SEO

Luxury Travel SEO: How to Attract High-Net-Worth Travelers

Unlike mainstream travel, luxury travel SEO is uniquely challenging. 

The target audience caters to a small, specific group —high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) with distinct search behaviors who expect highly personalized curated experiences. In other words, it requires finesse to satisfy them with content. 

To make things even more challenging, many keywords you need to rank for are contested by international giants like TripAdvisor, Expedia, Booking.com, travel agent sites, and other serious competitors. 

Topping it off, publishing generic travel content is a sure-fail to engage your audience, given the discerning tastes of HNWIs. 

We’ve worked with a few luxury travel SEO brands, and in this guide, we’ll share tips on how you can navigate challenges associated with this niche industry if you have a client of yours. 

1. Target Zero to Low Search Volume but Highly Conversion-Intent Keywords

Luxury travel-related keywords typically have low search volumes, but their profitability makes them worth pursuing. 

For instance, phrases like:

• “Private yacht charters Maldives”
• “Luxury safari lodges in Africa”
• “Exclusive ski resorts in Switzerland”

Those keywords are particular but command strong purchase intent. While it may not be a “best practice SEO” to pursue low-search-volume keywords, let alone zero-volume ones, if you know your customers are searching for them, it’s time to incorporate this into your keyword research strategy. 

For example, you can see in the above image that “private yacht charter Maldives” only has an estimated 0 to 10 search volume, but it is worth ranking given its conversion potential. A quick look at the ranking pages reveals that some pages rank as competitors' homepages, with few curated lists of private charts and product listing pages. 

If your site can create a product listing page targeting these long-tail keywords (much like what you do for an eCommerce SEO) or a roundup page, you’ll have chances of ranking for this type of keyword. 

If you’re doing client SEO, starting from a medium-to-high authority is typical when working with luxury travel SEO - as they have acquired passive links and built substantial brand share in their own rights. 

Given that, it’s a good thing to maximize their existing domain authority to quickly rank for long-tail keywords and gain momentum through multiple ranking for variant keywords with topic clusters and dedicated landing pages. 

2. Create Content That Resonates with the Luxury Market

Content marketing for luxury travel SEO starts with aligning the brand voice, style, and tone with every content asset you create. You can’t simply create content assets that don’t speak your brand’s language, as this will not represent your client well. 

Invest first in understanding your client's business — this will be a cornerstone for navigating the content marketing journey. 

Here are examples of content themes you could generate on your site: 

• Behind-the-scenes access to luxury destinations, such as private islands or hidden vineyards.
• Profiles of premium services, like Michelin-starred dining or bespoke spa treatments (these could also yield organic traffic if they have dedicated pages to rank for each keyphrase). 
• Tailored itineraries for unique travel preferences, such as family-friendly safaris or romantic getaways.

A few good examples are “5 Private Islands in the Caribbean You Can Rent” and “The Travellers’ Guide to Exclusive Culinary Tours in Tuscany.” 

Publishing these thematic content helps bring potential customers closer to their purchasing decisions. Balance this informational type well to create a content moat in your niche. 

Rank for “Best Luxury [X]” Lists

The pages on the best X lists are among the rankable content types. They not only assist potential customers who are still deciding what solution provider to choose but can also help reveal differentiated products/services in a certain category, helping customers make the ideal choice. 

Examples of this are​​ “best luxury hotels in Paris” and “top private safari lodges in Kenya”. 

Organically, you should be included in these “best luxury X” lists if you’re the best in a particular area of expertise. If you’re good at what you do, publishers will likely see you best fit to include in their roundups. Usually, it's easy for a niche like luxury travel to determine the best based on reviews, recognitions, and award-giving bodies. Conversely, creating your own roundups is a way to show up in those lists. 

Remember that people searching for the best luxury X lists are likely seeking unbiased, curated recommendations. Not beating your competitors is ethical and helps you build brand authority. It also makes your product/service more premium than others on the list, and it’s a matter of how well you showcase the actual value of your offering. 

Ranking the best luxury lists can help prepare your site to show up in AI search engines like Gemini and ChatGPT, as most luxury travelers may be using AI search to get quick answers. 

Enhance Copywriting for Affluent Audiences

Copywriting 101 in luxury travel SEO involves addressing customers' pain points, using aspirational language, and providing vivid descriptions. Your copy must serve your HNWI and UHNWI audience. 

One way to do that is to highlight exclusivity and prestige (e.g., “Unparalleled privacy and bespoke services designed for your ultimate comfort”). Remember that people at the highest status level want privacy. 

In addition, you can input words that evoke sensory imagery (e.g., “Experience the serenity of your private overwater villa with panoramic ocean views”). A more detailed description of what your place looks like or what makes your private charter worth their investment makes it easy for them to see the entire experience (or at least a glimpse).

3. Leverage Enterprise Link Building and Corporate Partnerships

One upside for well-known luxury brands is how easy it is to execute enterprise link building. Being prominent in the offline world makes getting attention (done wisely) easier for creative, linkable assets to attract passive backlinks. 

If you’re starting in luxury brand client SEO, use link analysis tools like Ahrefs to examine your site’s backlink profile quickly.

Analyze the pages currently getting the most inbound links and the types of pages linked to (destination pages of the client’s site). This way, you’ll know exactly what’s already working and what’s worth doubling efforts on.

For instance, given the corporate relationships, you’ll find many corporate brands organically linked to your client’s site. 

Of the many advantages that luxury companies have, one of my favorites is having strong relationships with powerful, influential, non-competing entities that have monster websites of their own. Leveraging partnerships with them will bring financial breakthroughs and synergy for content marketing and link building. Collaborating on thought leadership campaigns and product placement is a great way to maximize the value of a partnership and enjoy the SEO and branding benefits. 

