- In this video, I'm going
to show you how to do SEO in a competitive industry
when you have a small budget. Let's jump right in. (lively electronic music) So before we get started, make sure you subscribe to this channel because you'll get notified
when I publish new videos, just like this one. So now let me show you how to do SEO in a competitive industry using a simple three-step strategy. First, you're going to find
low competition keywords with decent search volume,
and we also want to ensure that the target keyword
is highly linkable. More on that in a second. Secondly, you're going to create an incredible SEO content asset. Thirdly, you're going to
acquire links to this asset until it breaks the first page of Google. Now, let's start with the first step. So, there are many ways to find keywords, but the best way is to
simply extract ideas from your successful competitors. So, just open up Ahrefs,
enter a competitor's domain in the Site Explorer,
click on Organic Keywords under the Organic Search section, and then you're going to
use the following filters. Type to 10 for the Position filter from 1000 for the Volume filter, and to 40 on the KD filter. Now, this is just a general guideline, but I recommend messing
around with these filters depending on how competitive
your industry is. Now, once your filters are set, sort the list by KD, and the next step is to
see which of these ideas are proven to be linkable, so just right-click on
the first keyword idea, and open the Keyword
Explorer in a new tab. Scroll down to the SERP section, and you'll simply wanna verify that the ranking pages
have existing backlinks. Look under the Domains column. So the reason why this is important is because you don't wanna just
rank for the target keyword. You also want it to be used as a catalyst to grow your site's authority, and that's because increasing
your site's authority will make ranking for other keywords substantially easier in the future. Plus, you're gonna need a strong website to rank in competitive industries. So, what that means is you
need to prioritize keywords that are proven to be linkable over those that are not. Now, it doesn't mean that you
can't target other keywords in the future. It's just not a priority in the beginning. Plus, keywords that don't have
a lot of proven linkability tend to be easier to rank for. So that said, mainly go
through these keywords and identify at least five
that meet the criteria. Then you need to do a manual
analysis for each keyword. So let me show you how to qualify or disqualify the keyword phrase. Okay, I'm here on Google, and now what I'm gonna
do is analyze gomad diet using the 10-second competitor analysis, and hopefully, it takes 10 seconds, but because I'm explaining it, it'll probably take a little bit longer, so let's see what's going
on with this search. So the first thing that you wanna do once the search is complete, I like to immediately
hit the Ahrefs toolbar, so we can get that loading,
and then from there, what I wanna do is just
start kind of looking at the results, kind of see
what Google's delivering. So right away, we see a few things. We see that there's a
featured snippet here. Obviously, we would wanna get in here, and if we can't, it's gonna
reduce our click-through rate for this keyword, so there's something you wanna keep in mind. And also, we have some
other SERP features here, which are the FAQ features. And obviously, we can
get into this as well, but any type of SERP features like this are gonna push the results
down further and further. Just keep going down the list and basically, what I wanna look for is, are there websites ranking
that have lower authority that we can eventually beat? So in this case, the first
ranking result has a DR of 72, so this is a pretty strong website. They have a lot of authority, they have a lot of backlinks, and they actually occupy
the top two results, and this is actually a good sign because if they're occupying
the top two results, it's usually an indication that this keyword hasn't been hammered, and that it's pretty low competition, so I would be excited if
I saw two websites ranking for the same keyword phrase. And then once again, go here. We have another ranking result that's 65, so it's pretty strong. And then we have more SERP
features which is YouTube and alternative thing
we could do in addition to creating our keyword
targeted page for gomad diet, we could also create a video
around that same keyword, and try to rank that in YouTube as well because if we do that the right way, we can actually get a few
different placements on this page for this single keyword. So in reality, if we
really optimize this page when we create a really
great piece of content around gomad diet, we can
actually rank in one spot, two spots, three spots,
four different spots for a single keyword, and
so as you can imagine, type of click-through rate and brand equity that we'll build by doing something like that. So, just something to keep in mind, but wanna keep going through here. We have another page ranking. They have a DR of 60, so not too strong. And as we go down the list, it seems to be getting weaker and weaker. So, DR 47, not very strong. DR 37, not strong at all. And then, we even actually have a DR 25, which is very weak. So we could beat all
these guys pretty easily, but as we go up the list, it's
gonna get harder and harder. So, pushing these top three
guys out would be a challenge, but it can definitely be done. Now, the other thing I'm looking at are the types of pages that are ranking. So right now, my results
are set to show a hundred, so some of these are gonna
be off the first page, but this one right here
is particularly important because there's a forum thread from 2010 that's ranking for this keyword phrase. And so, whenever I see forum threads, I get really excited because
it's a great indication that this is a low competition keyword. So, just based on this quick analysis, I would say that this is a
qualified keyword to go after, and I would want to explore
it a little bit deeper to see how I'm gonna
be able to rank for it, but just from this analysis,
definitely is qualified and a good one to pursue. Repeat this process with the
five keywords you selected and then pick one that
has the best opportunity. So now, let's tackle
step two of how to do SEO in a competitive industry, which is to create an
