Doing a quick SEO test using an IDX question

One of the things we use HREFS for is to keep an eye on keywords that are moving (up and down)

Recently the keyword “what is IDX” popped onto the radar and since it’s not a high keyword difficulty phrase, I figured I’d give a shot (5 mins or less) to see if I can’t improve it’s rankings significantly

Here’s the screen if you’re curious.

So what to do with this?

Well, any experienced SEO will tell you it’s better to update existing / ranking content than constantly chance rankings with new content (trust me, it works WAY better).

So I’m going to follow that mantra and do a few quick edits.

First of all, the previous page that was ranking didn’t have the exact phrase in the title. So I’m updating that.

Next, there was no H1 tag for this post (since we updated to the newest REW framework so H1’s in blogs are no longer automatic… @AidanC this means we have to go back through all Blog post content and add headings as a cleanup step FYI)

Finally, I’m going to link this post to it and also create an IDX tag which we can then use on both our blogs and forums via our EXTREMELY cool dynamic linking feature to get all this content linked together.

That’s it, no big. Not even going to change the content up really (at least not for this test.

I suppose last is I’ll update the publish date since it’s now been updated.

Today we’re in positon 65… let’s see what happens in a week :slight_smile:

Any questions about this quick insight into updating a page for real estate SEO? Post them below :point_down:t2:

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@Morgan What does HREFS stand for? Is this screen shot you supplied from the Google Console?
And thanks for the reminder to improve a page rather than start over with a new page.

Hello Kim - ahrefs is an SEO tool (paid)… it’s one of the better ones out there.

You can find it at https://www.ahrefs.com

I don’t recommend you buy it though until you get to the advanced SEO level. Prior to spending the $ on it, you can learn all the basics here on the community for free, and until you’ve implemented all the basics (which should always be done first) you don’t need a more advanced tool.

If you are getting to that level of advanced though - it’s a great option (I prefer it to SEMRush or MOZ)

FYI, in search console you can get much of the same basic data using the query function (and you can use comparison by date)

Simple example from “What is IDX”

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Update - I haven’t touched it since spending 5 mins on it, and here is the result:

An increase of 54 positions and almost on the first page. (after 5 minutes of work)

This is a big-time reminder of how important on-page optimization and internal linking can be. I’m sure with time it will improve even more, especially if I get @AidanC to put in a whole TEN minutes of additional effort into it :slight_smile:

Though really, it was just a test. 800 search volume keywords, 50+ positions in 5 minutes?

That’s the lesson here folks

Now let’s talk about what a real SEO campaign might look like around this kind of phrase.

Truth be told, for a single keyword, it’s not worth a whole campaign unless it’s very high traffic and highly relevant, however, I’m going to show you how you make it worth it.

Let’s unpack the keyword. It’s a question. Could there be more questions being asked?

I already know the answer, but let me show you with data using the search console: I’ll go to the query section and type in words like “what” “why” and “how”

Check this out!

What?

How?

(And I’m not even trying yet)

The reality is it is likely MILLIONS of searches of relevant questions that contain questions relevant to our business.

Many have thousands of searches for a single phrase AND they are low difficulty when it comes to ranking them.

It think we have a winner! Now let’s come up with a plan.

Step 1: They are questions. We already know we need to create a FAQ section AND use Schema markup to ensure additional search features.

But 1 page of FAQ’s won’t do. If we’re going after thousands of questions we would need to organize our FAQ section into categories (perhaps even sub categories) so visitors can actually use it. (Sidenote @Phil we need to make our FAQ markup a priority from that FAQ thread) < I know @KeywordGuy and @Victor_Lozada will be excited for that :slight_smile:

So let’s say we have a really well-organized FAQ section.

I also want to use the pillar concept to include/interlink my FAQs everywhere. What’s step 2:?

Step 2: We’re trying to drive engaged community members. And so in addition to the FAQ, let’s start a thread as well, using compelling hooks in the title and optimizing it for supporting keywords of the FAQ’s main keyword.

Step 3: For really competitive high-volume question keywords, they will justify the additional effort. A blog post (a very high-value blog post) for each. The good thing about this, is while it may take 5-6 hours to research, write format and optimize, it’s not like that post would only support it’s main term. It supports many terms. In addition that long-form content forms the basis for the forum discussion thread and can be repurposed into video scripts, decks, and social media posts all leading back to the blog and FAQ’s.

Step 4: Take all that super high-value content and create social posts about it.

There are lot of other little things in here, but by just doing those things along, I’d be willing to wager we could increase our traffic by several million visitors over time.One idea for the top 50, I could book a REW Studio session with @Elianna and I could read off the top questions and answers on video. Elianna could then splice them into smaller groups and 1 at a time answers and we could leverage those for quick and easy social video shorts as well! Elianna, we’re both here in Florida this week - let’s grab 10 and test it out :slight_smile:

Worth it? I think so! @Emma @AmyPye I know we’ve just hired to more full-time SEO folks. Let’s review their writing styles and see who might be a good fit. I’m authorizing 1,000 hours on this for 2023 (in addition to Aidan’s time that is).

Members,… anything you might add to this plan?

Any questions about the process above? Post your comments below :point_down:t2:

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Yes, you are correct I would be excited about this! I have it on my list to try the FAQ Schema you showed recently. Right after I finish converting our images to webp

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Heh :star_struck:

It’d be interesting to see what a FAQ and some images can do to this post.

I’m sure the updated publishing date helped too.

I don’t know why, but updating older content is one of the most satisfying parts of SEO :thinking:

I think it’s because you already have a performance benchmark for the page that you can compare after the changes are made. It makes the results very rewarding and meaningful!