Another way to capture partnership leverage is to write high-utility content pieces for luxury blogs or publications. The social proof accompanied by being a luxury brand (and its association with other entities) makes it easier for your team to pitch publishers (that others in the space don’t get easy access to). 

Recognizable Thought Leaders 

Thought leaders' advice is constantly sought and rewarded with everything from praise to financial compensation. If you run a luxury travel brand owned by a major enterprise, your company and some of its employees have a good chance of being recognized as thought leaders in your industry.

Leverage thought leadership even more by translating it into content and campaigns to get you more traffic and links. Work closely with product marketing and ask them about hot trends in your business. 

Get their thoughts on customer needs and wants. Then, you should be able to list a set of themes and topics that will drive your content and target the right people. 

Effective enterprise link builders and content developers can create whitepapers, blog posts, videos, and SlideShare presentations from collaborations between the content team, product marketing teams, product development departments, and your sales force.

Tool Creation

When it comes to linkable assets, we often think of blog posts, infographics, and videos—one of the areas that we need to remember about as a potential link magnet is good functionality. You see, people don’t go online just to find information and to interact with people via social media platforms. We also go online to find solutions to our problems. 

One of the easiest ways to provide a solution and, in return, get the right types of backlinks is by providing a tool that users can enjoy on your webpage or download and install right on their devices.

You’ll see several tools in the travel space, such as trip cost estimator, but nothing close to helping high-net-worth clients with luxury travel. 

One tool idea that you can make is an interactive tool that allows users to estimate the cost of their dream luxury vacation based on their preferences, such as destination, duration, accommodation level (5-star resorts, private villas, etc.), transportation mode (private jets, first-class flights, yachts), dining preferences (Michelin-starred restaurants, private chefs), and special experiences (hot air balloon rides, safari tours, private island access).

By doing so, you’re creating a unique tool that can earn backlinks your competitors can’t easily replicate with their own link building campaigns.

4. Build High Authority Backlinks with Digital PR

The constraint most link builders and digital PR specialists have is in the story template - what types of stories are aligned to the brand that also resonates highly with top-tier publishers and journalists?

Luxury travel brands have a natural advantage when it comes to digital PR. If you’re working with well-known brands, you must monitor every brand story your company is shelling out to keep building high-authority backlinks to your site.

Here are a few content themes that really work effectively in the digital PR space:

• Experts reveal whether you should [topic]
• The most popular movies to [topic]
• The best [topic] songs
• best/worst/tools [topic]
• [industry] expert explains how often [topic]
• why/why not you should [topic]

Let’s have quick examples. For a private jet brand, here are some ideas we can generate:

• Experts reveal whether you should charter or buy a private jet
• The most popular movies to watch while flying on a private jet
• The best travel songs to play on your private jet
• The worst myths about private jets (debunked by experts)
• Aviation expert explains how often private jets are the best option for business
• Why you should choose a private jet over first-class flights
• The most popular action movies featuring private jets
• The best private jet apps to plan your next trip
• Luxury travel expert explains how often you should fly private instead of commercial
• Why not all private jets are created equal (what you need to know before booking)
• The best luxury lifestyle songs for a private jet playlist
• Sustainability expert explains how often private jets impact the environment
• The most popular movies to inspire your private jet dreams
• Top tools to enhance your private jet experience
• Why you should rent a private jet for special events
• Experts reveal whether private jets are more eco-friendly than commercial flights
• The list goes on, but remember, it all boils down to executing the idea of pitching journalists your content or story. 

This ideation tool can help you generate insights for your digital PR campaign.

Simply plug in your domain, and it will help generate a list of creative ideas you can start working on best on what you think is relevant and best fit.

Reactive PR with Celebrities

A good majority of affluent clients in the travel niche are celebrities. While confidentiality is essential in a digital PR campaign, you can monitor and react to celebrity news through expert commentaries—we call, “reactive PR”.

Reactive PR, often called newsjacking, is a public relations strategy in which brands or businesses respond in real-time to trending news, events, or public discussions to gain media attention and engage their audience. This approach can immensely speed up the process of obtaining DR or DA90 backlinks, as most publishers are hungry for news stories and additional commentaries during this stage. 

However, reactive PR requires speed and creativity. So, you must keep up with the latest news but remain relevant to your client’s brand.

5. Create a Seamless Website UX/UI

Even the best SEO strategies will only succeed if your website’s user experience meets the expectations of luxury travelers. A poorly designed site undermines the perception of quality and exclusivity.

This is a no-brainer for the luxury travel industry. You want to invest in premium web design that reflects your brand’s luxury ethos through a clean, sophisticated layout, intuitive navigation, high-quality visuals, and interactive features like 360-degree virtual tours.

Your website should be mobile-friendly, as many affluent travelers conduct searches on mobile devices. 

6. Hyper-Local Campaigns for Easy Link Building

The local scene in link building is more advantageous in acquiring low-hanging fruits in SEO. The more local your approach to digital PR and other link building strategies, the easier and higher likelihood you’ll increase your site’s ability to get links.

Given that local publications often have less competition for stories and are more likely to cover niche angles, you can tap into different local cities depending on the locations of your target audience. 

For example, a “Top 10 Most Luxurious Airports in Europe” campaign can be pitched to local newspapers in cities that house these airports, or a “Best Luxury Cycling Routes in France” could attract interest from French regional travel sites. This approach brings more upsides if you’re a global luxury travel brand, as you can target different cities in different countries (now, having multiple angles you can make for a single story).  

You can also check out this guide on how to build backlinks in a very small niche. 

