10 Things I Learned From Doing SEO For Competitive Keywords

A couple months ago, I did SEO work for a client who wanted to rank for three competitive keywords. This project was different from my normal line of work.

My usual work consisted of two things.

First, I helped clients achieve better rankings but I had only worked on low to medium competitive keywords.

Second, I did SEO in competitive niches but I never had to worry about rankings. Instead, an SEO firm was responsible for the rankings. They outsourced their link requests and linkbait creation to me.

So when the chance came to do SEO for competitive keywords, I took it. I wanted to learn, get practical experience, and most importantly, test my skills.

The SEO Project

Let’s talk more about the actual project so you have a better idea of what I was dealing with.

The SEO contract was for six months but I only had to work 50 hours each month.

The client had three different phrases they were targeting with their home page. Each phrase only had two words. The first phrase had over 100,000,000 results on Google, the second over 64,000,000, and the third over 10,000,000.

The keywords were commercially-oriented and product-driven. The client was in a relatively lucrative niche. It wasn’t as lucrative as mortgages but it was worth more than wedding photography.

Fortunately, the site was already in the top 50 results for the keywords so I didn’t have a lot of ground to cover. However, the sites on the first page were all authoritative sites so it wasn’t a guarantee that I could get the site could rank in the top 10 results.

Due to the circumstances, the client only let me create one piece of linkbait for their site. My linkbait did not do very well.

I created an onpage optimization report for them, which they implemented. For the most part, they did not have any big issues with onpage SEO.

After the six months were up, I had ranked the site on the first page of the desired keywords. Here’s what I learned from the project.

1. You don’t need many links but you do need quality links.

Because I only worked part time on the project and linkbait was not much of an option, I did not have time to build many quality links.

I built only 10-15 links per month, which came out to be around 70 links in the six month period. But those few links were enough to get the top rankings. The links I built were content-based and most of them were on high trust domains.

I was worried that 10-15 links per month would not be enough, but a few quality links makes a big difference on Google.

Here’s the takeaway: Don’t underestimate traditional link building. Sure, linkbaiting is flashier but going after links one at a time can be effective too.

2. You can’t go wrong with copying your competitors’ links.

Copying my competitors’ backlinks was an indispensable strategy.

I spent many hours using the linkdomain and link command on Yahoo search to find out the links of the sites in the top 10. Then, I used various tactics to try and build those same links.

With this strategy, you can quickly generate a list of strong sites. These sites are great link targets because they’ve shown a propensity to link out.

3. Buying links still works but you have to stay under the radar.

I was hesitant to buy links because it can be risky. But I came across a couple great link opportunities that did not look like paid links at all.

In my view, money is just another link building tool like guest posts and
linkbait. Some sites simply won’t link to you unless they get paid. You have to do a cost/benefit analysis. Some paid links are too expensive while others are good deals especially the permanent ones.

Yes, there are risks involved. But as long as the link seller is not obvious with their paid links, it is virtually impossible for Google to detect that a monetary transaction took place.

I didn’t buy many links but the ones I bought were some of the best links and they seemed to boost the rankings.

Link buying probably should not be a main strategy since Google has been more vigilant in tracking down paid links. However, there are enterprising link sellers in every industry that stay under the radar. Keep your eyes open and pick your spots.

4. Link requests still work well.

I built many quality strong links by sending the old fashioned “Please link to me” link request. Okay, I didn’t beg, but I did say that my client’s site was a great resource and if they it liked it, I would appreciate a link.

I got links on a couple high PageRank .edu domains with this tactic.

5. Blogs are prime link targets for guest posts.

Guest posting is a solid strategy even for commercial sites without a blog like my client’s. I found that many trusted blogs are willing to link as long as I had a good guest post.

Don’t be afraid to contact blogs that have never published a guest post. Many times I found a blog with good link authority but no one had ever guest posted on the blog.

At first, I ignored these blogs because it seemed like they were not welcoming to guest posts. But I realized I had nothing to lose other than a small amount of time so it went for it. I got a couple rejections but more often than not, those blogs were happy to get free content.

6. Don’t forget directory links.

Directory links are a great place to start since many commercial sites don’t know about their usefulness. These links are easy to build. As long as you’re submitting a useful site, you just pay the price and you’ve got your link.

Here are five of my favorite directories:

http://www.dirjournal.com/
http://botw.org/
http://directory.v7n.com/
http://www.romow.com/
http://joeant.com/

Of course, there are many other good directories. Here’s a
directory list to consider. You can evaluate the directories just like you would other sites.

7. Keywords in anchor text is great but you don’t need them on every link.

About 50% of my links did not have keywords in the anchor text.

One of the most successful online businessmen I know says Google is placing more emphasis on brands. He says it’s very beneficial to have a lot of brand anchor text, which is commonly the site name. I trust this businessman because he has many high traffic sites and does a lot of SEO testing.

Therefore, I chose not to focus too much on keywords in anchor text. And I made sure to use the site name a lot.

Also, you should vary the keywords. Too much of the same keyword looks unnatural and may set off a spam filter with Google.

8. Rankings fluctuate wildly. Just stay the course.

I’ve never seen such fluctuating rankings until I started working on competitive keywords. One month I would be on the first page and then the next month I would languish on the second or third page. This happened every month until the sixth month. Sometimes the fluctuations were even weekly.

These up-and-down rankings can play on your emotions but there’s nothing you can do to immediately stop them. Focus on building quality links and in time, those fluctuations will go away and you’ll have stable first page rankings.

I asked my businessman friend about the phenomenon. He said that it probably has to do with link age. He believes that links age well like a good wine. The older a link, the more benefit it will give you.

9. You can keep rankings even after the link campaign is over.

I helped my client get a lot of targeted traffic to his site, so I thought he would renew the contract. Unfortunately, he opted not to renew.

I thought they would lose their rankings. Instead their rankings have improved. It’s been four months since my work with them. During this time, they gained 1-2 spots.

I’m not sure why this is the case since they did not hire another search specialist to replace me. I have two theories.

First, the links are, of course, still aging. This may have provided the small ranking boost.

Second, my client may be getting natural links because of the traffic from their top 10 positions. They have more useful content because of their article section than most of the other top 10 sites. Their articles may be getting a couple natural links every month.

10. Link building campaigns for competitive keywords are not much different from campaigns for less competitive keywords.

Based on what I’ve shared already, you probably realize that there is not much difference from link building for competitive keywords to link building for non-competitive keywords.

Yes, the rankings for competitive keywords will take more time to attain but the SEO fundamentals still work. Build quality links and be patient. By following this advice, in time, you’ll achieve your ranking goals.

Because of my experience, I’m confident I can achieve success with other competitive keywords.

Over to You

Now that I’ve shared my first experience with trying to rank for competitive keywords, I’d like to hear your stories. What was your first experience like?

This is a guest post by Dee Barizo. Along with doing freelance SEO work, he helps run Forever Geek. Contact us if you want to guest post on this blog.