In 2021, a friend of mine who worked in industrial equipment came to me and said that his company had been searching for a core keyword for three years and had been ranked on the second and even later, asking if he could help him make the front page。
I asked him what word he said, "nightware manufacturer," and i wouldn't say the exact name, but it's not a very strong, but not a cold word。
I took this project. Today's article is the whole process of saying that this keyword has never been ranked on the stable front page. Not the seo manual. Those things are all over the internet. I would like to say something that really matters in this process, but that many people ignore。
Let's start with the basics of taking over。
The first thing i felt when i got to the back of their website was that it was lucky to be on the second page。
The website was made in 2018, using old templates, and the speed of page loading was too slow to be seen. In terms of content, there are less than 20 articles taken together, and most of them are product introduction pages, with almost the same text simply changing product names and parameters。
Most of all, the title, description, and h1 labels of the site are messy. The full name of the company with a list of products, more than 30 words, written directly under the heading on the first page, does not meet the basic specifications for the optimization of the search engine。
And i said to the client, "if you want to do this, it's not just a few pages, you have to comb it from the bottom. Client says yes, you take care of it。
So i started。
The first step might not have been the way many people thought — i didn't rush to go out and change my keyword density, but put the technical foundations of the website in place。
In particular, these are:
First, the website is upgraded from http to https. This was no longer new in 2021, but many of the traditional business websites were not. The search engine has a clear preference for the https site, which is the basis。
Second, optimize the speed at which the website is loaded. The original server configuration was low and the average page load time exceeded 5 seconds. I replaced them with a better-equipped server, and compressed the photographic resources, combining and compressing css and js files. After this, the page loading time was reduced to less than two seconds。
Third, you did move-end fit. Turns out it was a disaster to open it on a mobile phone, with different font sizes, no buttons, no pictures. I re-engineered the mobile end presentation of the entire site with a response layout。
Fourth, a set of technical problems of the website was repaired: 404 pages were not set correctly, robots. Txt was wrongly written, sitemap failed to submit to the search engine, page url was unfriendly (with a bunch of dynamic parameters)。
It took about three weeks to finish these things. I didn't see the ranking change immediately after it was finished, which is normal. Seo is not an immediate matter, especially at the technical level, but its impact is long-term and gradual。
The second step is to optimize the content dimension。
This is also the most critical step i think it is, and it is where many seos are prone to bias。
And when i saw so many so-called seo experts optimising keywords, it was the idea of making crazy target keywords on the page, thinking that the higher the density, the better. This practice may have been useful 10 years ago and is now not only useless but also considered fraudulent by search engines。
I did something completely different。
I spent a week working on the search for the word. What's the search intent? Which means what does the user want when he searchs for the "xx devices"
By analysing the content of several sites in front of the search results page, i found that the first page was essentially in two categories: one is the official network or product page of a formal manufacturer, and the other is the consolidation page of the industry b2b platform. This means that when the search engine judges the term user searching, the main search is for "manufacturing information that buys equipment"。
Having made this clear, i began to re-engineer the content architecture around this site。
First is the front page. I changed the header of the front page to "employer xx - focused on xx devices development and production - [name of company]" with 28 words, containing core keywords while maintaining readability. The description label contains a natural description of the company's main business, its merits and its contact details。
Then the interior page is planned. Instead of copying the same template text on each product page as originally done, i wrote a detailed description of the original creation for each primary type of product, including product characteristics, application scenes, technical parameters, post-sales safeguards, etc. Each article contains more than 800 words, ensuring that there is sufficient information to meet user needs。
In addition to this, i have prepared a series of articles on industry-related subjects, such as "how to choose the appropriate equipment for xx", "guide to the day-to-day maintenance of xx equipment", "analysis of trends in xx industry" and so on. The purpose of these articles is not to push the product directly, but to increase the overall authority and content of the website, which the search engine feels is specialized in this area。
From june to september 2021, i have added more than 40 high-quality originals in three months。
The third step is the construction of external links, but my approach has also been restrained。
I know that some seo companies are going to buy a large number of extra-chains or leave links in a variety of fora blogs with a grouping software. This practice is highly risky and, once found by a search engine, can easily be reduced or even blocked。
My strategy is: quality is greater than quantity。
I spent a lot of time looking for platforms that have a certain weight in the industry, and then trying to post valuable content on these platforms and leave natural links to client websites. For example, on the business home page of the b2b platform in some industries, on the list of members on the industry association website, and on the information website in several vertical industries。
I've probably won less than 50 outer chains throughout the process, but each one comes from relatively credible sources. Instead of thousands of out-of-waste chains, dozens of high-quality ones。
How'd it go
In october 2021, about four months after the start of the project, the term entered for the first time the top 20 of the 100-degree search results. Although not yet on the front page, significant changes can already be seen。
By mid-november, the ranking was in the top 15. In early december, for the first time on the front page, it was probably the eighth place。
The client was so excited, he told me it was three years ago。
But i told him not to be happy too soon, and the ranking doesn't mean it's stable. The hardest thing for seo is not to go up, but to hold。
Indeed, the next few months have seen fluctuations in rankings, sometimes falling back to the second page and sometimes returning to the first page. This is very normal in the seo process, especially in the case of medium-competitive keywords, where ranking fluctuations are normal。
By around march 2022, the ranking had begun to stabilize and remained essentially between the fifth and eighth places on the first page. Until now, i know that the ranking is stable。
Looking back at the whole process, i think there are a few experiences worth sharing。
First, seo is a system engineering, not a supercharge of a single skill. Many people think that seo is just an article, an extra-link, a keyword density, too one-sided. A website can perform well in a search engine, and the dimensions of technology, content quality, user experience and external signals are indispensable. If you do one or two of them while ignoring others, you will be less effective。
Secondly, content quality is much more important than quantity. I've written more than 40 articles in this project, an average of a dozen in a month, and that's not a big amount. However, each article is a well-researched original with a real amount of information. In contrast, i see too many websites seeking to publish a large number of low-quality fake originals or ai-generated content per day, an approach that is meaningless in the long run。
Thirdly, patience is one of the most important qualities of seo. It took almost four months from the beginning to the visible results, and nearly one year to stabilize the ranking. If you expect a seo to be on the front page in half a month, it's probably gonna get fucked. Except, of course, for the long end words, which are less competitive, which can really work relatively quickly。
Fourth, don't superstitiously call "fast ranking" services. There are a lot of names on the market that can make your keywords on the front page in a few days. I advise you not to touch it. The rationale for those services was to use the loopholes in the search engine or the black hat, which could do so in the short term, but once the algorithms had recognized the light, the entire station was sealed. No money。
Finally, there is a point about the future of seo。
Now a lot of people say the seo's gone, and everyone's gone with the shivering little red book, and no one's searched 100 degrees. Isn't that right? Partly, but not all。
Indeed, the flow of search engines is shifting, and the attention of users is being diverted by the various apps. However, for the b2b industry and for users with clear procurement needs, searching remains one of the most important channels of access. Do you want to buy an industrial device, do you want to shake a video or do you want to search the factory
So my judgment is, seo's not dead, it's just getting more professional. The previous rough, speculative seo approach did not work, but if your strategy is sound and implemented, seo remains one of the most efficient ways for firms to obtain accurate flows。
If you're thinking of optimizing your own website, or if you're confused with the seo, i hope this article will give you some information. Questions can be shared in the comment area。
Jupiter, it/internet entrepreneur. The official ‘girl journal’, which records the many accompanying notes on internet marketing and business models, learning and living, awareness and thinking。