Luxury Demands Finesse—So Does Your SEO

You are not dealing with a typical customer, so your luxury travel SEO should reflect the exclusivity and quality of your brand. Accompanying these results are your keyword rankings and higher search conversions. 

Implementing these strategies, you will do what your brand deserves and what you hope to be known for in the travel space. 

by Venchito Tampon

SEO Retainer Guide: À La Carte or Full-Scale Link Building?

Do you need SEO every month?

Short answer: Yes.

Long Answer: You need consistent SEO work required to adapt and sustain results. And even if you’ve maintained top search rankings for your head terms, there’s still room for growth for any type of business. 

SEO retainer is a service agreement where an agency or consultant provides ongoing SEO support and implementation for a monthly fee.

I’ve seen marketing agencies and companies realize more today than before how continuous work is necessary to sustain SEO results, given the ever-changing search landscape, surprising core and other Google algorithm updates, and new players in every industry trying to dominate Google’s SERPs. 

Of course, getting buy-in from in-house stakeholders (Head of SEO, marketing manager, and VPs of Marketing) requires arm chests and tools of persuasion, managing expectations, and in-depth expertise of your offer. 

But compared to years ago, selling and hiring agencies for monthly SEO retainers who can do the job is much simpler. 

In this guide, I won’t cover full-packaged SEO retainers, which includes technical SEO, on-page SEO audit, content asset creation, analysis, and reporting. Still, I’ll go deep into one essential SEO retainer facet: link building retainers. 

The Value of Link Building Retainers

You’ve seen this everywhere—link building agencies selling one-time-off packages, a few to a couple of links in a single project, with guarantees of quick results. In a nutshell, it’s like link building - selling pancakes.

While it’s true that there are certain times when link building is needed or when having few links to certain pages boosts their individual rankings, treating link building like quick magic for your website is not a good thing.

For the most part, competitive brands still engage in long-term link building, as they see it not just as another SEO activity but as part of a robust branding campaign.

Viewing link building from a sustainable perspective keeps your focus on creating a flywheel effect on your search traffic as you see incremental (and even exponential) impact on one of your pages and on the total link equity and brand strength of your website. 

À La Carte vs. Full Link Building Retainers: What’s Typically Included?

If you’re looking to hire a link building agency or consultant, you’ll probably choose between these two types of link building retainers: à la carte and full link-building retainer.

À La Carte Link Building Services

This type of monthly retainer allows clients to purchase specific link building services or packages at the pace of their needs. It’s usually a one-time or occasional purchase, ideal for businesses with very limited budgets. 

If you’re getting à la carte link building service, you should have a particular link quantity and quality in mind—the number of links and predefined metrics for links (e.g., Ahrefs DR30+, Majestic Trust Flow 25..), as well as the type of links, whether it’s a guest post, niche edits, local citations, or a few foundational links.

In this case, the client specifies the pages and target keywords the links should support. The link building agency must provide all this information, and at the end of the timeframe agreed to deliver, it would show up on reports, including the exact link placement for verification.

A very straightforward way to purchase a service. You’ll have full control over the preferences of both the quantity and quality of links you want to build. 

However, the downside of an à la carte link building service is the lack of ongoing strategy and optimization. As you’ll only get plain deliverables of links, you can’t expect the link building agency you’re partnering with to provide you with the next optimization efforts. In other words, you only get the execution part, not the strategy service. 

This requires you to fully strategize the more granular details of your link building campaign, aligning it with your entire SEO campaign before hiring an à la carte link building agency. 

I won’t recommend this type of service if you don’t have a solid running SEO team and an SEO strategy at the start. You may be building tons of links, but if they don’t align and integrate well with your top-eye-view SEO strategy, they will only make a minimal impact. 

Another drawback of getting à la carte link building services is the minimal support you can expect from an agency or consultant. It’s a piece-by-piece type of work where service providers hand over a list of live links, and that’s pretty much what you can expect from them.

Full Link Building Retainers

Full-scale link building retainers involve comprehensive strategy development and execution to manage the entire link acquisition process.

If you’ve been doing link building, you know that it involves link strategy development, link research (link prospecting), link qualification and approval, content creation, and outreach campaign development —all of which are critical to the success of the backlink campaign. 

Partnering with full link building retainers isn’t cheap. After all, the immense value you’ll get is hands-off tasks from strategy to execution, which require hours of time and mind work to execute correctly. 

This type of link building retainer is more appealing than à la carte retainers, as it includes a free consultation in addition to the link building package itself. 

For example, SharpRocket is a full-scale link building retainer covering everything from strategy development to relationship management. In detail, we start with competitor backlink analysis and link gap analysis to see how many quality links we have to build to dominate the top 3 spots for your target keywords (assuming we already have target pages to build links to).

Then, we determine the appropriate link types for the client’s business. If it’s a local client, we focus on local links and citations. If it’s a B2B SaaS, we focus on tech and other vertically related links, publishing, and news sites. 

Other agencies build generic, one-size-fits-all links to all their clients - which diminishes the link value. Remember that certain link types have been working effectively for the ranking sites. You just need to figure out what those are and how to incorporate them into your link building campaign. 

You can check out our link building services to learn more about how full-scale link building services work. 

The best thing about hiring full-scale link building retainers is the trust you can build upon the agency’s expertise and processes. From their years (even decades) of SEO experience, they’ve dealt with different industries and types of clients, and they could identify similar patterns that could work for your website - customizing the entire strategy and execution so you can gain top-of-the-bar results.  

