SEO

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Refreshing outdated content is another low-hanging fruit tactic with high returns.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

Content Strategy and Link Building for Google AI Overviews

As search evolves, the rise of AI overviews in Google results brings fresh opportunities for visibility, but the fundamentals remain the same. While it’s not about optimizing content solely for AI, a strong SEO foundation enhances your brand’s presence across all search experiences, including AI-driven results. 

The essentials of SEO—well-structured, unique, and genuinely helpful content—continue to be the bedrock of visibility. However, as digital marketers aiming to build authority and relevance, we can consider AI Overviews as an additional layer that increases brand exposure. 

AI overviews offer the chance for brands to surface in a different light, adding an opportunity for expanded visibility in high-quality content spaces.

Content Strategy and Link Building for Google AI Overviews

Developing a solid link building and content strategy is pivotal to achieving the right positioning in AI overviews. The key to success is consistently updating content to match user intent, answering complex queries, and designing content that fulfills user needs.

1. Monitor SERP Features for Target Keywords

Monitoring SERP features helps you stay competitive. Some queries now feature AI-generated summaries, videos, images, and other multimedia elements. For example, Google may display a “People Also Ask” section, AI-generated overviews, and even knowledge panels for specific keywords.

Tools like Ahrefs, and SEMRush can identify which keywords yield SERP features, like AI overviews, that may benefit from multimedia content additions. This data enables you to adjust your content by incorporating structured data, images, or videos.

2. Creating High-Quality, User-Focused Content with EEAT

High-quality content, especially when structured for user engagement, enhances your visibility potential across search types. Google’s EEAT (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) are critical for ranking in AI-driven search.

Focus on creating original perspectives that add value (information gain), grounded in genuine expertise and real-life experience. Google’s AI algorithms identify rehashed content and can now better recognize authentic, informative resources.

Showcase your expertise by weaving in firsthand examples, studies, and insights that differentiate your content from competitors. Content that draws from expertise is more likely to rank and appear in AI-driven summaries.

3. Deep Dive into Audience Research and Core Topics

In-depth audience research is non-negotiable in aligning content with user intent and needs. Google’s ranking systems now prioritize content relevant to a website’s primary purpose. Publishing content that strays from core topics risks diminishing your authority in Google’s view.

Create audience personas to understand what your audience values. Develop content around these insights to ensure they resonate and fulfill their needs.

Ensure each piece of content addresses your audience’s pain points and challenges. If your site focuses on digital marketing, avoid publishing unrelated topics, as Google now distinguishes unrelated content sections within a site.

Google recently noted a shift in visibility for sections of sites like “Fortune Recommends” and “Forbes Advisor” due to disjointed content that wasn’t fully aligned with each site’s primary theme.

4. Link Building That Complements Core SEO

Backlinks remain crucial for reinforcing authority, yet placement has become more strategic in AI. Here’s how to build links that serve both organic search and AI-driven summaries:

• Be strategic in placing links on entities and sites you want to be topically associated with your brand. 
• Consider sentiments in the context of the page's/content's overall message. Ensure they promote a more positive perception of your product/service and do not work against your offerings. 
• Be on the lookout for links/resources/where-to-buy pages that can demonstrate your products' POV as they get included in the lists pages.
• Make quality control part of your process when checking the entire context of the page/content from which you aim to get links. Not only is it relevant to your site, but it must also help improve the association toward solving problems your prospective customers are experiencing. 

5. Optimize Content for Complex Queries

With generative AI allowing users to ask intricate questions in one search, optimizing for query chains—consecutive follow-up questions—is more effective than targeting isolated keywords. By addressing connected topics, your content appears more thorough and relevant.

Write comprehensive guides that anticipate follow-up questions. For instance, if you write about “digital communication skills for HR,” also consider covering “how digital skills benefit talent development” or “common challenges HR faces in digital communication.”

By structuring content with linked topics, you increase the chances of AI identifying it as useful for multi-layered searches.

6. Publish Short-Form Videos Directly on Your Site with Structured Data

While platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are popular for short-form video content, don’t overlook the value of hosting these videos on your website. Tools like Wistia can enhance video quality and user experience on your site. 

By embedding videos directly, you keep traffic on your domain and have better control over the content’s SEO impact. Additionally, mark up your videos with structured data to make them more discoverable in Google Search and eligible for inclusion in AI overviews.

Embed product demos, explainer videos, or testimonials directly on relevant landing pages and use structured data to signal their relevance to Google. This can improve visibility in both standard search results and AI-driven summaries.

7. Enhance Sales Pages with FAQs and FUQs (Frequently Unanswered Questions)

Adding FAQs to your sales pages immediately answers common customer questions, enhancing user experience and optimizing for AI overviews. FUQs, or frequently unanswered questions, address nuanced or lesser-known queries, showcasing your in-depth expertise and understanding of the customer journey.

