This article covers several different methods to help you identify and seize opportunities to promote your site quickly and efficiently. I believe that, when it comes down to it, website promotion works best when based on the Pareto principle – that is, 20% of the pages create 80% of the traffic. This article will help you identify, optimize, and promote your best pages, the 20% that generate most of your traffic.

1. Leveraging Existing Content

As you probably know already, more and more business owners understand the importance of their website’s ranking in Google’s search results. As it is the go-to search engine for almost everyone and everything, Google has become the effective reality of the business world. Businesses simply can’t afford to rank low on its search results. It only follows that, for more and more queries the first few rankings become increasingly competitive.

In addition, despite a growing number of keyword research tools, most users still use such well-known tools as Keyword Planner, Semrush, Ahrefs, Answer the Public, and Uber Suggest. This creates two major problems. First, it means that everyone gets very similar keyword research results, and so competition for these keywords only grows. Second, it means that you are probably missing opportunities to quickly and efficiently promote pages using less-competitive keywords. Recent years have shown a rise in website promotion based on content and context, as opposed to plain ol’ keywords, which used to be enough. In direct result, content creators now feel more comfortable to write content based on the genuine interests of their target audience, rather than generic keywords.

As search engines become more sophisticated, our “conversations” with them become more and more humanlike. Google understands this and gives higher rankings to results that are calculated as relevant or consistent with “the writer’s intention,” as opposed to results that simply contain the relevant keywords. This, my friends, is a gamechanger. I believe that, when planning your 2018 content strategy, you must consider what topics or ideas might interest your target audience, regardless of whether these topics come up in your keyword research.

In the end, it doesn’t matter whether you write based on keywords or based on the interests of your audience – the next check is relevant for everyone. Use Google’s Search Console to see if your existing content has untapped potential.

How Do We Do It?

Go to Search Console → Search Traffic → Search Analytics, check Queries, and filter your results based on position, clicks, and impressions. It should look something like this:

So What Do We Have Here?

• Clicks: The number of clicks for the query. Clicking the little arrow to the right of the query would launch a new window with its Google search results.
• Impressions: The number of impressions for that query
• Position: The page’s average position (that is, ranking) for that query.

Important: This screen does not actually show you the relevant page for a given query. To find it, you need to type site:domain.com [query] in Google’s command line. Another way to find the relevant page is by using your keyword tracking tool. Just type the query to see which page it indexes.

Note: It might be a good idea to export the file as an MS Excel file or as a Google Sheet before performing this analysis.

So, now that we know what we’re looking at, let’s understand what we need to find!

Using an Excel or Google Sheet filter, I usually look for a query whose impressions are as high as possible and positioned at 1-15. The Clicks parameter would be a bonus parameter in this case. If a query looks promising (that is, high in both position and impressions), it means that it already generates some traffic, and therefore is a great candidate for optimization. Don’t fret too much if the Clicks parameter is low – it’s probably not as significant as the other two.

After we’ve identified the most promising opportunities, we need to see how competitive they are. I estimate competition based on the number of searches, referring domains, and the number of results whose title contains the query. I also make sure that my page contains the search query, though perhaps Google finds it less than optimal. If my review shows that the query is not so competitive – that’s our winner! We can now optimize that page based on our query and then sit back and wait for the improved ranking.

2. PageSpeed Optimizing

The first method made use of Google’s Search Console to identify promotion opportunities that went unnoticed. This method discusses opportunities that are easier to locate, but can still be greatly optimized for better results.

Earlier last month, Google issued two updates on site loading speed. The first update discusses their Pagespeed Optimization tool, which was previously based on the browser that ran it. Not anymore. According to Google, the tool is now based on measurements of real user experiences, which make a far better indication of how the site functions, its loading speed, and the user’s browsing experience. According to their second update, a site’s loading speed on mobile now directly and officially(!) affects that site’s ranking.

Why focus on loading speed? Because it might win us fast results without rethinking or making any strategic SEO decisions. Since loading speed is now an official ranking parameter, it is important to identify the pages that already generate organic traffic and optimize their loading speed. This method is not unlike the previous one, though the pages we are now seeking are different in nature. When it comes to actual rather than potential traffic, Google Analytics (as opposed to the Search Console) is a better, more reliable tool.

So how can we identify which pages receive consistent organic traffic? Go to Google Analytics -> Acquisition -> All Traffic -> Source Medium -> Organic Traffic with Landing Page as Secondary Dimension. You should see something like this: