On Link Building Opportunities That People Often Overlook (Part 1), I started talking about the chances that huge brands miss. Link building opportunities are everywhere, and it’s not just an online strategy for your website.

Below, I have listed the link building opportunities that often huge brands often overlook.

1. Try to partner up with other brands.

Have you try your hand at co-marketing? If not, then, you better explore the opportunities given by co-marketing with other brands?

Generally, huge brands open their doors to collaborate with other business in the industry. Co-marketing plans prosper when the organizations involved have a symbiotic relationship. When combined, the products are complement each other, and can provide an elevated experience for the public.

When you start a co-marketing relationship, both of you can…

• Start a webinar,
• Write a guest blog,
• Provide eBooks to download,
• Vlog and podcast together,
• And various forms of multimedia content.

Both brands are mentioned on the agreed collaboration, and both parties provide the links to each other’s the websites and other online channels.

Product Partnerships

For some, they take co-marketing to the next level through product partnerships. With the help of technology, together they create a new product that benefit both their target customers. Two companies will collaborate in order to provide better solutions.

For a more effective promotion, there should be awareness to the co-marketing plans. Seek to broadcast the collaboration to the different social media channels in order to generate clamor and hype. You can even provide teasers and snippets of the new product directly on each other’s website.

2. New products to help bridge the gap.

New products should provide solutions to the audience. For instance, office software can help the corporate sector, automated databases help sort out things for the marketing and sales team, and new technological integrations can provide better healthcare for everyone.

Of course, every partnership varies. Some may cost more than others in order to materialize. Thus, some products will require a monthly fee. Nevertheless, when you create a new product or even a mobile app, you can get reviews from your customers. This can help you build links and gain referrals from your loyal customers. So, never underestimate these app stores for they can help you acquire links. More on: How Negative Reviews Can Actually Help Your Business

3. Track the mentions and link you get.

What do you use to track brand mentions? Previously, I talked about 2 Backlink Tools You Can Use to Check Link Quality.

Look for any company news before you launch your products. If you find bloggers  and influencers, reach out to them and check if they are interested in sharing the good news on their websites. Thank these sites for helping you out, and be sure to whitelist them list of trusted allies. Remember, not all links and mentions are good for your website. More on: What are the Backlinks That Are Harmful to Your Website?

Wrapping up

The truth is that huge brands do not need to work hard in order to gain following. On the other hand, new businesses need to work double time to gain connections and links. To effectively generate strong links, make sure that you have carefully strategized your SEO, and that it is integrated in all your marketing and social media channels.

So far, I got to write about The 4 Mistakes to Avoid when Conducting Keyword Research (Part 1) and The 4 Mistakes to Avoid when Conducting Keyword Research (Part 2). But it’s not over yet!

I still have a final set of tips for you. Here the last 4 tips on keyword research mistakes:

9. Neglecting local search.

You have to remember that when a user searches, Google will look up the keywords and suggest search results near them. There are other factors to consider, and Google takes into account the geographic location, search history, and seasonality. That is why you need to look at the actual search results in order to have a productive keyword research.

More articles on local search:

• Gaining Backlinks for Your Local Business
• 5 Hacks to Optimize Your Website Locally for Free
• How to Do Content Marketing for Local SEO
• How are Customers Finding Local Businesses?
• SEO Guide for Small Businesses

10. Not creating for the broad topics.

Yes, it’s true that we should create content for specific queries. However, it’s also important to take a step back when doing a keyword research. When you concentrate on general topics, you get to formulate new ideas. There will more content ideas ideas for you. Then, you can narrow down your research. Writing should be easier when you have an influx of endless ideas.

Besides, if you have already written about a related topic, you can connect these topics by adding a hyperlink. In fact, internal links have an impact on your SEO efforts. More on internal links: The Best Practices for Internal Links

11. Not knowing your competitors.

In real life, most businesses may know who the direct competitors are. However, they don’t know who their rivals are in the SERPs game. There could be new competitors that you aren’t aware of. You probably know the offline competitors, but not the online ones.

That’s why you need to know who the SERP competitors are. Be sure you know the search terms they are ranking for! So, add competitor research as part of your keyword research.

12. Not analyzing the keyword difficulty well.

Keyword difficulty will let you know the expected competition on specific keywords. An short and easy keyword ain’t exactly easy when you the competition is high. The same is true when you rank for hard keywords. It’s not that hard when there are not many competitors.

