When looking to reach a top ranking in Google, you’re going to need a lot of planning to you there. The essential tools found in this SEO primer checklist will help forge your path to the top while being guided by expert advice every step of the way.
Site Audit Tool
To build a foundation for search engine optimization, you first need an error-free website. Shockingly, most websites run through the ahrefs site audit tool only receive an SEO score of 30-45 out of 100.
On a decent size website, this can well over 500-1000 errors that require fixing, and while many can be solved in bulk, others like broken links, missing images, and incomplete META titles and descriptions have to be dealt with individually.
These fixes are must be worked on before your onPage SEO, to ensure your article content gets the ranking power it deserves.
Site Explorer Tool
Once you know who your main search traffic competitors are, and what keywords present opportunities for you to rank higher than them in Google, you can formulate a plan to take their top spots.
The site explorer tool at ahrefs will allow you to do a deep dive into every keyword, and every backlink your competition owns, so you copy their path up the search engine rankings.
With this data, you can then formulate your strategy for acquiring similar backlinks that when equaled or surpassed will vault you above your competitors in Google rankings.
While the backlink check can set up your initial plan to move up the Google ladder, subscribing to ahrefs daily alerts will keep you up-to-date on the hottest new backlinks that can consistently improve your Google ranking power.
Keyword Explorer Tool
To ensure you get your money’s worth from your 7-day trial at ahefs.com ($7), you should also take advantage of their other tools. By using their keyword content explorer, you can easily see what pages drive the most organic traffic to your competition, and note them for future reference.
When doing a more in-depth look, you can also root out the search keywords that offer the best opportunity for you to supersede your competitor and steal their traffic, due to a lack of strong competition.
Low Competition Filter
Within the ahrefs keyword content explorer tool, you can also filter results for low competition keywords that you’re most likely to climb into the Top 10 quickly with a tightly focused article.
By watching the basic keyword research tutorial video below, you can quickly learn how to harness the power of ahrefs and find low-competition keywords that Google will love.
In short, what you’re looking for are keywords with a low KD (keyword difficulty score), along with a volume of 300+ searches and traffic numbers of 20% or more of the volume. If the traffic numbers exceed the volume, that’s even better.
AHREFS Recap
At this point, you should have more than enough research data from ahrefs about your competition’s top traffic pages/backlinks to set a plan in motion that will keep you busy for weeks. This information alone will pay for the $7 ahrefs trial period several times over.
On top of this, you should have at least 5-10 article subjects with low competition scores, that will allow you to find new traffic sources that your competition DOES NOT possess.
These niche keyword articles can help you quickly establish top rankings and create a foothold to ensure to help boost the rankings of your existing pages.
onPage SEO
While the long-term process above is being set in motion, you’ll first need to maximize the rankings of your existing pages. In general, the higher rankings you achieve overall on your website, the faster newly posted content will rise to the top.
For these edits, you’ll be using the SEOSurfer content editor, which analyzes competitor pages that rank above you under a specific keyword.
The final report is akin to a recipe for success, as it provides a list of changes to make in individual articles that also include all the same ranking factors your higher-ranking competition has.
After the changes are made to each page on your website, you’ll monitor the search results for improvement, and adjust as needed until you get a reach your top ranking.
Do note that for keywords with a higher keyword difficultly score, that your backlink campaign should be your main focus after onPage SEO edits no longer improve your Google rank.
New Content Planning
At this point, you’ll be introducing new article content to your website based on the research from Step 2 (matching your competitor’s best articles) and Step 4 (low competition article subjects).
This process starts with using the SEO Surfer content planner that will provide an article layout where the SEO is already included in the article outline.
Targeted article headings will be chosen based on their ranking and page value. Specific keyword mentions based on SEO Surfer suggestions will also into specific paragraphs to ensure a broad content scope that will provide a high initial rank.
SEO Surfer also you to easily set up content writing templates. which outsourced writers can easily follow to the letter.
Backlink Campaigns
The #1 SEO ranking signal at present is still a high number of backlinks, but it’s the quality of them that is most important.
The research from Step 3 will provide the roadmap to match and improve your competitor’s backlinks, but these campaigns must run with dogged consistency to produce the desired results. Each backlink you collect will help your rankings grow, and the more backlinks you attain, the more your competition needs to catch up.
Initially, the easiest competitor links to replicate, like online business directories, should be completed first. When time allows, try focusing on those that require a little more effort, such as email requests or article guest posts, as better backlinks will often produce better ranking results.
In general, the goal is to add more/better backlinks than your competitors while you monitor your articles rise up the search engine rankings.
Social Media Campaigns
While simple social media posts can be added to announce each new article / worthwhile website improvement, Steps 1 through 5 (ahrefs Site Audit and onPage SEO for all existing pages) take precedence since they will lay the foundation to increase your Google Authority,
In general, the higher your Google Authority, the faster your newly added content will start to receive organic search traffic.
Steps 6 and 7 along with Step 8 to improve your social media presence, will then take up the bulk of the weekly SEO improvements in a rinse-and-repeat process until your desired results are achieved.