HubShout | Online Marketing Solutions

I was having an interesting discussion with a client about keyword / ranking strategies and thought I'd post it here.

Specifically, when you are doing regular blog posts, what is your process? Here is mine:

1) Identify a long-tail keyword I don't currently have a ranking.

2) Make sure the keyword is relevant to my website / business

3) Make sure I have something valueable to say about the topic

4) Generate great content (blog, video, white paper, humor, controversy, technical information, how-to, training, politics)

5) Tune the content on the new page (new blog post). Check density, H1s, Alts, Title. Add images to make it really compelling. Put a few onsite links (with good anchor) and a few offsite links (co-citation) to high-authority websites.

6) Put the new long-tail keyword in the SERP tracker as a "Keyword of interest" to see how it performs

7) Apply off-site SEO. Bookmark, Social Media, Comments, Guest blog posts, etc, etc - until you have a top 3 ranking on page 1.

Then rinse and repeat

Exactly. Chad and I do this 4 times per week. Rankings improving every day as Google eats up the yummy content.

HI Adam, When you do this do you write the long tail keyword verbatim or write in a way where it's readable?

Some long tail keywords would not read well or make sense if written as they were searched

Regarding Hubshouts keyword strategy vs what Google is looking for: Hubshout packages focus on a certain number of keywords. If we focus on 6 keywords and do that for 6 months wouldnt that look suspicious to Google since it looks for a more natural link profile?

In a normal link profile you wouldn't typically see 6 keywords show up exactly x number of times per month.

A few things...

1) We've had a VERY good track record ranking with our current strategy. Because we use unique content, and compelling content, the backlinks pass great juice.... We also rotate anchors and drop in non-branded when it makes more sense - achieving great diversity. Finally, the co-citation we use is to high-authority / relevant links that are very helpful for the reader. As you know, the co-citation support links are researched for every campaign to be customized for the writing topic - again - not something we've seen done by any other reseller.

2) All that being said, we believe in deep linking very much and plan to continually improve our ability to direct content marketing and backlinks to valuable inner pages... Stay tuned for system updates in the near future expanding these capabilities.

Makes sense. Was just wondering if HS packages should be based on the number of links vs the number of keywords. I've heard and read that google places less weight on the actual anchor text and more on the quality (source) of the link. Also that the title tags determine what keywords a particular page ranks for. So doesn't matter if the anchor text is nathan smith or office space in austin as long as the link source is strong it helps build the domain authority of a website.

Thoughts?

Actually, our prices are currently based on neither links nor keywords... With our strong focus on unique, and valuable, end-user-focused content marketing, we charge based on the amount of content you want created. Because we involve a research team, co-citation links and an attempt to syndicate content to appropriate outlets, it all about how much content you want to create. There is obviously a relationship. The more great content you put out, the more buzz you create, the more backlinks, mentions and citations you achieve - therefore the better your rankings.

But we recommend that people who still shop on "Number of links" and "Number of submissions" need to update their thinking to recognize our "Post-Penguin realities." Quality matters more than quantity.

Title Tags - Yes, they are considered by Google when deciding if a page should rank, but don't over-emphasize it. All factors matter, and should be congruent. For example, you want the page on your website that is ABOUT "Office space" should have strong content for that topic (compelling and engaging). The title tag should represent the keyword that the page is really about. Other pages on the site should link to this page (onsite links) with that same anchor text. And your offsite work (backlinks, social media) should leave a footprint that this is the "Office Space" page on my website.... All the ranking factors are congruent here - pointing to the best possible content about this subject... That's your best recipe for rankings... A true marriage between onsite and offsite factors because BOTH are critical for top rankings on a competitive keyword.

Hope that helps. Post more questions! :-)

Hi Adam, Great post. I'm a newbie here. Is this the strategy that you use in our packages? Do you post on our clients' blog pages? I was under the impression you just wrote an article, sent that out to article sites etc. and bookmarked them. I would be VERY impressed if the strategy you just mentioned is included in our packages. Thanks again.

Yes. We have this capability. We call the blog posts "Onsite SEO Content" and we sell them in several different bundles, but they are essentially what I described above. Most Account Managers build a separate campaign for the Onsite SEO Content work so they have more control over the keyword selection (per my outline above) - but we have a release coming up that will change the software and make that unnecessary.

The AM usually has a quick 20 minute phone call with you and the writer to get oriented and talk about the blogging style as this is where most of the ambiguity (and therefore complaints) come from. But our writers are a committed bunch and they always get it right after proper instructions.

So - YES - We have this. And I personally don't know why EVERYONE doesn't do it. It's the perfect marriage between off-site and on-site SEO.. There are 10 writers sitting in the Rochester Office waiting to take your orders!!! :-)