Don’t rely on rankings only
Scott Buresh of Medium Blue had some good points to make about what to look for when hiring an SEO agency.
"Any search engine optimization company worth its salt can achieve high rankings of some sort. The true question is whether those search engine rankings are for targeted phrases that are in line with your overall marketing strategy," writes Scott.
Indeed. Too many companies rush into SEO with not enough thought given to how their online content strategy will impact their overall marketing plan.
He points put that digging into your unique differentiators can give you ideas for very targeted long tail key phrases. Perhaps there won’t be a ton of people searching that phrase, but those who are will be perfect candidates for your product or service.
One example: Drug Rehab is a very broad and competitive term. As you can imagine, thousands search this term every day. But by the same token, the number of sites competing for this phrase is big and the effort needed to get to page one is pretty steep.
In contrast, the long tail phrase successful drug rehab doesn’t have a huge number of searches or competitors. But those who are searching this term have already been through one or more rehab programs without success.
For a rehab program with the differentiator that they routinely get an almost 80 percent success rate as opposed to the 20 percent most rehab programs offer, this is the perfect audience.
It’s a great way to find those ‘sweet spot’ key words and phrases.
