Perhaps, you have got an idea to beat your online competitors. But, what if you go blind-folded in the battle with no proper approach? If big brands are sitting in places where you want to be, then you obviously crush your dreams. But, don’t give it up though it seems impossible to outrank fierce competitions. Let me take you through some of the fail-proof proven SEO strategies to outrank your competitors, even if big-league.
SEO Core Aspects That Tend to Be Strategized
Even though
SEO Strategies to Outrank Competitors
Let’s get into the
SEO Strategy #1: Steal Your Competitor’s Ranking Keywords
You are not just done with building a WordPress site and publishing your first content very easily. Every new article you publish opens a door to get rankings on the search engines though. But, not every post proves at its best. You need to be strategic in promoting it.
Of course, you do comprehensive keyword research before creating any content to publish. It takes a long time to find the most potential long-tail keywords. Let it be. Once you release the content, check the ranking (for the target keyword you focused) of the particular page. Take a list of competitors (just five is enough) that dominates you or even lies beneath you.
You may use some strategic tools like Ahrefs,
Not necessarily to take the entire list of ranking keywords. Consider only the keywords that have banked top 5 positions. Filter it out to the core, the long tail and low difficulty keywords that have got more clicks. Even low search volume keywords are good though. And, take new keywords that you have not included in your page content.
Now, you have a set of proven keywords that assures better ranking. It’s time to optimize your content with those keywords. Add one or two paragraphs of content with keywords naturally.
Don’t stuff keywords for the sake of adding keywords. Check out the ranking different after Google’s next indexing. I am damn sure that there will be a notable improvement in your ranking positions outranking your specific competitors.
Pro-tips: Also, you add those keywords while replying to blog comments. Make sure it appears naturally, else don’t do so.
SEO Strategy #2: Content is King, Always Let It Rule
Refer to any successful marketer’s roadmap. You will realize how important content marketing strategy is to outperform competitors. If lots of people are competing to get Google’s top position for a specific keyword, it means that it is highly potential.
Branding or authority is not something you can build overnight. Content is the only key you have handy to tweak your online success. Indeed, you have control over it. You should simultaneously concentrate on improving your domain authority. That makes the difference between you and your competitors or ‘big fishes.’
If you know tricks to create compelling content and get contextual backlinks, then your specific page will outperform your competitor’s page. Here are some of the ideas to play around with content and its promotions.
#1 Create Long-Form Content
It won’t be silly knowing your competitor’s content length, say for a specific page that you need to outrank. Before start crafting your content, prepare a hint. It must include the content length, keyword to focus, the set of related keywords (it can be your competitor’s keywords too), etc. Bound yourself to create 2x times lengthy content, comparatively. Write a link-worthy piece of content as well. Also, it enables you to improve keyword usage without stuffing.
If you know how to create content that attracts more blog comments, then it is well and good. Google weighs the user-generated content valuable than your actual page content.
Long-form of content will get more social shares, quality backlinks and hence, better rankings.
#2 Content Versions That Your Competitors Ignored
Producing a better version of your competitor’s content would be the smartest approach. Rendering so you also tend to improve the user experience of your page. Let’s consider your competitor’s page has a text form of content. Then, you must give a try to infographics or any other visual content types.
You might have come across Brian Dean’s article on on-page factors. One of the reasons it influences the Google 1st page is its infographics. Anyways, text content appeals to search engines though. Image or video content appeals to users with great user experience and higher engagement. Still, you can tweak visual content to plead both search engines and users. Otherwise, embed video, slide shares, images that are relevant to your written content. Make sure it adds value to your content.
#3 Write Eye-Opening Headlines
Absolutely, eye-catchy headlines could amplify your content reach. You don’t be breaking your mind to generate such amazing headlines or titles to your content page. Blogs like CopyBlogger, RobbieRichards, etc. come up with ever awesome headlines. What’s there for you?
Search for your keyword in Google, and take the headlines of the top 5 rank holders. Tweak those to make it even better.
For an instant, let me take ‘meta description writing tips.’ For now, I had taken the headline of the page that ranks 3rd positions. Also, find its variant form.
Original: How to create the right Meta description?
Variant Form: Tips to Write the Right Meta Description That Improves Click-through Rates
You will see Robbie Richard’s headlines will be compelling you to click-through.
As your click-through rates increase drastically, then there are higher possibilities for better conversions (if the content is worthy). Make use of tools like BuzzSumo to find headlines that attract more traffic, backlinks and social shares. Rewrite, tweak, and nab it for your content outranking competitors. Make sure your content page is to the point, and easy to read by the visitors.
Writing a shareable content with captivating headlines is more imperative. Alongside, have your social media share buttons in multiple places. So, it enables users to share your content whenever they tend to do so. People don’t like extra efforts to share your content. So make it easy for them to share it instantly. Here come the social plug-ins that display floating social icons, into the rescue. Use the utmost features of whatever technology or tool you use.
Embed ‘click to tweet’ banners or social lockers in between the content to gain more social shares.
SEO Strategy #3: Strategic Link Building by Replication
Backlinks are high in increasing your ranking potential, improving authority, and driving more targeted traffic to your pages. More the backlinks you build, the higher the pay-off will be. Yes, it’s true. But, the quality of the backlinks is more significant these days.
Attracting backlinks is great then building backlinks. Bit confused? If your content is of high-quality, it attracts natural backlinks. Otherwise, you will be generating backlinks with additional efforts, which may be unnatural.
You could see big names like Neil Patel, Aleh Barysevich, contributing guest articles to other authority blogs like Entrepreneur, SearchEngineJournal and so on. Check out the author’s bio page. Those backlinks are considered highly authoritative. Indeed, it also favors in building brand awareness and establish you as a top influencer in the niche. Guest blogging is one of the most potent
Otherwise, spy on your competitor’s backlinks profiles and replicate it. Make a list of domains where your competitors have got links, but you haven’t. Then, those are the open opportunities for you to gain backlinks.
SEO Strategy #4: Optimize Pages to Load Faster
Make sure to be faster than your competitors. Since 2017, Google insists on making pages to load faster within 3 seconds to the worst case. The key reason is how it impacts the bounce rate. The page that loads within 3 seconds increase the bounce rate by 32%. On the other hand, page loads within 5 seconds increase the same by 90%. See the difference.
Longer the time your page takes, higher the users likely to abandon your page. It merely means that you are leaving away the market to your competitors. Loading speed is now the most crucial ranking factor.
If you want to hijack your competitor’s ranking and organic traffic, then you must optimize your pages towards fast loading. To reduce the dwell time, publish the content that the user needs.
Especially having poor mobile speed, is a huge blunder. And, you’ll have to crash your dreams outranking your competitions. Compressing images claims no much work but can help improving page speed.
Final Take Away
I know you might be great at creating well-informed content and its promotions. Make sure you are incorporating these strategic ideas into it. Soon, you will notice the changes in your ranking over your competitions. These are the proven
SEO strategy – DepositPhotos