Sarasota SEO Expert Shares 7 Advanced SEO Tips for Competitive Industries

September 2022 – Sarasota

As a business owner, SEO can be frustrating and confusing. It feels like you’re doing all the right things and somehow you’re not seeing the improvements you expected. Gerrid Smith, founder of Fortress SEO and a Sarasota SEO expert, has some high-level SEO tips to help move your business to the next level. Gerrid has used these tactics to build multiple 7- and 8-figure businesses. His most recent business grew to an 8-figure business in its first full year of business. The tactics described here by Gerrid aren’t widely used, but in the most competitive niches he says they are essential to survival. On a positive note, your competitors are likely also not utilizing these strategies, so adopting them can help you gain a competitive advantage in your niche. Here are 7 SEO strategies that Gerrid and Fortress SEO recommend:

Strategy #1: Boost Your Backlinks

Building quality backlinks is commonly discussed when referencing SEO strategies, but the most advanced SEOs take it a step further by building links into their links, boosting their backlinks with more backlinks. To explain this strategy, Gerrid gives us the example of his current project’s niche, CBD. Gerrid has been working in the CBD niche for the last few years, and one of the keywords they work to rank for is “CBD tincture”. Because this is a very competitive niche, the way to rank on the first page of Google for “CBD tincture” is to have as many websites in the top 100 results of Google mentioning and linking to your site. One of the best ways to do this is to write articles and put them on highly authoritative websites. However, that’s not the end of the work. Yes, the article will link back to you, but it will never rank on Google without extra work. If it doesn’t rank well in Google, it can only pass on so much “juice” to your main website. The way to boost the amount of link “juice” that flows from your article to your main site is to build backlinks into your main article. The goal of this strategy is to get more pages in the top 100 Google results linking to you rather than your competitors. As Gerrid says, don’t just build backlinks. Build backlinks into your backlinks. This strategy has provided extraordinary results for his companies.

Strategy #2: Build Massive Content Sections Under Your Main Money Pages

Gerrid explains this strategy using an example. In the example, the client wants to rank for the keyword “shoes”. Because “shoes” is such a broad and competitive keyword, a client would not be able to rank for this keyword without hundreds or thousands of subpages under that main page. The subpages would be slightly more specific than the main page, like “green shoes”. Again, the client would have to have many subpages for this example, but the good news is that for most small businesses, 5-15 subpages would suffice to rank in Google. Gerrid and his team prefer to build pages that are multiple layers deep. The main page can be thought of as the “parent” page, and then a subpage would be a “child” page. Gerrid likes to build pages that have parent, child, grandchild and great-grandchild pages, with each layer adding another level of specificity. If we think back to the goal stated previously, to have multiple pages in the top 100 Google results, we can use our shoe example to conclude which site would fare better: the page with 100 different types of shoes on it, or the site that has hundreds or thousands of subpages linking to their main page? While this strategy is simple, it is not easy. You cannot do this in haste- you need quality content and backlinks. Google is looking for authorities on topics. With subpages under your main page, Google will see you as an authority and you’ll improve your ranking.

Strategy #3: The Goal Isn’t Just to Rank #1… It’s to Have Multiple Web Properties Promoting You On the First Page of Google

When searching Google, people tend to browse the first page of results to find the best fit for their needs. People love to shop. It’s not enough anymore to rank in the first three spots in Google, because people are going to look at their other options even if they do visit your page. The customer needs to see you a few times before they utilize your services. This is why Gerrid recommends using PPC in addition to trying to rank multiple web pages in the organic results for you primary keywords. Having multiple spots on the first page makes you look like the expert on the topic. In addition, Google periodically has algorithm changes which can affect your ranking. If you have a few web pages ranking on page one and you lose one, it’s not the end of the world. The end goal is domination.

Strategy #4: Build Out a PR Plan with HARO

HARO is a website where reporters are posting every day, looking for quotes and input from business owners on a wide variety of topics. If the reporters use your quote, you get a link back to your site. Right now, Gerrid is getting 15-20 links per month on a single site that he owns. This strategy is a phenomenal way to build trust with potential customers and Google. Every time his name or his business name is mentioned, it’s telling Google he’s an authority on this topic. In addition, his competitors aren’t utilizing this strategy, which means long-term Gerrid will be the authority in this niche. Using HARO to build a PR plan is a great way to supplement a link-building campaign with your Sarasota SEO company.

Strategy #5: The Business that Can Spend the Most Money to Acquire a Customer, Wins

Gerrid attributes the idea behind this strategy to Ryan Deiss of digitalmarketing.com. Gerrid says if you look at the businesses that are the most successful in your niche, they are the companies that have found ways to spend more money to acquire customers than everyone else. Whether their solution is higher conversion rates or offering premium services that they can charge more for, there is something allowing them to spend more. Gerrid says one of the best ways to implement this strategy is to work on conversion optimization for your site. One way to do this is to go through your website from the user perspective and figure out how to improve the user experience and also make it more persuasive. The more persuasive and usable the experience is for your customer, the better your conversion rate is. In turn, the better your conversion rate is, the more you can spend to acquire customers. In Gerrid’s example, the starting conversion rate is 2%. If you can optimize your user’s experience and double your conversion rate to 4%, then by the time you have Gerrid’s team come in and implement SEO tactics to double the traffic to your site you’ve now quadrupled your conversion rate. This strategy has a compounding effect. Any great Sarasota SEO agency should be able to highlight the ways you can improve your website.

Strategy #6: Make Your Pages Longer with FAQ Questions

On your money pages and pages that are not ranking as well as you’d hoped they would be, add an FAQ section to the bottom of the page. There should be about 5-10 FAQ questions and they should be formatted in accordion tabs that expand when needed and hide the information when not. The accordion tabs allow for the clean user experience to be upheld. This strategy allows you to add content relevant to your customers to the page, but hide it from them until they want to read it. Gerrid loves this strategy because it allows you to “hide” information unless it’s needed; keeping your web pages clean and focused.

Strategy #7: Make Your Site Blazing Fast

Most people view websites on mobile devices these days. The number one complaint is that sites run slower on mobile devices. To gain an advantage on your competitors, take the steps to make your site as fast as possible. If you use WordPress for your site, Gerrid recommends a plugin from nitropack.io. It’s an immediate solution and your site will load incredibly fast once installed.

Conclusion: Hire a Sarasota SEO Agency That Can Take Your Business to the Next Level

These seven advanced strategies for SEO have helped Gerrid tremendously in his career. They have helped him build multiple successful businesses over the years, and he recommends these strategies to anyone who wants to succeed in their niche. Sarasota SEO expert, Gerrid Smith, is confident that he and his team at Fortress SEO can help you make the gains in your business that you’re looking for. If you would like Gerrid and Fortress SEO to look at your website, visit Fortress SEO to get started.