Very Quick SEO Tip - Getting More Of What Works

Now this will only work if you track "goals" in Google Analytics so it'll be mostly relevant for merchants, however, affiliates that have the sort of "click to reveal" redirects can also find this useful.

I know I harp on about how writing loads of fresh content is great for increasing your traffic levels. But we don't always have the time to do that. Sometimes its better just to make more of what you've already got.

Basically, we all know that we get visits that are few and far between but yet convert at very high rates. The idea is that you try and get more of these visits.

There are two reasons why you get traffic in this manner. Either there are actually few searches for those terms (long tail) or you're not ranking as high as others and they're getting the majority of the traffic, whilst some do venture to pages 2,3,4,5 of the SERPS and click on your listing.

So here's how to do it. Go to Google Analytics, and the click get your list of keywords from "non paid" sources (paid will skew things). Then sort by conversion rate for your chosen goal. Export these into a CSV and then open in Notepad or the superb Textpad.

At the top you'll probably have some keywords that give 1 visit but convert at 100% start there and work your way down. For this you'll need two browsers open, I have a multi-screen set up so its easy.

In both browsers you'll have Google open. Pick each keyword and in one of them check your rankings. If you're not on the first page of the SERPS then copy that keyphrase and then do site:www.yoursite.com keyphrase in broadmatch. This will show you the pages that you are most likely to achieve rankings for that keyphrase and then make some recommended changes. At this early stage I'd just focus on looking at your title tags and H1's as you'll probably have a better return on the time spent. If you wanted to be more overt then you can take a note of the PR (or clicks from homepage) and then work out if you'd like to "move" it closer to your homepage or high PR page.

When you're doing this, have another instance of Analytics open and use it to track each page that you're changing and spot which keyphrases are already delivering traffic and make sure your changes don't negate any traffic you're already getting.

Obviously if you're ranked at the top then don't make any changes (unless you spot something obvious). If you're ranked in the bottom half of the page then you'll need to be less overt with your changes.

Work down the list until you've done about 20,30. Your brain will go numb at about 30.

Keep a note of the pages your changing. After a week or two go back into Google Analytics and select "Content" then "Landing pages" then filter on the page urls that you've changed and see if there's been an upward trend in traffic. You can also select to view the "keywords" that have started to send you traffic.

Now you can start to take things to the next level and go through those keywords that you didn't spot before and see where you've ranked and then decide if you want to amend your on-page SEO or create new pages.

Whatever you do, keep a note of what you're changing, what has worked and what hasn't. But I'd certainly look to include active keywords such as "best", "buy", "cheap", "cheapest" etc - but definitely don't stuff things in.

I hope that helps. If you think this "strategy" could be improved, add a comment.