website onto the first page won't be difficult either, I see you're currently 13th.

I just think you need more backlinks. Sit down and draw up a plan of action to get the links and you'll get there. Just have to have patience

I think you are correct Jason. I have my SEO consultant using a Raven tool to get competitive links and he is building links from there, i have already started noticing few good jumps in ALexa, in a months time!

[brightonmike]

Results

So, I've managed to move us up two for the target keyword. Please don't type it in this thread btw, I don't want people with Google Alerts seeing this thread.

Also, we've shot up right onto the first page with several other keywords, with good incremental changes with the others. Any keyword we're down on, we're only down by 1/2 places.

Pretty awesome results so far I think. I just looked at some old rankings and 3 months ago we were #28 for the target keyword, so to be #16 now is pretty good going.

 movingup.JPG (17.57K)
Number of downloads: 16

 movingupslowly.JPG (23.78K)
Number of downloads: 17

[rallport]

brightonmike, on 14 November 2011 - 09:03 AM, said:

Results

So, I've managed to move us up two for the target keyword. Please don't type it in this thread btw, I don't want people with Google Alerts seeing this thread.

Also, we've shot up right onto the first page with several other keywords, with good incremental changes with the others. Any keyword we're down on, we're only down by 1/2 places.

Pretty awesome results so far I think. I just looked at some old rankings and 3 months ago we were #28 for the target keyword, so to be #16 now is pretty good going.

movingup.JPG

movingupslowly.JPG

More importantly, are the said keywords leading to actual conversions?

[antara]

Hi..
There has been a lot of ideas and insights suggested already...I would like to add a few things

There are some points we need to think of

1. How competitive is this particular keyphrase? Is that a one word keyword?
2. how much your website relates to the keyword? Is that keyword related to the main service provided by your website? or is it something ancillary that it provides?
3. How many dedicated pages do your site have for that particular keyword?
4. Is the internal linking for these pages good?

Apart from those mentioned above, I guess you can also work on certain other optimization strategies. You may also ping me your URL and the keyword...

[brightonmike]

rallport, on 18 November 2011 - 03:51 PM, said:

More importantly, are the said keywords leading to actual conversions?

Difficult to measure. We're a low volume but very high value business. All I can say is that we're getting more quotes. Just checked the keyword on Analytics, we were getting probably 4 visits a week, now it's more like 8-10 a day, so definitely an improvement.

I would imagine though unless we get into the top 3 or 10 our traffics always going to be low from it because they just don't bother with the second page.