Identify customer pain points and unique questions that arise during the sales process. Incorporate FAQs and FUQs into your content strategy to address these needs proactively. This thoughtful design positions your content as a comprehensive, reliable source in current search results and evolving AI landscapes.

Positioning Content for Future Search Landscapes

Incorporating these practices prepares your content for success in an evolving SEO landscape, where AI-driven summaries may soon become more prominent. By blending traditional SEO with AI-conscious content practices, you build an adaptable content strategy that remains resilient in a changing environment.

The essentials—quality content, strategic link building, and user-focused design—create a content approach that thrives in AI and traditional search results, establishing your brand as a trusted source.

by Venchito Tampon

SEO-Driven Content Marketing For Startups

Create content that ranks and converts. 

SEO-driven content marketing aims to rank pages and engage users so that they will convert. 

While most SEOs vouch for just rankings, I do believe that content marketing activities should impact the business goals and objectives ─ and any marketing activity, for that matter.

In this guide, we’ll explore tips on utilizing content marketing for startups to drive SEO impact to your website. 

1. Turn Audience Research to Content Clusters

Start by understanding the needs, interests, and challenges. This can involve creating a buyer persona that speaks to the demographic and psychographics of your target audience. Getting fresh data from your management team can also help pinpoint who your customers really are.

Create your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), which describes your business' ideal customer based on common attributes like demographics, behavior patterns, needs, and pain points.

Then, use tools like Sparktoro or Ahrefs to discover topics and questions your ideal customers might be searching for to find solutions.

When looking for topics, ensure you tap into each stage of the marketing funnel (Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action), or in the digital marketing realm, we have BOFU (bottom of the funnel), MOFU (middle of the funnel), and TOFU (top of the funnel). 

Even if it’s not a product/service page you’re publishing, you can still convert customers on your pages in the TOFU funnel (informational pages) as long as you deliver solutions to their needs and contextually place a solid call to action on your landing pages.  

Here are a few steps to building effective topic clusters:

1. Identify Core Topics: Identify 3-5 broad topics that align with your startup’s services, products, or expertise. These will become your pillar pages.
2. Conduct Keyword Research: Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google’s Keyword Planner to find relevant keywords related to your core topics with significant search volume. Pro Tip: Do not skip zero-volume keywords that must be part of your content marketing base. 
3. Create Subtopics: Based on the keyword research, identify subtopics that address various facets of the core topic. 
4. Link Your Content: Interlink your pillar page with cluster pages. Internal linking helps search engines better understand your priority pages and improves the crawling and indexation of your new pages. 

For instance, If your startup offers project management software, your pillar topic could be "Project Management Techniques". Cluster pages could cover subtopics like "Agile Methodology”, "Kanban vs. Scrum”, and "Project Management Tools for Startups”.

Publishing these product-led linkable assets can also lead to more link building opportunities while driving new users to your product or service. 

2. Enlarge Your Publishing Base Through People-First Content 

People-first content is about creating valuable, relevant, and high-utility content that meets the needs and expectations of your intended audience. 

We’ll examine these four critical components of people-first content (Jason Acidre’s framework). 

Needs Met

“Needs Met” is about how well your content matches the searcher’s intent and fulfills their expectations. Here’s how to ensure that your content meets this criterion: 

• Intent Matching: Ensure your helpful content answers the exact queries your audience is searching for. Use tools like Search Console to identify common keywords and adjust your content to fulfill informational or commercial intent. Avoid misleading click-bait titles that don’t deliver on their promises.
• Target a Single Topic & Intent: Focus on a single topic, providing clear and concise answers without overwhelming the reader. Avoid burying essential information in long, multi-topic content. Consider using separate pages for subtopics with significant search volume.
• Direct Answers to Main Queries: Present direct answers prominently above the fold using formats like Quick Answer Boxes, Key Takeaways, or Summaries. This approach caters to users seeking quick information, especially on mobile devices.
• Remove Fluff Content: Keep your writing concise and relevant, eliminating off-topic, redundant, or overly wordy sections to maintain clarity and improve user experience.

For instance, in every blog post I write for our corporate training blog at Rainmakers, I determine the user intent of each search query. Asking the question, “What do they want to know first?” helped me prioritize points (and put them above the fold) so it would immediately satisfy the user's needs. 

Here’s a recent post on “What is leadership to you?” The searchers would likely be students and learning and development practitioners who are looking for different schools of thought on the subject.

I delivered what they needed, based on my expertise on the subject:

Another example is my coffee shop blog. We meet users’ needs by providing direct answers to certain questions (e.g., how much does it cost to start a coffee shop?). 

