(Entry was posted by Laurie Turnbull on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 10/11/2013).

Hi there. Apologies in advance for this long message!

Hi there. Apologies in advance for this long message!

I have come from a large client-side SEO position where I had a small team of online marketers to assist in our SEO efforts. The effect was that we were able to work on link building and onsite optimisation at the same time and obviously give it 100% of our attention (and the website had very high DA and Trust).

I have recently moved to a small agency where I am the sole SEO-Guy and my clients are small. I typically have no more than 8 hours to spend per month on all aspects of SEO (analysis, reporting, link building and content optimisation) per client and I have to strictly adhere to this. To make matters more difficult, these clients typically have weak back-link profiles (low in number and quality and all pointing to the home page) and poorly optimised content (which contributes to low DA & PR).

I went through my first `monthly process` for a particular client in September and focused my 8 hours on optimising the site content for a particular section of the website. This involved optimising meta titles & descriptions, body content and images for our chosen keywords. I didn`t focus on links at all. I published the changes to the site on 23rd September.

When I look at my rankings as of 6th October, one keyword in particular has dropped by 28 places (from 11 to 39) which seems excessive to me. In my mind, the changes I made were small, so this drop concerns me.

The particular URL was ranking in position 11 for a keyword that I subsequently targeted to another (more relevant) page in the site. Both pages have the same MR, PA and links etc. I think I may have effectively cannibalised the keyword and to make matters worse, the new page isn`t even in the top 50! Both pages are in the Google Index.

So, this is my longwinded way of asking for your opinion on whether other SEOs in my position would recommend spending time on building the back link profile to strengthen DA and PR of deeper pages before you start making content optimisations (given I am unable to do them at the same time). It`s tricky with small clients as they don`t necessarily understand how long these things can take.

Cheers!

Laurie

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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

Tony McCreath: Welcome to my world. There is only so much you can do each month so picking whats most important is key.

I tend to get the website ship shape before looking at links. It can sometimes give you some quick wins.

And don't fret those changes. Smaller websites with smaller data will fluctuate. Saying that you may be dependent on a few key search terms that have a big influence.
Laurie Turnbull: Thanks Tony. What's your view on retargeting Keywords to other URLS? For example, the URL in question has little to do with the keyword it ranks for (it ranks for other which are relevant). But clearly by optimising a different page for the KW, I have dropped rankings (and, I suspect, traffic to that page).

Am I better off trying to strengthen the ranking for URLS based on what they currently rank for or restructure the site content with the risk of dropping rankings in the (hopefully) short term?
Tony McCreath: I've not had much experience on that issue.

Also watch out for Google updates (Penguin on the 4th) and competitor changes, maybe they are the cause and not you.
Simon Fryer: Hi +Laurie Turnbull. Delivering results with so few hours is one of the main challenges of starting out as an Agency SEO. ;

As +Tony McCreath ;has pointed out lower DA sites do experience more fluctuation and the timing seems to coincide with Penguin as well. I very much doubt your on-site work would result in these kind of drops. ;

"spending time on building the back link profile to strengthen DA and PR of deeper pages before you start making content optimisations"

In the past on low DA/budget sites I would carry out minimum required on-site optimisation and technical fixes in the first month and start on linkbuilding right away. I'd then spend an amount of time each month continuing to optimise the site. ;

The reason is that you're getting the benefit of links sooner (most likely leading to faster results) and can also create continuous improvements from on-site work which show progress for your client whilst you wait for your linkbuilding efforts to bear fruit.

"Am I better off trying to strengthen the ranking for URLS based on what they currently rank for or restructure the site content with the risk of dropping rankings in the (hopefully) short term? "

I would normally improve the performance of existing pages unless the content is in major need of some restructuring. ;
Laurie Turnbull: Hi +simon fryer great feedback thanks. I'm erring towards your suggestion. Good stuff!
W.E. Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 01:20:38 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/hi_there_apologies_in_advance_for_this_long_message

View original question in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 10/11/2013).

Hi there. Apologies in advance for this long message!

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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