Help me sort out the SEO spaghetti in my head

[Deleted member 154900]

The more I read the more questions I have unanswered, maybe you can straighten me out?

We sell holidays in a coastal town in Spain

Keywords
I come up with 8 or so what I conciser to be the top search keywords, but when i run these through market samurai they have very low results, anything with a decent result is targeted in Spain and not the town, in fact I couldn't get a decent result with the town in the keyword,
90% of our customers come from us advertising on the big advertising portals who obviously have huge seo ££ to spend, of these customers 95% know the area and specifically targeted the town to come on holiday, so they used the town as the search criteria, very few people choose the town after a general search at the prices are higher, se we get people who know the area or who have been recommended it,
My logic is telling me to ignore the fact my keywords have very low density and go for a targeted audience albeit a small one, does this logic stack up?

Blog posting
I have been reading lately about the need to have quality articles written and used for blog posting, to get the backling and to hopefully push traffic through to your site, this is apposed to the more traditional blog posting to to just get a backlink,
So you have your SEO company beavering away for 10 hours a week and in this time they are doing about 100 submissions, I am guessing that in the same time they may do 10-15 quality article submissions, If we ignore the potential traffic being driven to your site, on a "get me to no 1" will the 10-15 top quality out weigh the 100 medium quality?

Content
Again I have read that quality relevant articles win the day, content is king
I recon that I can do about 60 pages and keep the content relevant, after that the only way I can see to keep adding more information will be to add a blog, but the blog can be more general news etc, and whilst it can be kept relevant to the are in reality very few people will ever go on it who are interested in booking a holiday, so it would be installed as an SEO tool, Is adding articles on a regular basis important enough to warrant the expense of keeping a blog up to date?

Steve

 

[Ninja Commerce]

Hi Steve.

In my experience, 10 hours of outreach link building (guest posting) should yield more like 3-5 links on average, but they should all be very high quality ones...

And if done right, yes, those 3-5 links are worth much more than the 100 'medium quality' links you speak of.

A single link in the right place can be a powerful thing...

Regarding the blog, yes, if you do it right it is definitely worth it. Other bloggers will be much more willing to link to a decent blog post rather than your home page, and this will look more natural to google too.

If you start a blog and don't commit, or don't keep the quality high enough, then it can be worse than not having a blog. So do it, but only when you are ready to do it justice.

Try looking at some other, popular travel blogs for ideas about what posts work well. There are many many travel blogs out there, but only a handful get 80% of the traffic...

Keywords:

Going for very niche keywords can work, but if you are only going to get a very small amount of traffic you need to make it count.

I would look at ways to improve your conversion rates to make sure that you maximise the value of each visitor.

I don't know exactly how much volume you are talking about, but the less volume of searches, the less effort you should spend getting your rankings...

Don't forget to factor in the relatively high value of each visitor though. How many visitors/conversions do you need each month to make the effort worthwhile?

 

[Deleted member 154900]

Thanks for the post,

If I have articles written for the blog (mine will look like an illiterate ex builder wrote them) am I OK to use these for the SEO people to do the guest posting ? I was thinking that I could get a 700 word article with a 250 word summery using the summery for the seo,

Also there will be about 40 articles used for the site, these are the ones that will be very relevant to the holidaymaker so will be in the structure of the site, is it OK to use these in the blog too?

 

[Alan]

@ThinkTraffic so 10 hours work = 3 decent links makes a link worth quite a lot (3 ish hours work per link, so that is £15 at indian rates and £75+ at UK rates per link).

What I find surprising is when people contact me to post a guest blog on one of my sites and I say sure, how much are you going to pay they don't even respond. Why is that?

 

[degadar]

Sounds like you need PPC to me and not SEO. Get to the top of the page and make some bookings.

SEO is great if you're happy to work many hours for nothing. It's many months before you'll see anything happening and Google will continue to remove organic listings from results and will keep changing things to stop your SEO working.