So, stop looking at difficulty, and focus on how relevant the topic is to your website. Try to aim to be the expert on specific topic! Learn more about authoritativeness on: Interpreting “Quality” the Google Way

BONUS:

13. Allowing clients to select the keywords and terms.

Lastly, clients should not to be telling you to rank for this and that.

Nope, that should not be. You could inform them about the 3 Things to Focus on If You Are Still an SEO Beginner.

At some point, a client suggested to you that you optimize for *insert keyword here*. For sure, you have experienced that, right?

These suggested keywords will probably not be able to convert customers. Make sure that you are clearly explaining to them that each keyword should be well-thought-out.

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According to Advanced Web Ranking’s 2017 SEO Stats Report, even though keyword research is a tedious task to accomplish, many people enjoy the idea of it. Many SEO practitioners agree that keyword research is not one easy task.

Since everyone seems to avoid keyword research when they can, I thought of sharing the most common mistakes when conducting keyword research.

1. Not remembering the searcher intent.

We are all preoccupied with the actual search that we often forget to really carefully think about the intent of the user.

What do they want to look for? Do I provide content for things they are searching?

Remember, the created content should match for what user is searching. Many are obsessed with clicks, sales, and many others that they forget the most important factor: the search  intent.

For instance, when you offer tutorials on your website, people would NOT want to read a lengthy paragraph. Most people would want a brief and concise explanation.

At the end of the day, your content should match what your target audience are searching for. Answer their questions so they would bring in a huge influx of web traffic.

Related: Need New Content for Your Website? These FREE Tools Will Help!

2. Not studying the search results page.

If you want to really identify the users’ searcher intent, you would be analyzing the actual results in the SERPs. You can’t just sit there and let the keyword research tools do the job for you.

Stop looking at tools, and start to study the keywords you are ranking for in the SERPs. Look at what are the top results when you search for the keywords. Check if Google suggest your content when you type in specific keywords. If not, then, learn from the top results. Look at what these top websites have on their list of high ranking content.

Related: 4 Things to Remember When Selecting Keywords to Rank for

3. Focus on the volume too much.

Naturally, you would think that it is best to go for the highest volume keywords. You see, not all metrics are exactly the best for your website.

Yes, we would want to rank for keywords that will help us gain more visitors. However, the highest volume keywords are not always the best. It is more important to know what is relevant for your website. Identify the queries your users searches for, and provide solution to their predicament. Again, do not concentrate on the volume of the keywords.

Related: The Things That SEO Tools Will NOT Tell You

4. Ignoring the longer keywords.

Aside from not focusing on the search volume, you should not also concentrate on the short keywords. It’s easy to rank for the shorter terms, but competition is higher in this area.

However, when you rank for longer tail keywords, you get more conversions here. The users searching for longer tail keywords are ready to make a purchase. All you need to do is give them a nudge, and they will convert into your customers.

Other than that, the longer keywords would mean less competition for you. This is your chance to answer their queries, gaining more opportunities to gain the users’ trust. Plus, you will establish your authority in the subject. Hence, users won’t hesitate to avail your product and services if they need to.

Related: What Is E-A-T And Why You Should Care

Next? The 4 Mistakes to Avoid when Conducting Keyword Research (Part 2)

In 4 Things to Remember When Selecting Keywords to Rank for (Part 1), I already discussed that keyword research is vital in SEO. What makes it harder is the fact that keyword research is a subjective matter. Furthermore, it is a something that constantly changes. Over time, you will eventually rank for other keywords.

Here are 4 more tips to follow:

5. Topics over keywords.

After you did the keyword research, for sure, there’s a lot of keywords you have gathered.

Nope, you don’t need to create pages or blog posts for every keyword you found. Instead, you need to build topics around the keywords you got. You can start from the content already existing on the website, and then, continue from there. Then, when your content accumulates, it’s time to categorize similar content together.

Surely, there are already topics that you already have extensive knowledge about. These topics will serve as the foundation of content as you are confident about them already. Your strengths will naturally rise above the others. This is where you will focus your SEO efforts. More on: 3 Things I Learned About Websites and SEO

6. Make sure there is topic relevance and sequence.

Now that you know what topics to focus on, it’s time to check whether you have the right terms or not. For example, you would want to go for “books” when you own an online book shop.

