Every business and website owner dreams of putting a number first on Google. The reasons are clear: reaching that top spot (or one of the top three) could mean an increase in traffic to your site, visibility and marketing power to do your business before the competition.
Unfortunately, high levels do not always occur by accident. Even the most talented and experienced marketers strive to achieve a high standard of living. So how can a typical business owner hope to achieve this? While there is no way to completely guarantee high standards, this post will look at other strategies
Find underperforming keywords
Most SEOs preach to get your page two levels, and then try to push them to one page.
That sounds reasonable, but there are two reasons why this is not a good idea:
It is not always easy to improve levels with 10+ spots.
Just stopping on page 1 should not be your goal if you want more traffic.
This first point should be clearly defined. Think of it this way:
It’s easier to win a game from two goals in the back than ten behind.
For that second point, check out the standard CTR curve for the first few pages of Google results:
You can see the click rate decreases as you go down the list.
This means that if you can climb ranks in just one position from # 5 to # 4, you will see a significant increase in traffic rather than a ten-point increase from # 20 to # 10.
Not a small difference either!
If your keyword gets 10,000 searches per month, the numbers look like this:
Position # 5 → # 4 = +210 guests / month
Position # 20 → # 10 = +8 guests / month
SIDENOTE. This is based on standard CTR. In fact, this varies by keyword on the basis of keywords.
So, all you have to do is find the keywords you already put on the first page in positions # 2- # 10 and focus on just about this.
To do this, paste your domain into Ahrefs Site Explorer, go to the “Organic Keywords” report, and filter the report to show only the keywords you currently rank # 2-10.
Site Explorer> enter domain> Organic search> Organic keywords> add filter
Finally, as you want to see the “true” levels, remove all SERP features using the SERP feature filter. Just click the drop-down, hit “Uninstall,” and select “All features,” and check the “Link only to point” box.
Choose a keyword to rate it more
All keywords in this filtered individual report have already been ranked, but not in the right place. That means there is still room for improvement.
The next step is to scan this list for keywords you want to improve.
Having said that, there is no basis for chasing down low keywords, or those that might be hard work. So here are a few things you should look for to identify the best baptism candidates.
a) Keywords that already drive the most traffic
Generally, keywords near the top of this report are excellent targets if your goal is to increase live traffic.
That’s because they’re driving too much traffic to your website.
Here is a filter report for the Ahrefs blog:
If you pay attention to the “traffic” column, you will see that there are a number of keywords that are already moving tons of traffic to our posts even though we have very low rates.
Given that a single level increase could increase CTR by up to ~ 93% on average, we would not need to measure more than these keywords to significantly increase traffic.
b) Keywords with high search volumes
Upgrading levels in just one position can double the traffic you get from that keyword. But doubling is nothing.
So check the “Volume” column to make sure the keyword has a search volume.
c) Keywords with low KD scores
Keyword difficulty (KD) points our difficulty keyword associated. It works on a scale from 0-100 and those on the upper end are harder to measure than the lower.
In other words, it often takes more effort to measure KD50 keyword than KD20.
For that reason, it is appropriate to skip the KD column in the report and prioritize those with low KD scores.
d) Keywords with high business value
There is no reason to drive more organic traffic to your website if it does not convert to more revenue.
That’s why it’s important to prioritize keywords with a business value.
To illustrate: Suppose you owned a bakery in New York.
Placing # 1 with the keyword “New York bakery” will probably improve more business than measuring a “cake.” The reason is, those who want the past are more likely to be paying customers.
Therefore, “New York bakery” has a greater value for your business than “cake recipe,” although the latter has a search value of 7x more.
e) Non-branded keywords
I’m not talking about your keywords with your name here but rather about third parties.
For example, one of our posts on the Ahrefs blog for “google keyword planner” instead of # 6.
At the top, this looks like a good keyword with which you can try to improve the levels. However, if we hit the drop in “SERP” to view existing high-quality pages, we soon see that this is not the case.
Most of the pages listed above us are from google.com.
That’s because this is a branded keyword as Keyword Planner is a free keyword research tool from Google.
No matter how hard we try, there is a good chance we won’t pass Google on this question.
f) Keywords without SERP features in the positions above you
Google sometimes displays SERP features such as embedded captions and “People are asking” boxes in search results.
At Ahrefs, we list these factors as standard positions.
For example, our guide to using Google Trends keyword research is level # 4 on “how to use Google Trends,” according to Ahrefs.
But if you hit the SERP dropdown and look at the top pages, you’ll see that only the SERP features are listed above us.
Now, it is possible to measure some of these SERP features, but that is a completely different football game. So I recommend that you keep things simple and don’t rush levels with any keywords like this right now.