Hiring a full-scale link building agency is beneficial from both financial and relationship perspectives for big agencies and enterprise link building campaigns. Given that it takes 6 or 12 months to onboard a new service provider, having someone continue doing the link building work could adjust to the agile movements of the SEO campaign. 

How to Choose the Right SEO (Link Building) Retainer

1. Evaluate Their Backlink Profile 

It’s easy for an agency to say they’re building high-quality backlinks, but unless you see what kind of quality they’re talking about, you shouldn’t rely on their lip service. 

One way to examine this even before inquiring about their services is to look at their agency’s site backlink profile. 

If you have link analysis tools like Ahrefs, simply plug in their agency website and have a quick assessment of their current link profile. See what types of backlinks they’re building. Are the links mostly organic or paid? Do they build editorial or contextual backlinks? From which industry do they focus on link acquisition? Is it relevant to the market?

Obviously, this isn’t 100% perfect criteria for determining whether they’re the right fit. But if they know how to grow their own SEO agency by building more quality links to their agency website, it definitely attests to how well they can take care of you as their prospective client - for the least part. 

2. Ask For Samples of Links and Social Proofs

I’ve observed this a common request from prospective clients in our UK link-building agency—they usually request samples of links and clients we’ve worked with (ones we can disclose to the public).

The reason is plain simple. If they can provide you with the exact link placements they acquired for a specific client, you could tangibly assess their link types and quality. And it should be based on either topical relevance, link metrics (e.g., Ahrefs DR30+), trust, and thematic flow. 

It would be a plus, of course, if they could show you case studies from clients within your industry, as the types of links they would typically tackle would be similar to yours. 

When it comes to social proof, be careful. Some case studies of ther agencies are copy-cat or plain screenshots of organic traffic reports using SEO tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush. They don’t mind getting other agencies’ social proof. 

3. Understand How They Measure Results

Like any other SEO campaign (and any business initiative), you should measure results. Evaluating progress (or regress) helps marketers improve their work through adjustments.

When you meet with your prospective SEO link building retainer, confirm they could align their work with your SEO and business objectives. Ask, what types of metrics do they look at? Will they provide performance reports? 

These questions help you understand their exact deliverables and approach to link building. If it’s all about links to rankings without consideration of how your brand will be perceived in the market, think through it.

4. Ask Who Will Handle Your Account

It’s a nightmare for companies to see SEO agencies today only working directly with account managers. That’s not to say it’s not a good communication model and way of collaboration for both parties.

However, if you can speak and work directly with both an account manager and SEO strategies or are fortunate enough to even talk to the CEO who does the strategy work, who will relay the progress of your campaign, you will have more confidence and trust in the results you can expect from them. 

5. Relay Confidentiality (If Applicable)

If you work for big corporations with strict branding and legal requirements, remember to tell your partnered link building agency about these. They should be aware of any confidentiality concerns before the link building campaign even starts.

This way, you avoid running issues in sharing data that shouldn’t be disclosed as the campaign runs. 

Make The Right Choice For SEO (Link Building) Retainers

These tips will increase your chances of partnering with the correct link building agency or consultant for monthly link building retainers. As every investment needs to see ROI, deciding on your non-negotiables is critical when picking the right outsourcing firm for your business. 

by Venchito Tampon

SEO for the Google Maps Pack: Rank Better Locally

The Google Maps Pack occupies prime real estate on search results pages. It gets more clicks than your site will receive from ranking top spots for local organic search listings, making it an imperative area of local search optimization that marketers must take advantage of.

Even if you rank #1 for organic search listings, it’s still an excellent addition to your arsenal to dominate Google Maps Pack.

I’ve used it to rank one of my local businesses—a coffee shop in Bulacan and our franchise in Taguig—and have been driving nearby customers, making it one of the important channels to drive more physical visits to our stores. 

Here are some tips for leveraging SEO for the Google Maps Pack. 

1. Claim Your Google Business Profile (GBP)

If your brand is famous in the industry and many customers visit your location, you may have a Google Business Profile visible on a search. You just need to claim it as its rightful owner.

Otherwise, if the store hasn’t opened yet, like in our case, weeks before our store opening, we already created our Google Business Profile for our upcoming branch. 

Simply go to the Google Business Profile and follow the verification process. They usually will send you a code by mail or phone. Once verified, you can edit your Google Business Profile and optimize it for local searches. 

Once you have claimed your Google Business Profile, fill out all the necessary details, including your Business Name, Address, and Phone Number. Spend as much time as necessary adding other important details in every information field. 

The goal here is to provide as much context about your business as possible for Google to recognize it and to provide business information for your potential visitors. 

2. Ask for Customer Reviews

Getting legitimate customer reviews helps Google recognize the authenticity of your brand and gives potential customers a glimpse of your business’s customer experience.

Whether the reviews are positive or negative, what matters most are actual reviews from your customers. 

Here’s how to encourage customers to review your GBP:

Politely ask customers for reviews after a sale or service. Train your front liners (customer service or sales team) to request a GBP review from every satisfied customer. It doesn’t hurt to ask. 

Send follow-up emails or texts with a direct link to your GBP review page. This could be through Viber or any other digital channel. 

Another effective way to get reviews is incentivizing customers to review your product or service. For instance, during my honeymoon with my wife, we had a relaxing spa in Bangkok, Thailand. After the spa service, we were asked to scan a QR code, incentivizing us for the review - getting 50% off for the next visit. 

You can also apply the same strategy to acquire new reviews for your GBP. Display signs in your physical location, encouraging people to give feedback. 

Pro Tip: Respond to every review, whether positive or negative. This shows engagement and increases trust signals with future customers, showing you value every customer experience.

