SEO - Aim High

When I was first starting out in Affiliate Marketing I read everything that was out there on SEO. I spent more time reading than doing to begin with. Most of what was true then still holds true today, the rules of SEO haven’t changed all that much.

Using the now defunct Overture Keyword Tool I’d choose my keywords and aim for a phrase somewhere below the top, assuming that the main one or two word phrases would belong to the big online brands and SEO Jedis.

This seemed like a good long tail tactic to get started as a noob and produced a few trickles of traffic. When I accidently started ranking for a few of the “top” keyphrases I’d tried to avoid, I realised it was possible to aim higher with some success.

This isn’t a how-to guide on basic SEO or a step by step explanation on the intricacies of on page keyword density;  the morale of this story is aim high. Use your homepage to chase the top ranking SERPS in your area/vertical, and work hard to get those backlinks. Over a period of time (and it really won’t be quick) you can get your site ranking for highly competitive and lucrative terms.

When we launched sunshine.co.uk we decided to have a go at “cheap holidays“, one of the highest ranking key phrases for our sector. It took over a year to reach page 5 of Google, but within 2-3 months after that we were on page 1. A few more tweaks and some more link building brought us up to the top end of page 1, where we seem to rotate between position #1 and #2 daily.

Our medium-to-long term aim now is to get onto page 1 for “holidays” and see how far we can take it!

So don’t be frightened to give it a go, long tail isn’t the only SEO option available to you and remember good SEO is a marathon not a sprint. (cliché cliché)