What to do in this situation?
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Look at the three ranks above you and their metrics. How powerful are the overall domains? How many links do the pages that rank have? How many social signals? How's their on-page optimization? Are they doing anything in the content that keeps users around longer? How are their title tags? Can you get more clicks by making your title tag snazzier?
If they are worlds beyond you then you'll be fighting a battle that won't be won for a long time. In these cases it's better to be happy with #4, go get a ton more #4's, 3's, 2's, 1's, and circle back around once you're entire domain is beefier.
If they are worlds beyond you then you'll be fighting a battle that won't be won for a long time. In these cases it's better to be happy with #4, go get a ton more #4's, 3's, 2's, 1's, and circle back around once you're entire domain is beefier.
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The person ranking #1 for that keyword has backlinks built from a PBN and GSA spammed web2.0s so I'm not sure how I can beat him, especially since its a amazon affiliate type page.
His content is also 1000-1400 words vs mine being 3000+
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Breaking the top 3 is very difficult, but once you are in the top 3, it's less likely you'll be displaced. In the over 2+ years I've had access to this data, the biggest conclusion I've come across is the top 3 are COMPLETELY different in terms of what you need to break from the positions #4-100.
The way to break the top 3 is not really with on-page for a specific page, but overall long-tail and relevancy. For example, if I wanted to rank in the top 3 for blue widgets and red widgets as well, I'll need to have longtails ranking in the top 10 at the very least for gray widgets, white widgets, black widgets in Chicago, and light blue widgets.
It's a relevancy situation. Google needs to know you aren't just a one-hit wonder, so it takes into account CTR from the SERPs of not only the page you want to rank, but also the domain. It also takes into account your whole domain's relevancy and authority.
If you don't have the supporting content for "widgets', interlinking from other widget silios within your site, and the backlinks, breaking any of the top 3 is going to be difficult. BUT once you break the top 3 for one of them (assuming this is a medium to high keyword), breaking the others is a walk in the park since you are over that threshold.
How do you find relevancy? (Not to self-promote, but sort of), figure out the OTHER keywords the Top #1-3 EXACT URLs are also ranking for, and make sure to use those anchors when interlinking and getting backlinks to your page and site. SERPWoo's keyword finder allows you to input a single keyword, "blue widgets", then get the top 10 websites ranking for that term, then pulls EACH URL's current keywords that particular page is ranking for. Example:
#1. bluewidgetempire.com/page-lightblue.html
#2. blue-widget.com/blue-blue-blue.html
#3. amazon.com/blue-widget/
^^ Not only do these keywords rank for "blue widget", but they also rank for relevant other terms like "blue widgets in Chicago", "blue widgets Midwest", "Natalie Dormer's favorite blue widget".
You need to rank for those terms as well. You can go pull each URL into some tool like SEMRush to get the other relevant terms they rank for then export into csv and cross reference what's ranking, OR you can simply sort within SERPWoo's Keyword finder, and disable positions #5-10. and then sort by the keywords that have the MOST in common. Example:
I disabled all but the top 3, then I sorted for keywords with at least "2" sources. Then I look for keywords that exist with light green, regular green, and/or darker green, as a source (I want keywords where at least 2 of those competing top 3 pages rank as well) - so I can see which keywords they all rank for.
In the above example I show that 2 of the top 3 URLs (not just the domain, but the EXACT URL) for 'blue widget', in my case 'best keyword tool', also rank for 'keyword tool adwords', 'google keywords adwords', and so on.
So now what I have to do is get some interlinking going on with this new list using those anchors, or create content with these topics within the same silo and interlink back to the specific page I want to rank. I can also get off-site links coming to the page using these long tail anchors. Basically I need to start ranking for these long-tail keywords as well if I am ever to break the top 3 for this 'blue widget' of mine ('best keyword tool').
You can obviously do this cross-referencing one-by-one with any keyword tool and export with excel, and have fun matching X and Y with Z, but some tools make it a bit easier... guess who already has access to it?
The way to break the top 3 is not really with on-page for a specific page, but overall long-tail and relevancy. For example, if I wanted to rank in the top 3 for blue widgets and red widgets as well, I'll need to have longtails ranking in the top 10 at the very least for gray widgets, white widgets, black widgets in Chicago, and light blue widgets.
It's a relevancy situation. Google needs to know you aren't just a one-hit wonder, so it takes into account CTR from the SERPs of not only the page you want to rank, but also the domain. It also takes into account your whole domain's relevancy and authority.
If you don't have the supporting content for "widgets', interlinking from other widget silios within your site, and the backlinks, breaking any of the top 3 is going to be difficult. BUT once you break the top 3 for one of them (assuming this is a medium to high keyword), breaking the others is a walk in the park since you are over that threshold.
How do you find relevancy? (Not to self-promote, but sort of), figure out the OTHER keywords the Top #1-3 EXACT URLs are also ranking for, and make sure to use those anchors when interlinking and getting backlinks to your page and site. SERPWoo's keyword finder allows you to input a single keyword, "blue widgets", then get the top 10 websites ranking for that term, then pulls EACH URL's current keywords that particular page is ranking for. Example:
#1. bluewidgetempire.com/page-lightblue.html
#2. blue-widget.com/blue-blue-blue.html
#3. amazon.com/blue-widget/
^^ Not only do these keywords rank for "blue widget", but they also rank for relevant other terms like "blue widgets in Chicago", "blue widgets Midwest", "Natalie Dormer's favorite blue widget".
You need to rank for those terms as well. You can go pull each URL into some tool like SEMRush to get the other relevant terms they rank for then export into csv and cross reference what's ranking, OR you can simply sort within SERPWoo's Keyword finder, and disable positions #5-10. and then sort by the keywords that have the MOST in common. Example:
I disabled all but the top 3, then I sorted for keywords with at least "2" sources. Then I look for keywords that exist with light green, regular green, and/or darker green, as a source (I want keywords where at least 2 of those competing top 3 pages rank as well) - so I can see which keywords they all rank for.
In the above example I show that 2 of the top 3 URLs (not just the domain, but the EXACT URL) for 'blue widget', in my case 'best keyword tool', also rank for 'keyword tool adwords', 'google keywords adwords', and so on.
So now what I have to do is get some interlinking going on with this new list using those anchors, or create content with these topics within the same silo and interlink back to the specific page I want to rank. I can also get off-site links coming to the page using these long tail anchors. Basically I need to start ranking for these long-tail keywords as well if I am ever to break the top 3 for this 'blue widget' of mine ('best keyword tool').
You can obviously do this cross-referencing one-by-one with any keyword tool and export with excel, and have fun matching X and Y with Z, but some tools make it a bit easier... guess who already has access to it?
The Kloser
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What's up with the pink dot? Does it mean that seobook.com does not rank of any of the KWs listed?
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When it comes to within the screenshot "maybe". Remember the top 10 url for "best keyword tool" has an seobook.com result, this just it mean that exact url does not ranks for other terms. In the screenshot THAT URL is ranking for only one term. The actual domain may also rank for some of the other terms, but since we are pulling exact urls for relevancy, that exact url is not showing up. We are doing it with exact urls and not whole domains since we are looking for very closely related terms, and not everything a domain may rank for.
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Basically I just went back to all the pages that were ranking + relevant then interlinked. I also realised my 301s were missing (changed over to knownhost and forgot) so I added those back too.
But I have no idea wtf now because this happened lol
I think it may bounce back higher, but guess we shall see. Google playing with my heart right now
Edit: Ahrefs just updated and says I've moved up, so not sure
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