Now, this brings us to the next component of creating people-first content: 

EEAT (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)

By now, we should have known this populating all over SEO blogs. The ability to integrate EEAT into your content matters ─ here are few tips to leverage this: 

• Comprehensive Author Details: Showcase the author's experience, expertise, education, achievements, and social media links to showcase their credibility (authorship SEO). A detailed bio builds trust and authority.
• Proper Sourcing & Citations: Cite reputable sources to demonstrate that your content is research-based and factual, enhancing trustworthiness and depth.
• Including Credible Stats or Expert Quotes: Incorporating statistics or expert quotes can boost content visibility and authority by 30-40%, providing evidence-based information that supports your claims.
• Accuracy of Information: Ensure your content is accurate, especially for industries like YMYL (Your Money, Your Life). Update facts and data regularly to maintain integrity and ethical standards.
• Editorial Process, Disclaimer, and/or Disclosure Statements: Include disclaimers, disclosures, or editorial policies to add transparency, authenticity, and clarity about the content’s intentions or potential biases.

Ahrefs has solidified its brand marketing by incorporating credible authors and experts to contribute insights and quotes to its blog posts, boosting the pages’ credibility and search performance. 

Originality & Information Gain

Google emphasizes originality and information gain to combat the issue of copycat content. The goal is to provide unique insights that add value beyond existing content. Here’s how to enhance originality:

1. First-Hand Knowledge: Share personal experiences, unique insights, or innovative ideas that address unmet needs. This will set your content apart and position your brand as an expert, potentially earning hard-to-replicate DR 90 backlinks.
2. Original Research & Data: Conduct your research or gather data through surveys, experiments, or analysis. If you can't collect data, source it from public databases and present it from a unique angle to offer fresh insights.
3. Provide Self-Sourced Images: Use original visuals like screenshots, branded infographics, product photos, or personal experience images to add authenticity and relatability. This makes your content more trustworthy and distinctive.

When incorporating experiences into your content, include what made you feel, see, touch, and taste ─ these are five senses only a person with actual experience on the topic can share in the content.

Give Depth To Your Content Assets

One of the WOSCON 2024 speakers, Kasra Dash, mentioned during the panel Q&A that building topical authority on a website requires publishing more pages within a relevant subject and achieving depth through topics that haven’t been published elsewhere. 

Identify subtopics that could be expounded into single blog posts. Based on your expertise and experience, think of topics you can add more depth by giving more information on the “how-to” or new insights from real-world practice. 

You can also publish internal data studies that align with topics to validate and support points. This is also an additional content asset that attracts new links to your page.

3. Build a Link-Earning Flywheel

Link building through manual outreach is becoming more difficult these days. Asking for inclusion or requesting a link requires newly contributed content and a solid reason for linking.

This is one primary reason why building a link-earning flywheel on your site gives you leverage to earn passive links without the constant need to do email outreach. 

Here are a couple of ways to build a link-earning flywheel:

• Invest in ranking content assets for informational queries other publishers are searching for when looking for additional resources to reference in their content work (e.g., how-to, statistics, data, etc.).
• Provide direct answers to posts’ FAQs and industry questions to get featured snippets. 
• Create high-utility content like tools, calculators, or quizzes that intently help solve your target customers' problems. 
• Engage in thought leadership. Participate in webinars, podcasts, or industry forums to establish authority in your space and attract publications that will link to your insights or expertise. 

4. Brand Positioning via Content Promotion

Contributing content to other sites in your industry positions your brand from a place of authority, as you provide new insights that can add to the body of knowledge in your industry.

Here are ways to position your brand through content promotion:

• Promote your content assets by linking to them from content you distribute on other blogs (i.e. guest posts).
• Create media lists for your digital PR campaign and build relationships with journalists and publishers. If you receive requests and notifications for expert quotes, have your client respond to them (as they’re likely to get a positive response). 
• Use Ahrefs to find pages with many links (>100). Create something better and pitch as a replacement. 

This link-earning flywheel generates momentum over time, as quality content attracts new backlinks, and these linking pages also attract links on their own.

5. Maximize Rankings for Low-Hanging Fruits

Low-hanging fruit are keywords that are easier to rank for and can quickly increase traffic to your site. Optimizing content for these keywords can help your startup gain quick wins and establish your brand authority to tackle more competitive search terms. 

Here’s how to identify and leverage low-hanging keywords: 

• Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush, and Google Search Console to find keywords you’re already ranking for but aren’t in the top positions (e.g. position 5 to 20). These are opportunities where a little optimization efforts can significantly improve rankings. 
• Target low-competitive long-tail keywords. For instance, you can write more specific topics like “best solo travel destinations in Southeast Asia” or “affordable family vacation spots in Europe” instead of targeting “travel destinations.”
• Optimize and upgrade existing content to include low-hanging keywords (discovered through Search Console or Ahrefs). Update headings, meta descriptions, image alt text, and internal links to reflect the targeted terms. 

This strategy works because it allows your startup to achieve quicker SEO results. As you gain more authority and organic visibility, it helps you dominate other terms, mainly commercial queries, which brings additional revenue. 

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