3. Choose the Primary Category That Aligns With What Customers Search

Google allows you to select a primary category and up to 9 secondary categories. Choosing the right primary category will enable you to appear first on Google Map Packs for specific search queries. 

For instance, if you own a Bakery, choose “Bakery” over “Restaurant.” Match your primary category to your business’s core offerings.

Next, the second categories allow you to target additional search queries. For example, in the given bakery example, you could add “Catering” or “Dessert shop” as secondary categories to broaden your reach, enabling you to dominate Google Map Packs for any of those search queries. 

4. Achieve NAP Consistency

NAP consistency refers to having the same Name, Address, and Phone Number across all online platforms and websites. Getting this right helps build your business's legitimacy in the eyes of Google. 

By using tools like BrightLocal, you can automate monitoring of NAP across local citations and directories, helping you edit those profiles to match your business's exact NAP. 

5. Get Local Citations

Part of doing link building for local sites is getting as many local citations as possible for your website. Create business profiles on Yellow Pages, LinkedIn, Yelp, and local business directories, as well as social media profiles such as Meta Page and LinkedIn Page. 

Make sure NAP is also consistent across these local profiles. 

You can use Whitespark to find more citation opportunities and manage the consistency of NAP details across these platforms. 

6. Publish Localized Content

Increase the frequency and quality of localized content you publish on your site. Targeting localized keywords (e.g., "coffee shop in Bulacan") can help you dominate in more localized rankings. 

Part of localized publishing is the ability to use local language and references that resonate well with your audience. So, for instance, if you want to write an article about “Top Coffee Shops in Manila,” you must include the specific places and addresses of these coffee stores while giving people exact directions.

If you ever visit the place, you may also recommend your favorite beverages. Adding personal insights and experiences could increase user engagement and enhance the helpfulness of your content. 

7. Set Driving Locations to Your Business Address

Set driving directions to your business on Google Maps to make it easy for customers to find you. This is an underrated technique for climbing rankings on Google Map Packs.

As your potential customers use the directions on Google Maps, it generates positive signals for your GBP listing and improves more of its visibility.

How to promote driving directions:

• Share your location links on social media. Include it when you’re writing captions to entice your followers to use Google Maps when finding directions to your store. 
• Include your Google Maps and Waze links in email campaigns.
• Add “Find Us on Google Maps” to your website. Make it visible on the homepage, footer, or header. 

8. Get More Engagements With Photos

Legitimate businesses have actual photos of their physical store, of their customers, and of their customer experience.

Upload images of your store, products, and team regularly to your Google Business Profile. You can also use geotagged photos to improve location relevance. 

Tip: Ask your front-line staff to encourage customers to upload photos and reviews to your profile after visiting your business.

9. Infuse Attributes: Highlight Your Business’s Key Details

Attributes include features like wheelchair accessibility, vegetarian options, kid-friendly environments, and outdoor seating. These help your customers make the purchase decision, as they have nuances and preferences before visiting a store. For example, some customers would want to know if they can bring their pets to the store (so keyphrases like “pet friendly coffee shop” would be more likely their search keywords). 

Navigate to the “Info” section in your GBP and select applicable attributes. Highlighting attributes not only improves your profile’s completeness but also appeals to niche audiences with a variety of preferences.

10. Upload New Offers to Your GBP

Regularly updating your Google Business Profile with offers and promotions keeps it dynamic and engaging. 

For instance, we upload limited-time discounts, seasonal sales, and new product launches to our Google Business Profile at Hills & Valleys Cafe.

It is suitable for local rankings and keeps our existing customers updated with our latest store campaigns, which would keep them visiting more often. 

Be Intentional in Ranking Your Google Maps Pack 

Maintaining a Google Business Profile may be an underrated strategy for some, but if taken seriously, it could drive more search visibility and foot traffic to your stores.

As more people use Google to search for nearby stores for their daily needs, you’ll likely attract new customers organically if you rank for Google Maps Pack, without spending a single dime on advertising. 

by Venchito Tampon

6 Low-Hanging Fruit SEO Tactics: A Practical Guide to Quick Wins

SEO is a dog-eat-dog mentality, where one competitor can smash rankings in Google’s SERPs within weeks of implementation. 

Building momentum requires seeing quick wins from investing your resources into the right opportunities. It builds your SEO confidence and gets more acceptance from stakeholders. 

That’s where low hanging fruit SEO comes in. 

Low-hanging fruits in SEO represent opportunities that require minimal effort but deliver significant impact. 

Getting quick wins for your client's SEO is a major part of the strategy to get more buy-in for your client’s SEO investment and sustainably deliver results by managing expectations early on.

You can improve search rankings, traffic, and overall website performance by identifying and acting on these low-hanging fruit SEO opportunities. 

In this guide, I’ll give 6 actionable low-hanging SEO fruits to solidify your first quick wins. 

1. Optimize for Low-Hanging Keywords

You can significantly impact search traffic by moving a page ranking in position 6 to the top 3 spots. Instead of waiting for a new page to be visible on search, it’s always easier to move a page that’s been winning already. 

Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush to find keywords where your pages rank below 5th position - position 6 to 20. By moving these pages to climb their SERP rankings, you’ll expect to see an increase in search traffic. 

For instance, if your collection page ranks in position 15 for "violin for beginners”, optimizing it with richer content and better on-page SEO can push it to the top 3. 

2. Update Existing Content to Ensure Relevance 

Refreshing outdated content is another low-hanging fruit tactic with high returns. 

We experience SERP volatility more today than in previous years, with new SERP features being added to the mix and rankings pages shuffled to match user intent—so it’s a must to keep existing content updated to meet users’ needs. 

Go through each existing piece of content. Prioritize the ones that are performing but have had declining traffic in the past six months. 

