This workflow is built to accompany basic practices of SEO. It takes quality content and off-page work to get your page ranking in the top positions on a search. A high rank, though, is only the first goal in a series of steps toward a bigger payoff. Ultimately, clicks are worth more than rankings.
Approach your SEO goals as: “get more clicks from my rankings on specific keywords.”
Step 1. Research Keywords
Focus on easy wins with high potential, then move on to a blend of high potential with added difficulty.
You can start finding keyword ideas in SpyFu using a few different approaches:
Download and filter your competitor’s keywords.
Get the list of keywords that a few of your competitors all share.
Start with a broad keyword, and find suggestions for similar ideas based on it. Pay special attention to the filters that let you set ranking difficulty (easy wins) and potential (clicks per day, click rate, etc).
Step 2. Establish Your Baseline Page Ranking
Find your starting point so you can measure your growth.
We suggest that you set up keyword tracking. Using the keywords from step 1, create a group (or groups) in MySpyFu. You can add more keywords to groups at any time during your SpyFu research (image below), or paste in an offline list.
We will automatically track your domain’s ranking (and paid ad position) each week in Google and Bing.
Here's how to create a keyword group to track inside MySpyFu:
Login to SpyFu and open the MySpyFu project manager slider on the right side of the page.
Start with a project. Type in the domain that you tie these keywords to.
The next step will automatically import helpful keyword groups for you. You can skip it, but this is an easy step that goes a long way.
Now that the project is created, you can import the original keywords that you have been collecting. Paste them in into that project’s groups or add them directly from a list of keywords you find when you use SpyFu.
Step 3. Run a Technical Site Audit
As Google updates its algorithm these factors go up and down in importance. That being said, these details are worth tightening and polishing as a good practice.
Step 4. Create Supporting Content Around Your Best Pieces
Identify your best pieces of content, and create related pieces that complement it: supplementary information, alternative viewpoints, interview pieces, and videos.
Link to the main article (the one you want to move up), and promote your new pieces.
Step 5: Create a Video to Target the Keyword from Another Angle
Google has its habits — play along. Often, they serve up a YouTube video in the SERP, they show images, and they offer shopping options. Expand your content type (create a video, register a location, etc.) so you can be the one they show in these slots.
There are some best practices in producing videos for YouTube. Fortunately, YouTube's reach means that your video has the potential not just to be seen my many more people, but you also have a shot at your video landing on the SERP.
Step 6. Measure and Report
Your last step is to find what worked, and then adjust. This isn’t the end. Now you’re comparing your results to what you saw in Step 2 so that you can reset the work ahead of you.
Consider it a cycle, and this tells you where to focus your work for the next round.
Use tools like the Google Search Console/Google Analytics and SpyFu to measure key parts of your SEO performance:
Rankings (and not just the strong ones)
Traffic/Clicks from those rankings
Conversions from those clicks
Tip> You could venture into deeper metrics to truly measure the success of your SEO campaign. We’re keeping it simple to stay focused on the initial goal of moving yourself up the page on a search result.
Rankings
Remember the tip when we started. Rankings are your starting blocks to draw clicks, so they are deserving of all of the attention they get (as long as you don’t stop there).
Here’s how to build on your rankings–no matter where you land on the SERP.
Top keywords: In sites like SpyFu and similar tools, the keywords you rank for on the first page, that have mid- to high-search volume, are considered “top keywords.”
Once you identify them, double down. As long as those keywords match your niche, keep nurturing the content that ranks.
How do you identify them?
Type your domain into the SpyFu search bar.
Scroll down to the “Top Keywords” section on the left, and click through to view the full list.
The automatic sort will give you the “most valuable” keywords that we expect to deliver the most clicks from the most competitive terms.
Rankings that are almost there: Don’t let off the gas. Keywords that rank at positions 11, 12, and 13 are one small jump away from nearly exponential growth in clicks. The difference you see in landing on the first page will justify your additional work on these keywords.
How do you identify them?
Type your domain into the SpyFu search bar.
Scroll down to the “Top Keywords” section on the left, and click through to view the full list.
Use the keyword filter to adjust the range of the rank, setting from 11 to 16. This will filter the list to those that rank at the top half of the second page.
Your Biggest Opportunities:
Considering that the theme of this workflow is about moving yourself up the page, here's a great target. Our Recon report identifies the keywords with a combination of room for growth and a potentially strong payoff once you improve your rankings.
How do you identify them?
Log in to SpyFu and choose the Reports tab.
Click “New SEO Report”
Enter your own domain when asked for a domain for the report.
When the results come back, there will be two sections that can help you identify your best areas for improvement:
Keywords with the Biggest Opportunities
Keyword Groups with the Most Potential
Weekly Rankings
Your most important keywords deserve a more frequent look at their rankings and how they shift from week to week. You can set up multiple groups of keywords in the MySpyFu personal project manager, and you will get weekly updates of how your domain ranked on each one. Updates apply to keyword groups, too.
Clicks/Organic Traffic
Rankings are the start, but not all rankings carry the same weight.
Clicks from a direct search (branded term) are navigational. People knew about you and just needed a reminder of how to get there.
If you are looking to SEO as a business builder/traffic generator, then put more weight in the clicks that you get from informational searches. This is where someone discovers you when they wouldn’t have know about your site before.
Conversions
Your conversion measurements require internal analytics. Whether you are measuring product sales, email signups, or whitepaper downloads, those things are measured by your in-house systems. Ultimately your conversion is the target.
Finally, follow through in your content
It takes strong content to rank high, so you’re on the right track to maximizing your clicks.
Once the visitor gets to your content (whether it’s your site, an article, a podcast, etc.) you still have to deliver on the promise. What were they hoping to find when they clicked? Improve the relevance of your content to truly get the most out of that click that you fought so hard to earn.
Just like with a paid ad, the first step is getting people TO your page. The next is getting them to act. The benefit is that high-quality content works on the back-end by actually converting visitors, and it pays off with drawing more people to your site as Google tends to reward quality pages