My First SEO strategy - What's next?

[michealbren]

I have recently embarked on an SEO strategy for my website. I've done a lot of reading and researching here on Moz and on search engine land and have got a good idea of how to build a basic SEO strategy. My own expertise is in PPC, so keyword strategy came easy to me. I rebuilt my website and focused on the on page SEO with every single page, this has brought really great results - instantly. For some of my chosen keywords I have gone from not being ranked to being on Google's first page - within a couple of days of my new website going live, for other's I've gone from being outside the top 50 to being ranked in the top 50, so my on page SEO has really strengthened my position and I now understand how important it is as a ranking factor.

I've also started to create content on a regular basis with 2 or 3 new blogs being uploaded each week, the blogs are based around my businesses main target market's - PPC, Web design, digital marketing etc. These blogs have a lot of links out to good websites, EG "to learn about adwords check out the adwords fundamentals course on lynda.com" and useful info like that.

I also signed up to whitespark for citation idea's so have started adding my site to all relevant directory suggestions that it gives me.

So my question is this, after seeing great early results because of my on page SEO, what are my next steps to increase my rankings?

And more specifically how do I use Moz to help increase my ranking?

During the week, I've started using Open site explorer to find my competitors backlinks, should I now spend my time trawling through these links to find opportunities to add links for my website where I can. Is this a good thing to be doing at this stage?

Anything else that I should be doing now to capitalise on my early results please let me know what it is and please tell me how to take full advantage of Moz to gain a better ranking.

I appreciate all insight!

[UmarKhan]

Hey Michael,

Welcome to the SEO World.. I really like you analytical approach to learn and implementing things perfectly.

Coming to your question, it is always a good approach to keep an eye on competitor's backlinks and make efforts to get the links on same places. I assume you're a MOZ Pro subscriber, start using Fresh Web Explorer also to keep an eye on every mention your competitors are getting and try to create something more meaningful assets so that you can easily target all those sites.

Remember, link building is on going approach and you don't need to rely only on competitor's backlinks. Get in touch with bloggers or influencers who belong to your industry (you may use Followerwonk for that) and try to obtain links in a way that it's become extremely difficult for your competitors to copy you.

Contrary to PPC, SEO takes time and you have to be patient to see things going in your way.

Use Moz analytics smartly and do let us know if you like to ask more specific questions.

Good luck!

Umar
Umar

[michealbren]

Thanks very much for responding Umar and the info provided.

I'd love if you could elaborate a bit more on how exactly would I use Followerwonk and fresh web explorer to benefit my SEO strategy?

[CleverPhD]

Followerwonk will help you find influencers that may give you an opportunity to collaborate on additional content, spread your social media influence or even have those followers notice what you are doing and link to your site.

More here: https://moz.com/help/guides/followerwonk

Fresh web explorer is kind of like Google Alerts.  You set it up to look for keywords that you want to build content around and your brand name.  If there is some content that you see published on one of your keywords, reach out to the site and see if they would add you.  If a site mentions your website but does not link to it, then ask for a link.

More here: <a title="https://moz.com/help/guides/research-tools/fresh-web-explorer" target="_blank">https://moz.com/help/guides/research-tools/fresh-web-explorer</a>

[MoosaHemani]

Here are some good advices from Umar and Clever PhD but here is one thing I would like to add here. When looking in to competitor’s link, always keep in mind that not every link your competitor is getting is a good link. You have to make a decision if the link is good or not.

When build link on any website, make sure that the website is a good website for your business: http://searchengineland.com/5-metrics-to-quickly-assess-site-quality-when-link-building-87028 this guide will certainly help you doing that.

Build few but quality links instead of building every link that your competitor’s are building.

Hope this helps…

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Michael,

If you are meeting face-to-face with customers and are targeting a local market, then Local SEO would also be a pool to wade into. Here's a good place to start, unless your business model is virtual/national only:

https://moz.com/learn/local

Wishing you tons of luck!