incredible SEO content asset. Now, I've covered this
concept in great detail on my YouTube channel already, but I'll give you some key action steps. So, the first step is to
create an SEO content brief. Now, let me walk you through how I would create an SEO content brief for a qualified keyword. Okay, so now I'm going to
do a live demonstration of how to develop a content strategy for the sample keyword
which is gomad diet, and so, I'm just gonna walk
you through this process, and kind of give you a
look into my mindset, and kind of what I'm thinking about when I need to target a
keyword that's been qualified, so make sure you have a qualified keyword before you enter this phase because otherwise, you're
gonna waste a lot of time. So, the first thing we wanna figure out is can we get an ROI
targeting this keyword? So one thing I like to do
is just immediately look at PPC data, so we'll go to Ahrefs, and they give you PPC data
right out of the gate, and what you'll see is this keyword doesn't have any PPC data, and one thing we can do
is we can actually just go to the SERPs, and we'll
look at gomad diet, and we'll see, are there
any ads on this page? And it looks like no one is advertising for this keyword phrase. Now, that doesn't mean that it isn't a valuable keyword phrase. It just means that maybe
people haven't identified it as a good phrase. So, the objective of
targeting a keyword like this that's informational in nature and it's somewhat difficult
to quantify the value, we just need to think about it from a pure traffic perspective. So, if you're gonna target
a keyword like this, really your objective is
just to rank extremely high and just drive a lot of traffic to it and hopefully, some of that
traffic will convert into leads and maybe even customers,
a very small percentage. So in this case, we
can look at just Ahrefs and see that according to them, they think that if you rank organically, you'll get about 55% of the clicks and so, that's not bad. That's definitely worth targeting, but what we wanna do is we
actually wanna look at the SERPs, and do a quick analysis. So we see right away that
there's a featured snippet. so we know that we should
make a concentrated effort to optimize our page for
this featured snippet. So hopefully, we can land
in the featured snippet and we can rank in these top three spots, which are above the fold. So when we scroll down, you can see that we also have this
People also ask section, which Google is basically
just giving us the information that we need for our content, so we can literally just
answer these questions within the content because
they're completely relevant to what we're talking about, and Google has determined that
they're topically relevant to this primary topic,
which is gomad diet. And we'll keep scrolling, and we'll also notice
that there's a video here, which is also another cool thing because what we can do
is we can not only land in the featured snippet, but
we can also land organically, and we can even create a
video around this topic in YouTube and rank that in YouTube, and in the search. So, we actually have the potential of having three different
listings on the first page for this keyword phrase, and the other thing to consider too is if we land in the People also ask box, we actually could have four total listings for one keyword and so, that
will drive a massive amount of organic CTR. So, this is an exciting opportunity here because you don't have ads
that are pushing all this down, so you can really get a ton
of organic search traffic from this keyword because you know that the CTR is probably
going to be very high, and as we scroll down further, this will probably actually
be on the second page because I have my settings to
show a hundred SERP results, but you can tell right here that we can also rank
in the images as well. So, we would just need
to create a unique image for this target keyword that's relevant, and then we can also rank here. So, as you can see,
there are many, many ways to dominate this keyword and
drive a ton of organic clicks. So, that's it for the SERP analysis. Now, what we wanna do you
wanna manually go through and analyze these competitors. So we can tell it's StrongLifts. They have two really strong listings. They're ranking second organically and they're ranking in
the featured snippet, and so we wanna see what they're doing so we can figure out how
we're going to beat them. So, a few things right away that they're doing really well is they have an established
author right here, and he's someone who has credibility to write about this topic, which is perfect because
that will help combat any E.A.T. issues or EAT issues. And then also you can tell this content's been
updated relatively recently or at least the date has been changed, but still it is showing that this page is being continually updated, and so that's a really good sign for him and that makes him a
little bit harder to beat, but still, we can
definitely beat this person just by developing a different strategy. So as you can tell,
this content is overall, it's just a long piece of content. It has a high word count. It looks like it's optimized well. That's all great, but if
we're trying to beat it, we need to see what it's not doing well. So in this case, yes, it has good content. Yes, it's probably written well. And yes, it's optimized well, but overall, it's not
beautifully designed. It doesn't have images,
it doesn't have videos, and overall, the
readability is a little off because this breaking
of the sentences here is real hard to digest. So, what we could do is we could create a better design page. We can get a custom images. We can get a custom video, which of course will
help us rank in YouTube and in the SERPs as well, and we can generally just
make it more readable and better designed. So, typically what I will do is I won't analyze
every single competitor. I'll usually just analyze the ones that I believe are doing well. So, we'll look at Healthline and then we'll also look at
these other two individuals, and see how they're doing. So out of the gate, it's going to be difficult
to beat Healthline because it is a very authoritative website and it is extremely trustworthy, but what we can do to beat them is we can make it more story driven. and make it more personalized because really, Healthline is
just a general health website, and we can beat them
by being more relatable by just having a single