Do PPC, and do direct marketing and social networking. I think this will work for you.

 

[Deleted member 154900]

We do direct advertising and ppc, but I believe organic seo is obtainable, yes it will probably take a year and cost money, ppc is expensive some of the keywords where 3.50 per click and most where 1.00 per click, and effective direct advertising is also expensive,
I don't think organic will replace all the other advertising as people use these because of the branding, but I am hoping it may get to 60-40 in my favor,

Another important factor is that we also want to attract property owners as we sell their home as holidays for them, any good Google ranking is important in attracting new owners

 

[Gilesfuchs]

The more I read the more questions I have unanswered, maybe you can straighten me out?

We sell holidays in a coastal town in Spain

Keywords
I come up with 8 or so what I conciser to be the top search keywords, but when i run these through market samurai they have very low results, anything with a decent result is targeted in Spain and not the town, in fact I couldn't get a decent result with the town in the keyword,
90% of our customers come from us advertising on the big advertising portals who obviously have huge seo ££ to spend, of these customers 95% know the area and specifically targeted the town to come on holiday, so they used the town as the search criteria, very few people choose the town after a general search at the prices are higher, se we get people who know the area or who have been recommended it,
My logic is telling me to ignore the fact my keywords have very low density and go for a targeted audience albeit a small one, does this logic stack up?

So which kw tools are you using to value these measurements? I'm asking to know because, there is no magic tool indeed, but you can find the best relevant ones only by monitoring through your analytics.

Blog posting

I have been reading lately about the need to have quality articles written and used for blog posting, to get the backling and to hopefully push traffic through to your site, this is apposed to the more traditional blog posting to to just get a backlink,
So you have your SEO company beavering away for 10 hours a week and in this time they are doing about 100 submissions, I am guessing that in the same time they may do 10-15 quality article submissions, If we ignore the potential traffic being driven to your site, on a "get me to no 1" will the 10-15 top quality out weigh the 100 medium quality?

If it is me I would take decisions on how much I could spend money and time. Likewise, it depends whether or not you distribute to high quality or semi/low quality sites, they can all help in some or other terms...remember no body can control the amount of links you get from outside your site, so we don't have to worry about it much.

Content
Again I have read that quality relevant articles win the day, content is king
I recon that I can do about 60 pages and keep the content relevant, after that the only way I can see to keep adding more information will be to add a blog, but the blog can be more general news etc, and whilst it can be kept relevant to the are in reality very few people will ever go on it who are interested in booking a holiday, so it would be installed as an SEO tool, Is adding articles on a regular basis important enough to warrant the expense of keeping a blog up to date?

Steve

When you choose to publish content on your own site you certainly choose some hi-standards content rather on article sites. So spending on articles isn't equal to your spend on content for your blog posts.

 

[atladasmedia]

Content
Again I have read that quality relevant articles win the day, content is king
I recon that I can do about 60 pages and keep the content relevant, after that the only way I can see to keep adding more information will be to add a blog, but the blog can be more general news etc, and whilst it can be kept relevant to the are in reality very few people will ever go on it who are interested in booking a holiday, so it would be installed as an SEO tool, Is adding articles on a regular basis important enough to warrant the expense of keeping a blog up to date?
Steve

Noone really touched "Content" so I will focus my answer on that.

You are doing a very common mistake by saying content i assume you mean blog posts and articles. Content is also a video, infographic, a picture, a quiz, podcast, information guides etc. Do not do the mistake and start writting content before even having a content strategy or calendar layed out or limit yourself in only one type. You need the strategy and then you need to choose your channels for content distribution (most probably a multi-channel strategy). The channels will be selected based on what kind of content you plan to produce having always in mind your target audience.

 

[Websitehandyman]

I think the basic fact that people are not searching on the keywords and phases you use tells you that no amount of SEO with those words are going to help.

The can get the best SEO expert in the world to setup your site but if they do it on unrelated keywords and phases all the extra traffic it generates is worthless.

If you want to supliment the advertising you'll need to do then you'll need to move to the next level. That might well be defining the types of people who use your product or service. Define what other things interest them and then find ways to add that content to your site perhaps.

It's very difficult unless, for example, if you sell phones and you can include some research into something like what phones are popular with boybands.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

During the great content v links SEO debate, I wrote an article that said content or links http://www.oldwelshguy.co.uk/web-marketing/what-is-king-content-or-links

 

[Rich Best]

Hi there,

Do you do much social media work for your company? SEO is evolving day by day and Google's updates are far more focused on content and social media as a way of increasing SEO. Create a Facebook page, Twitter account, G+ page and LinkedIn page. They'll provide you with great social signals and will help better your SEO. SEO does take a very long time to get right and see the benefits but it all comes together in the end.

 

[Deleted member 154900]

I think the basic fact that people are not searching on the keywords and phases you use tells you that no amount of SEO with those words are going to help

I wrote an article that said

Everybody who comes to our town on holiday does so as the result of an internet search. so people are searching, its just that because the general holiday searches have big traffic it shows up on the analitics as a very poor keyword, OWG make a valid point about keywords, and this is what started all the confusion off,
Widening the criteria wont be a complete waste of time it just that the conversion rate will be very low and I am assuming that higher unique traffic is good for seo,

 

[tomkent45]

I don't think many people pay for posting an article with links anymore.

 

[Remote Resources]

I come up with 8 or so what I conciser to be the top search keywords, but when i run these through market samurai they have very low results,
Why do you consider them to be the top keywords? Have you used Google Keyword tool too?

anything with a decent result is targeted in Spain and not the town, in fact I couldn't get a decent result with the town in the keyword,
True, you don't know what you don't know. I went to La Pineda last year, but I didn't search for La Pineda when I went to book because I didn't know it existed. Have you thought about targeting the region instead? What kind of results do you get?


My logic is telling me to ignore the fact my keywords have very low density and go for a targeted audience albeit a small one, does this logic stack up?
Your logic is spot on here.


Blog posting
I have been reading lately about the need to have quality articles written and used for blog posting, to get the backling and to hopefully push traffic through to your site, this is apposed to the more traditional blog posting to to just get a backlink,
Blog posting for backlinks has completely changed over the last year, thanks to a couple of devastating algorithm changes from Google. The last thing you should be doing in the current climate is posting blogs and articles on those big networks. With some minor exceptions, generally the only way to get decent backlinks from blog posts NOT on your site is to guest blog on good quality travel blogs/sites. They may want to charge you for this unless they're desperate for good quality content.

So you have your SEO company beavering away for 10 hours a week and in this time they are doing about 100 submissions,
Are you suggesting you know someone who can write 100 medium quality articles in 10 hours? Send them my way - I have a job for them!

I am guessing that in the same time they may do 10-15 quality article submissions, If we ignore the potential traffic being driven to your site, on a "get me to no 1" will the 10-15 top quality out weigh the 100 medium quality?

Well-written, interesting and relevant content will always do better than 'medium quality' content written for SEO because you will attract browsers who actually want to read what you have written. They stay on your site longer and they convert better. Better quality articles are also more likely to convert readers into customers as you create trust and become an authority in your niche area. Basically, your on-site blog should be what makes you THE go-to place for holidays in your area and you can do it.

Content
Again I have read that quality relevant articles win the day, content is king

Yes, and increasingly more so each day. The emphasis is on the word quality, not content.
I recon that I can do about 60 pages and keep the content relevant, after that the only way I can see to keep adding more information will be to add a blog, but the blog can be more general news etc, and whilst it can be kept relevant to the are in reality very few people will ever go on it who are interested in booking a holiday, so it would be installed as an SEO tool, Is adding articles on a regular basis important enough to warrant the expense of keeping a blog up to date?
The benefits are potentially two-fold. On the one hand, Google sees all of this rich, quality content that people actually want to read appearing on your site, your site becomes more relevant for your search terms and it is pushed up the search engine results. You attract more visitors as a result and you then have a higher number of people to try and convert into customers.