When updating each piece of content, ask, "Is the information on this page still aligned with my target readers' current interests, challenges, and needs, and does it offer fresh, actionable insights to keep them engaged?"

Content updates require the author's expertise to see clearly which sections of the page need a revamp and what particular sections or new sets of questions to answer to add new information to the industry's body of knowledge. 

For instance, we published “how to start a coffee shop in the Philippines” a year ago, and I was looking for new sections to add or revise based on my observations in the industry. These are samples of our new draft sections:

• How to hire and train baristas—with sections to localize job applications and interviews to hire staff who live near the stores (an advantage point given the state of traffic in the Philippines).
• How to generate new ideas for menu selections and beverages—To keep up with consumers' changing demands and tastes, a new coffee shop owner must know how to offer a new product selection that best correlates to the current taste of their target customers.
• How to destress and prevent burnout for cafe owners—Cafe owners are concerned about getting burned out as they run their day-to-day operations. So, it’s important to add this section to help them maintain their mental health and sustainably operate their business. 

These new sections didn’t come from ChatGPT answers or regurgitated content from other coffee blogs. They are entirely based on my experience as a cafe business owner.

When updating content assets, you can interview experts and industry thought leaders for new strategies, insights, and research data to solidify the quality and ensure the relevance of your content piece (e.g. see what Ahrefs did with their list of link building strategies - they get fresh insights from well-known SEO practitioners).

3. Turn Unlinked Mentions into Links 

Unlinked brand mentions are mentions of your business or products on external sites that don’t link to your site. The bigger the site and the more products and content it churns out, the more unlinked brand mentions you can find. 

We’ve been using BrandMentions and Ahrefs’ Alerts to find branded mentions and get monthly alerts quickly. While, of course, there are other tools for this functionality, the best thing about these two tools is that they have a wider search database you can trust for more branded mentions. 

A couple of branded mentions you should convert into links:

• Editorial content that mentions your brand, product, or content 
• Press page and coverage of your expertise and thought leadership - mentioning names of authors, leaders, and personalities in your organization (best if you can publish author pages before you send emails so publishers can simply link to the author page).
• Mention on links/resource pages or “where to buy pages” with no embedded links. 

Do link outreach to site owners or publishers of pages that mention your site and ask them for backlinks. This link building strategy has a higher conversion rate than cold link request outreach campaigns. 

4. Don’t Neglect Long Tail Keywords 

The advice to go after high-volume, commercial keywords requires an understanding of the current context of the SEO campaign. 

If you have a site with significantly higher domain authority, you can publish new relevant content and expect it to appear on Google’s SERPs quickly. 

However, you can’t expect a relatively new site to dominate head terms very early on with no existing rankings from its other pages. 

To get early quick wins, target long tail keywords (keywords with four or more words) that have longer search strings than head terms but are easier to rank with content optimized with on-page SEO fundamentals. 

I find two ways helpful in looking for long-tail keywords that are easier to rank, assuming you’ve got content that satisfies user needs.

1. Use Ahrefs to find long tail keywords from a head term or topic you’re eyeing to rank for with your website. 

2. Find new long-tail keywords your pages can rank for. 

Go to your top pages and see which content captures rankings for long-tail keywords sitting below page 1.

With a few optimizations, such as adding new sections to rank for these long-tail keywords, your content would likely increase its search traffic. 

5. Publish More MOFU and TOFU Content

You don’t get sustainable rankings by expecting all product pages to rank for their commercial keywords. 

One holistic content strategy is to publish informational content for keywords that lead people to their purchasing decisions. 

With 15% of total searchers being new, content publishing offers an ocean of opportunities. 

Start creating content to tackle comparative keywords such as “vs” or “best” phrases, which often have low competition but high traffic opportunities. 

For instance, creating a blog post titled "Best Winter Jackets vs. Coats: What’s Right for You?" targets users seeking guidance while naturally incorporating relevant keywords. 

Build content that answers common user questions, showcases expertise, and drives product or service page traffic. Linking these posts to collection and product pages strengthens the structure of your website and distributes link equity across pages. 

Whenever you publish new content, ensure it links to related existing pages. This helps users navigate your site and signals search engines about the relationships between pages.

6. Collaborate with Active Authors 

One overlooked strategy in content publishing and link building is expert collaboration. 

Creating helpful content that satisfies users with new information takes a lot of work on the back end (research) and front-end publishing (editing). By getting new insights from other authors who are also practitioners in their industries, you solidify the credibility of your content piece, which increases its acceptance by your target readers. 

If you don’t have any authors in mind, start reaching out to them by first populating a list of active authors in your space. You can use Ahrefs to find these active authors. 

Another way is to publish “accepting guest post” or “become a contributor” pages to attract publishers to contact you for collaboration.

Obviously, not everyone is a good candidate, but getting one or two who surely know what they’re talking about is worthwhile for a content collaboration. 

Fire Bullets, Then Cannonballs

SEO, in offense, must be a combination of firing bullets and cannonballs. While aiming for greater impact with high-intensive efforts, you are shooting for results with bullets—low-hanging fruits SEO. This enables you to build a solid momentum of an SEO campaign.

While everyone waits for significant results from their high-intensity work, you get consistent, quick wins with your bullets. There are small things that you can add to your SEO arsenal, giving you a head-start advantage in your competition. 

by Venchito Tampon

SEO For Dentists: Get More Patients with Local SEO Tactics

A robust online presence is essential for dental practices to attract new patients. While many dentists are familiar with optimizing their Google Business Profile and listing on local directories, there are often overlooked strategies that can take your SEO to the next level. 