author or a single individual who the reader feels like they
can build a relationship with as opposed to this that
feels really general. So, as we scroll down,
you can tell once again, it's a good piece of content. You can tell it's well-written. It has a great readability. Overall, good piece of content. They are citing their sources. This is all excellent stuff, but once again, it's not super exciting. It isn't super unique. And once again, it doesn't
have a ton of images other than just all the ads that are placed all over the website, so there's a lot of
opportunity here to beat them. Make our content more readable, make it more unique, and make it more content rich by adding different types of media. So, this third competitor
has another nice article. Once again, it's just kind
of a huge block of text, but it is very well written
and it's very unique. It has nice personality and touch to it, and it has some, some images. It has some GIFs. These are all good things
about this particular content and I also like that it has a case study. That's really great. So, that's something we
could pull from here, but overall once again, this page is not visually
appealing or visually rich. So when we go through
this, you have to realize that most Internet users do not read right from the beginning and then read all the
way through an article. What they do is they
scroll like I'm doing. They scan, they see if
there's anything they like, and if something is appealing to them, then they go back up and start reading. So, it's important that your
content is very readable, it's image rich, and it's
being broken up in a way that's designed for
people who are scanners, which is the majority of
people who read online. So, this last competitor
is another good one. I like that he took a unique angle, saying that it's a dumb
way to gain weight, so he's using a little bit of controversy to drive more CTR, which is a great idea. Once again, this is a
good piece of content, well broken up. Now, it has some stock photos. This isn't something we would use. You'd wanna use completely unique photos, and so we would do whatever
it takes to get those. And if we look through this,
it's very well designed. It has good readability, but
once again, stock photos. It doesn't look like it has any video. So, this is once again
something that can be beat by adding more uniqueness,
and more personality, and being more relatable. So after you've created the content, it's time to go into the promotion phase. Now, the goal here is to
acquire as many backlinks to this asset as you can. And I do have a super in-depth video. My channel will show you the 19 different link building
techniques you can use, but I'll show you a few
of my favorites here. So, the first technique is what I call the authority
transfer technique. Now, the authority transfer technique isn't technically a link building tactic, but it's a powerful way to
distribute link authority to your most important SEO-driven pages. So, here's how it works. Step number one is to identify
what pages on your site have existing backlinks, and the best way to find
these pages is to use Ahrefs. Just open up Ahrefs, enter your domain, and start the analysis. Then click on Best by links under Pages, and sort by Referring domains. Step number two is to add
internal links on those pages to relevant SEO-driven pages. Now, all you need to do now
is add the internal links, and your internal links
should target pages that are A, topically relevant, and B, you're trying to rank. I recommend using exact match anchor text with your internal links, and it's safe to do so as
long as they aren't sitewide. Now, I recommend using this technique every time you publish
a new SEO-driven page. It's one of the best
ways to give your page a boost out of the gate by
leveraging existing authority. Now, your goal should
be to push your pages up the SERPs as far as possible
before acquiring links. The authority transfer technique
is one of the best ways to accomplish that goal fast. So the second technique is what I call the switch-up technique. The switch-up technique is my favorite way to build relationships fast. So, as you may or may not know, building relationships is a critical piece to getting more backlinks. Most people fail at link outreach because they're metaphorically trying to hit a home run on the first day. Now, just like in sales,
you need to take baby steps along the journey. You have to build
relationships with the websites and the people that are
capable of linking to you before you ask for something. There needs to be an exchange of value. Now, value comes in many different forms including money, helping
the person, or even content, but here's a perfect example of a student of Gotch SEO
Academy exchanging value with me, and I had no choice but
to link to this tool because it solved a real
problem and added real value. Now, money works well,
but you can acquire links without having to pay people, but that will only be possible through building real relationships. So, the first step to accomplishing that is to use the switch-up technique. Here's how to do it. Go through your blog content and examine your external links. See if you're linking
out to general websites like Wikipedia, CNN, or
any authority websites with many authors. Then go to Google and
look for a replacement from a lower authority blog. Change the link and then
reach out to the person, then use a non-threatening
template like this. (lively electronic music) So then the third technique is what I call the Oprah technique, and I created a cool
name for this technique, but it's super simple. You're going to get
interviewed and land links. So, just go to Google. Enter interview plus niche, or interview with plus your competitor, and then add all these link prospects to your link building document, then just reach out and pitch
yourself for the interview. Use a simple template like this. (lively electronic music) So, that is how you do SEO
in a competitive industry. It won't be easy, but
competitive industries are usually the most lucrative, so the effort and time are worth it. So if you enjoyed this
video, please like it and subscribe to my channel because you'll get first access when I publish a new
video just like this one. And also, if you have
any questions whatsoever, please leave it below. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.
