Getting Too Greedy With Keywords
When a page or section is new and you are competing against older sites that have built authority for nearly a decade one of the easiest ways to gain traction is to pick a specific keyword phrase that is not that competitive and go after trying to rank for it.
Often I find myself making a page title relevant for a wide basket of related keywords, then when I check the rankings the page comes in at #12 or #16. My mom's blog currently ranks at #13 in Google for weight loss calculators and #4 for free weight loss calculators using the page title Free Diet, Calorie, & Weight Loss Calculators. The page also ranks #30 for diet calculators and is deep for calorie calculators.
The best thing to do here is to focus the title on the phrase closest to ranking at the top, and try to get it a few more links. If the page starts picking up organic traction after ranking and eventually grows into a self reinforcing authority status then I could help it get more traffic by including those related phrases that don't make much sense to highlight in the page title right now.
Comments
Thanks Aaron. this is exactly what I've been looking for in a while. I'm up against a 10 year old site in my niche.
Raja Sekharan
right on, aaron. the easiest way to build search engine authority is to start "claiming" keyword space that doesn't exist (current results are crap) or is not competitive.
in one year i've taken a site from ground zero on a new domain to outranking wikipedia, and i've done it by filling out a uncompetitive area of the niche.
competitors are doing what i'm doing, but no one has a specific targetted page to each flavor of the database tools like i do.
it's easy to get the links you want when your target keyword phrases are rare or inventive.
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