 

[Remote Resources]

If I have articles written for the blog (mine will look like an illiterate ex builder wrote them) am I OK to use these for the SEO people to do the guest posting ? I was thinking that I could get a 700 word article with a 250 word summery using the summery for the seo,

Never duplicate content.

Also there will be about 40 articles used for the site, these are the ones that will be very relevant to the holidaymaker so will be in the structure of the site, is it OK to use these in the blog too?

Never duplicate content.

 

[FutureM]

I haven't read through everything on here but i thought id give my input.

I have never paid for any seo work on my site and it ranks top 5 for all of our targeted keywords.

I would say way more important than all those article submissions for niche websites is simply well written content including keywords, a html based website, link your pages to each other using the keyword you want to rank for, not overdoing it though.

Make sure your page titles are optimised as well as the other meta tags, i know people seem to say google takes no notice, but i know it doesn't do any harm.

Update quite often if poss.

I am no expert but after doing all these things my website overtook all of my competitors and even people we supply, so we have now started selling direct.

 

[Deleted member 154900]

Have you used Google Keyword tool too

I did, but again it showed poor results, anything decent went to at least the region

La Pineda last year, but I didn't search for La Pined

our area is expensive compared to the rest, it puts people off so entering a more general search term may well drive more traffic, but the conversion rate is going to be very low,

Are you suggesting you know someone who can write 100 medium quality articles in 10 hours?

they are just doing backlinks,
I will be putting a complete redesign live in a few weeks, I am presuming this will hit my rankings as only the homepage will have the same url, all the backlink work has been targeted at the homepage, all this is about developing a broader Seo tactic for when the site is done,

Never duplicate content.

the more I read the more this is becoming apparent

I have decided to go for the blog, I am going to go for an article a week and for it to be professionally written, this should take care of the content on the site,

I now need to maximize the exposure of the blog posts for seo,

 

[Remote Resources]

I did, but again it showed poor results, anything decent went to at least the region


our area is expensive compared to the rest, it puts people off so entering a more general search term may well drive more traffic, but the conversion rate is going to be very low,

they are just doing backlinks,
I will be putting a complete redesign live in a few weeks, I am presuming this will hit my rankings as only the homepage will have the same url, all the backlink work has been targeted at the homepage, all this is about developing a broader Seo tactic for when the site is done,


the more I read the more this is becoming apparent

I have decided to go for the blog, I am going to go for an article a week and for it to be professionally written, this should take care of the content on the site,

I now need to maximize the exposure of the blog posts for seo,

The right choice.
I offer a blog writing service so just DM me if you need any help with anything

 

[Deleted member 154900]

I would say way more important than all those article submissions for niche websites is simply well written content including keywords, a html based website, link your pages to each other using the keyword you want to rank for, not overdoing it though.

Our photography clubs website gets on the top of google for our area, with no seo work, but this is because there is no competition for that search,

although my keywords rank low there is a lot of competition for them, there are all the top holiday companies and well over 100 estate agents who throw bucket loads of ££ at SEO,

with just onsite seo i have no chance of ranking let alone getting anywhere near the top

 

[Deleted member 154900]

I offer a blog writing service so just PM me if you need any help with anything

Sorry you are about 3 hours too late :-( I have just taken someone on, if it doesn't work out I will drop you a PM

 

[Suzuki]

Hi Steve.

In my experience, 10 hours of outreach link building (guest posting) should yield more like 3-5 links on average, but they should all be very high quality ones...

By guest posting do you mean 'outright link purchases where I make the person taking the money write the post too?'

If you don't mean obvious link buying... a days work to average 3-5 high quality links only via guest posting seems awfully optimistic to me.

 

[Deleted member 154900]

You said never duplicate content,

how about images and video?