How my content process secured a 240.35% organic growth in 2 months
I did a content audit and deleted 55% of the posts on their blog.
1.5 month later, blog’s traffic increased from 144K to 490K monthly unique visits.
December 9, 2020
[2019] The biggest challenges to get to No1 in Google & how to face them
So many people believe, that SEO (aka Search Engine Optimization) involves simply jamming a few keywords on your page and building a couple of “natural” links.
Well, it is actually much more complicated than that and if you follow only this simplistic SEO Plan, likely won’t get you very far.
We come across on many issues, both technical and content-related in a daily basis. So, we gathered the greatest and most challenging issues and we’ll share them with you.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
Challenge #1: Simple keywords won’t make it! Choose your keywords wisely
By adding a hot star’s name or a trending topic of the day to your site, you will not stay on top of search results.
Sorry, to dash your hopes, but these keywords are simply not specific enough to garner you much traffic.
They will be similar to so many other website keywords that yours will only be lost in the shuffle, unless you own a company like Coca Cola-which you probably don’t.
What keywords should I choose?
Provide specific terms that fit in with your niche and product to stand in during search engine results. Choose your keywords based on users’ search intent and their “placement” in the funnel. (informational, commercial, navigational keywords)
But this is another , great story to tell.. but maybe in another post.
Challenge #2: Optimize your site for both search engines and humans
This is one is pretty obvious, right? In the good old days, SEO was so simple! Something that may work wonders for one website could be disastrous for user’s experience.
That’s why, it gets really tough sometimes, to optimize a site and at the same time deliver a great experience to visitors.
One of the biggest challenges? How to fit your long length content (more than 1500words) to a single page, without creating a “monster” page. It’s an never -ending fight between the SEO guy and the designer. (trust me I’ve been there many times)
In this case, H2 & H3 Headings along with a navigation menu will do!
Think of the partnership of SEO and UX this way: SEO targets search engines, and UX targets your website’s visitors. Both share a common goal of giving users the best experience.
SEO + UX = Success 
Challenge #3: Build “natural” links
Oh boy.. this is the most tricky part of the entire SEO process! It is a real pain in the as** for the most Marketers out there.
YES, like it or not, you’ve won the SEO Game, if you manage to gain the most mentions (or Links) from other, authoritative, related to your niche websites.
But, you need REAL links..like real, natural links from REAL sites. Spam tactics, massively commenting on blogs and other sneaky ways of building links are all great, easy and cost efficient link building strategies, but they won’t last.
Sooner or later Google will know what you are doing and you are going to be punished.
Come up with a REAL strategy, which includes unique content creation and distribution across the web and a PR Campaign, which follows a smart concept.
Challenge #3: Build “natural” links
Oh boy.. this is the most tricky part of the entire SEO process! It is a real pain in the as** for the most Marketers out there.
YES, like it or not, you’ve won the SEO Game, if you manage to gain the most mentions (or Links) from other, authoritative, related to your niche websites.
But, you need REAL links..like real, natural links from REAL sites. Spam tactics, massively commenting on blogs and other sneaky ways of building links are all great, easy and cost efficient link building strategies, but they won’t last.
Sooner or later Google will know what you are doing and you are going to be punished.
Tip: You need to find ways that you visitors/followers/users or other sources that will generate links for you. You can find an AMAZING SEO guide to Creating Viral Linkbait content & infographics here
Challenge #4: Take the competition seriously
Thousands of other websites are vying for the same readers you are, and they are placing content, advertisements and social media pages in the same places you are. Many may even be going beyond that.
If you don’t strategically plan out your SEO efforts, you will lag far behind the pack in terms of attracting and keeping your target market.
How to beat the competition? After finishing your keyword research and come across with your keyword strategy, make a research for these 2 cruical things:
- What kind of sites are appearing on 1st page of Google’s Results for your desired keywords. If they are news sites or organizations related to your niche, consider reaching them out for a collaboration.
- How your competitors perform for these keywords
Challenge #5: Create AMP Pages
In response to the ever-increasing need for speed, Google & Twitter’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (or AMP) project, was specifically designed mobile pages really, really fast.
Should I play ball?
Google is fully supportive and gives a thumbs up to sites are using AMP and, whether we like it or not, we have to play along.
Sure, if you implement AMP, you may see benefits. Especially if you have painfully slow pages in mobile version of your site.
But, there are some concerns with AMP, as you might end up with an ugly URL that is painful and harmful for many reasons.
Tip: Start by fixing page speed performance for mobile, before start creating AMP pages
Challenge #6: Prepare for Voice Search
Voice Search is the new real deal! Google reports that 55 percent of teens and 40 percent of adults use voice search daily; and, according to Google’s Behshad Behzadi, the ratio of voice search is growing faster than type search.
Voice search calls for a whole new keyword research routine: Voice searchers use normal, conversational sentences instead of the odd-sounding query lingo.
In practical terms, how do I prepare my website for voice search?
- Consider including more terms like ‘who, what, where etc. in your content
- Optimize more pages for long-tail keywords.
- Consider creating a Q&A service to your site that allows users to ask questions to which you later post answers.
Challenge #7: Create unique content
Unique content is like your brain: you’re aware of its importance, but few people actually understand the inner workings of what makes it important.
Really, you want to craft unique content for two reasons:
- The search engine optimization (SEO) payoff is enormous.
- The value your current and future readers will receive gives your site an aura of authority.
Producing unique content, and content marketing is not free at all, but worth the try! Depending on the size and scope of your company’s goals, a site audit could cost anywhere between $5,000-$25,000.
At the end of the day, you want visibility on a search engine. To get there, a lot of factors come into play — factors unique content can lend itself to.
So moove it – Convert your site to HTTPS, if you haven’t do it already!
Challenge #8: Move to HTTPS
What do privacy, speed and security have in common? 
Yeap, that’s right! — they’re all benefits of HTTPS. That said, the biggest benefits are often our biggest challenges.
Moving to HTTPS has a lot of benefits, but can also bring a lot of technical challenges. As more of the web is moving to HTTPS, and browsers are starting to show HTTP sites are insecure to users, it’s becoming more important to make the switch to HTTPS with your websites.
So moove it – Convert your site to HTTPS, if you haven’t do it already!
Challenge #9: Take care of site speed
The rank of your website on SERPs depends a lot on site speed. The faster a site is, the better the user experience, so slower websites are likely to lose the SEO game.
If your website has many elements on it, such as images, videos, CSS style sheets, JavaScript code and the like, be sure it’s as optimized for speed as possible.Your Web hosting service could be part of your speed problem.
Run several of your pages through a page-speed test such as GTmetrix and implementing the suggestions they provide. Applying even just a couple of their suggestions can shave seconds off your site load time.
Google also offers Google PageSpeed Tools to help you test and increase your site’s overall speed.
Before you go
This list of challenges never.. ends! SEO is amazingly complex and takes time! There are 10000+ challenges to face in every project you take on(duplicate content, missing titles, missing cannonicals).. But it’s part of SEO’s magic, you know.. 
As you consider this list, do not let SEO use intimidate you. Simply be aware of what you really need to give your website the visibility you want it to have.
Please, feel free to send me your own SEO challenges, I’d love to read them!
Cheers! 
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