The fundamentals in technical SEO, on-page SEO, and link building always constitute a robust SEO campaign. Add a few things to keep your dental website optimized and on top of its game. 

This guide will cover the basics of SEO for dentists and some actionable steps you should consider. 

1. Create Direct Landing Pages for Dental Service Keywords

One of the most impactful yet underutilized SEO strategies is creating individual pages for each dental service you offer. Each page should target specific keywords such as “dental fillings” or “laser teeth whitening”. 

You can’t expect to rank for these keywords if you don’t create a page for the service and optimize the keyword for it. 

Optimizing these pages with local and service-specific keywords helps search engines better understand your offerings and improve the chances of climbing spots in Google’s SERPs. 

Arrange the main categories and services underneath them in a precise, logical manner, from main categories such as Orthodontics and General Dentistry to their specific services like Oral Prophylaxis and Porcelain Veneers. 

Here’s a quick look at the hierarchy of dental services. You can change it based on your current offerings and local context. 

GENERAL DENTISTRY

• Airflow
• Dental Fillings
• Oral Prophylaxis

COSMETIC DENTISTRY

• Composite or Direct Veneers
• Laser Teeth Whitening
• Porcelain Veneers
• Zirconia Veneers

ORTHODONTICS

• Braces
• Invisalign

ORAL SURGERY

• Dental Implant
• Oral Surgery

PEDIATRIC DENTISTRY

• Dental Sealant
• Fluoride Treatment

PROSTHODONTICS

• Complete Dentures
• Dental Bridge
• Dental Crowns
• Removable Partial Dentures

ENDODONTICS

• Root Canal Treatment

PERIODONTICS

• Tooth Scaling and Root Planning

DIGITAL X-RAYS

• Digital Dental X-ray

Publish landing pages with detailed information about the dental service. Include FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) to address pressing concerns and help potential customers make better decisions about choosing your service (this helps boost the conversion rates for those money pages). 

Use internal linking to guide users to related content, assist their navigation experience, and increase their time on your site. Linking related content encourages potential clients to explore your brand further. For instance, if you published the service page on Prosthodontics, link to more specific pages such as Dental Crowns and Dental Bridges. 

The better your internal linking strategy, the more page authority it distributes across pages. 

2. Apply Author Bio Best Practices 

Dentistry falls under the category of "Your Money or Your Life" (YMYL) topics, which refer to subjects that can significantly impact someone’s health, finances, or safety. This means that Google applies stricter guidelines when evaluating content in the field. 

Your website must showcase experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trust (E-E-A-T) to rank well for YMYL topics. 

One way to exhibit expertise is to create individual author bios, which can help boost your website's overall brand credibility and SEO performance. Giving users and search engines an idea of the publishers behind every content helps add more positive elements that make your website deserve to rank for its target keywords. 

Whether you opt to write blog content as a dentist or hire a medical professional to contribute content for your brand, here are some useful tips to optimize your author bio:

• Include relevant academic degrees, certifications, and professional awards your dentist author has received. Mention the specific institutions and organizations to build more trust with potential patients. 
• Use professional headshots similar to those you consistently use across social media platforms, such as the profile photo on LinkedIn. This will create a more recognizable personal brand in the online space. 
• Publish a detailed About Us Page. It must include credentials and achievements about your dental practice. Use schema markup to help search engines correctly display your information.
• Link to social media accounts such as Linkedin to help patients verify your qualifications. 

3. Optimize Content for Long-Tail Keywords

When starting an SEO campaign, optimizing pages for high-traffic keywords like “dentist near me” is vital as this could bring significant search traffic. 

However, if your website is new, it is best to compete for long-tail keywords that are more specific and less competitive. Examples are “Teeth whitening treatment cost in London” or “How often should I get a dental cleaning?” 

This enables your newly optimized website to acquire initial traffic by ranking in less time for long-tail keywords. 

It is best to incorporate these long-tail keywords naturally throughout your helpful content.

Here are some examples of dental-related long-tail keywords: 

• Best family dentist near [city]
• Affordable cosmetic dentistry in [city]
• Emergency dental care for a broken tooth near me
• How to find a good pediatric dentist in [city]
• Teeth whitening treatment cost in [city]
• Dental implants specialist in [city]
• Pain-free root canal treatment near [city]
• Invisalign vs braces cost in [city]
• How often should I get a dental cleaning
• Gum disease treatment options for seniors
• What to do for a knocked-out tooth emergency
• Sedation dentistry for dental anxiety in [city]
• Best dentist for veneers in [city]
• What to expect during a dental implant consultation
• Holistic dental care for sensitive teeth

4. Encourage Patients to Leave Reviews

Patient reviews are critical in building trust with potential patients. As Google considers the quality of reviews a significant local ranking factor for local businesses, having quality reviews can help your site dominate the top ranking spots. 

You can display printables in your office with a QR code to encourage patient feedback. Others fashionably use physical marketing materials to help patients share their experiences online. 

5. Optimize Google Business Profile 

Google Business Profile creation is one of the most fundamental initiatives to help your dental website rank for Google Map Packs. 

Fill out all the essential details in the profile to maximize its full potential. A properly optimized profile must include:

• Name, phone number, and address also being placed on your dental site (make sure you consistently place just one NAP - Name, Phone Number, and Address).
• Accurate business hours, contact information, and appointment links
• High-quality images of your clinic, staff, and services

Regularly update your GBP with new promotions, events, and services. All these updates help engage your audience and give Google more content to crawl, which can positively impact your local rankings. 

6. Be Visible in Comparative Pages

Getting coverage on publications that rank well in Google’s SERPs for comparative inquiries, like “best orthodontists in London”, could help position your brand strongly online. 