Yeah, that might be a good idea when where are talking about online bookstore. However, there are still layers beyond the surface. More on: 3 Things to Focus on If You Are Still an SEO Beginner

What if another person is looking for specific books? Thus, it is also essential to rank for other genre you carry such as “Historical Fiction”, “Romance”, “Science Fiction”, “Thriller”, “Biography”, and others. Go deeper and talk about what you really are as a bookstore.

If you choose the generic ones, you may end up wasting that lead. Every click is important so it is necessary to make sure that the topics you chose coincide with your products, services, and website content.

7. Look at the actual search results. 

No matter how you painstakingly do your keyword research, it all comes down to the search results. The SERPs is the actual battlefield, and you need to look at the actual search results.

You also have to remember that the SERPs constantly changes so check on how your keywords and topics fare in the SERPs game. Take your top keywords and analyze the following:

• What appears in the search results when you search for certain keywords?
• Do you see your own site in the top results?
• Are there any direct competitors you see in the search results?
• What are the other organic search results you see?

8. Monitor your performance.

Of course, not all keywords will perform well. There will always be certain keywords  that will outshine others. It’s important to monitor your stats in order to find ways to create an effective marketing strategy for your website.

Watch for the keywords that…

• Only manage to get a few clicks,
• Get only a few views,
• Not a lot conversions,

It’s important to know the deeper meaning of things. Some gain a lot of reaction from people, but only gain a few clicks. Meanwhile, some give a lot of web traffic, but only minimal conversions. More on: Reasons Why Your SEO Strategy Isn’t as Effective

In Keyword Cannibalization and its Negative Effects, I tackled the negative effects of keyword cannibalization and indicated 6 reasons why you should NOT practice it. For this blog post, I will continue and discuss the ways to fix the issue.

What are ways to fix for keyword cannibalization?

How to Correctly Address Keyword Cannibalization?

Just to be clear, there’s no one sure way to solve it. The solution totally rests on the root cause. Below, I will share to you 5 possible ways to address the problem of keyword cannibalization.

1. Revamp the website.

First, you need to create an authoritative page. The goal here is to sharpen the QUALITY of the page. Thus, never go for the QUANTITY and lead users to different variations of a page.

Be sure that no 2 pages will aim for the same keyword. To start off, try to create a spreadsheet and list all your prospect links & keywords.

For instance, if you sell clothing for women, then, you could create pages for “activewear”, “jackets”, “dresses” and so on. All these pages could redirect back to the main clothing page.

2. Create a landing page for all the product pages.

You might have the pages for the specific clothing, but you haven’t merged it yet! Thus, you may need a landing page that has all the links to the different product pages.

In the example given, each page will have a unique keyword because one page will be focused on “jackets” while another page will be solely about “dresses.”

3. Merge similar content pages.

In the same clothing example, try your best to group similar terms together. For example, under “dresses”, you can add the following: Casual, Cocktail & Party, Work, Maxi, and many others. All these classifications listed can be categorized under dresses. So, you won’t have to create multiple pages ranking for “dresses.”

4. Use other keywords.

Once you have those pages under one umbrella, it’s easy to plan your keywords. The page on Casual can aim for “casual dress”; the Maxi page can rank for “Maxi dress”; and so on. Hence, all your pages won’t have to compete for “dresses.”

At the end of the day, SEO isn’t just about the technical stuff. You need to take time planning your strategy because there will be details that sophisticated SEO tools won’t tell you. More on: The Things That SEO Tools Will NOT Tell You (Part 1) and The Things That SEO Tools Will NOT Tell You (Part 2).

5. Use permanent redirects.

For websites, usually, there are 2 type of page redirection. One is a temporary redirect while the other permanent redirect. The users will clearly see these two. However, for search engines, there’s clearly a distinction. A 301 redirect is classified under permanent redirection.

How is this helpful? By using 301 redirects, you get to merge all your similar content by linking all your less relevant pages to only one distinct and authoritative page. More on: What You Need to Know About 301 Redirect

Wrapping up!

Unfortunately, keyword cannibalization is still common nowadays. For some people, they fail to optimize their website through Google’s guidelines. It is important to understand “QUALITY” the Google way! If you found out that keyword cannibalization is present within your site, you can still undo the damage. Never lose hope because it ain’t perennial.

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