We’ve had several names for this type of strategy, as some SEOs have coined it Barnacle SEO, Second-Hand Search Traffic, or Parasite SEO. The goal in any of these is to dominate the top page of SERPs by ranking for comparative pages where you can be appropriately included as a service provider. 

Being visible on these ranking comparative pages can help increase brand share and recall for searchers looking for the best dental clinic in town. 

7. Be Included in Local and Healthcare Directories

While getting links from local and niche directories is often misunderstood as merely a link building technique, their value in driving exposure for a dental brand is crucial. 

Most users today consider directories a source of options when finding a particular service. They seek niche directories to increase their options, compare service providers, and find the one that will serve their needs. 

Start creating and optimizing profiles for healthcare directories like ZocDoc and HealthGrades, as these sites often rank highly on Google’s SERPs. 

Drive More Patients to Your Dental Practice

SEO for dentists requires a holistic approach that goes beyond just setting up a Google Business Profile. 

By applying the strategies that strongly demonstrate EEAT to help your site foster trust and credibility for search engines and users, you can build a sustainable flow of new patients who trust your practice. 

by Venchito Tampon

SEO For Roofers: How to Rank Higher and Get More Clients

The marketing success of a roofing business no longer hinges solely on word-of-mouth referrals. While those remain vital in the process, you’ll have to continuously consider investing in other channels, such as search engine optimization, to attract new customers for your roofing business.

Imagine a homeowner urgently needs roof repair. A quick search for “roofer New Jersey” finds a list of local roofing companies. Now, if your business doesn’t appear in local map packs and organic listings, you’re missing out on potential clients who are ready to hire.

In this quick guide, I’ll show you how to do SEO for roofers to climb Google’s SERPs for your local keywords and get the desired number of leads for your local business.

1. Achieve NAP Consistency

NAP stands for your business name, address, and phone number. These are the most important elements of a local SEO campaign. With a business name and address, Google can identify your brand and associate it directly with its geographic location. The phone number helps validate that your business is actually located in the place where you mention it through its area code.

Display NAP sitewide in every page’s header or footer and include them on your About Us Page.

If you have several roofing branches, the best approach is to create a location or branches page and state each location’s NAP. Use a local phone number with country and area code so Google can easily identify your location’s business as legitimate.

2. Claim Your Google Business Profile

Google Business is where businesses and other organizations create listings to help enhance their visibility on the search platform.

Creating your own Google Business Profile enables you to add your business details visibly and allows your business to appear on Google Maps Pack.

Fill in all the requested details as you create your Google Business Profile. Make sure you use the same NAP in detail. Don’t forget to complete every detail about your business, including selecting the proper business category and subcategory and your office’s opening hours.

It is best to upload original photos of your roofing service and physical facility. This helps send more positive signals to Google and lets your customers quickly find your business.

Get genuine reviews to increase the chances of climbing your website for map pack rankings. You can offer some incentives after every roofing service and simply hand them a Google Review QR code to get real honest feedback so they can help you improve your service.

3. Get Listed on Comparative Roofers’ Listings

People use different search queries to find roofing services, such as “best roofing services in New York”. During this purchasing decision stage, they compare different local services, determine both pros and cons through reviews and testimonials, and decide on the best roofing company that could provide the most value for their needs.

Aim to be listed in these listicles hosted on publications that rank well for the comparative terms. This link building method will position your brand visibility in these different places and help you capture an organic search share ready to purchase your services.

Dominating Google’s SERPs for these various investigative keywords by being visible on top-ranking pages helps you position your brand as a go-to source for roofing services.

You can use tools like Ahrefs to find pages or opportunities that feature your top roofing competitors in your local area but don’t include your site.

Reach out for link inclusion. Incentivize by offering free roofing service.

Another way to utilize this product-led link building strategy is to submit content with a list of niche segment services to a publication of choice (e.g., gutter installation services in New Jersey). This is a new angle of content asset they’re likely to publish and promote as it involves a new service category.

4. Build Local Links

Backlinks from sites that target geographic locations can strongly influence your site’s rankings on local organic search results (and could positively affect Google Local Map Packs).

The more quality links you can acquire from sites in your target location, the more local relevance your site will have. These sites do not have to be hosted in the preferred area, but you should aim to build backlinks from sites representing other businesses associated with the place.

Diversify your link types when pursuing backlinks for local SEO for your roofing business. A few kinds you should aim to build:

• Local directories
• Local chambers of commerce
• Local bloggers
• Local publications and news sites
• Local schools and universities

Ahrefs has a “Best by Links” feature that allows you to quickly spot the best link opportunities on websites you’re trying to reverse engineer.

Based on our decade of link building experience as a link building agency, getting links from national and even international websites also helps elevate your pages’ rankings for local organic search listings. However, local links could bring immediate rankings that are better than their link counterparts.

5. Publish Localized Content

One of the best ways to build local links isn’t just through manual SEO outreach but also through consistent publishing of content assets that target your customers’ pain points and challenges. This type of content passively attracts natural links that could help improve the rankings of both your informational content and service pages.

Start by identifying potential topics to cover in Ahrefs’ Question feature. Answer these questions with blog posts.

Optimize content by including keywords in the meta title, meta description, and first sentence. Sprinkle relevant local entities on the page to increase local relevance.

Final Thoughts

Ranking on both Google Map Pack and local organic search listings should be a top priority for any roofing business, as it drives quality leads that they can’t easily find elsewhere.

Being visible on the Map Packs, for instance, is quite underrated but considered to be one of the top search engine optimization techniques for guaranteeing new customers in your neighborhood and boosting your online visibility.

by Venchito Tampon