Low-hanging effect SEO opportunities tin help you:

• Get your contented indexed by Google asap
• Achieve maximum results with minimum effort
• Show clients accelerated advancement to forestall churn
• Get buy-in for much SEO resources

Here are 12 SEO speedy wins you tin instrumentality today.

1. Optimize for low-hanging effect keywords 

It’s ever easier to determination thing that’s already successful motion.

Shifting thing from presumption 4 to 1 volition bring successful much postulation and person a much important interaction than going from presumption 100 to 15.

That’s wherefore low-hanging effect keywords are the ones you’re already ranking for successful positions 4-15 and that you tin amended reasonably easily.

You tin entree a pre-filtered database showing your site’s low-hanging effect keywords successful the Opportunities report:

Get adjacent much speedy wins with high-volume, low-competition keywords

If you person a agelong database of low-hanging effect keywords, knowing wherever to commencement optimizing tin be hard.

Try adding these further filters to uncover high-search volume, low-competition keywords:

• High hunt volume: Set a minimum monthly hunt volume. I similar to commencement with 100.
• Low competition: Set a maximum keyword trouble value. I similar to commencement with 10.

You tin set these filters according to your information acceptable until you person a much manageable database of keywords.

For example, NerdWallet has astir 900,000 low-hanging effect keywords.

By adjusting the hunt measurement and keyword trouble filters, we tin trim the database to nether 27,000 to find the ones that tin pb to immoderate speedy postulation wins:

If this database of keywords is inactive excessively ample for you, effort expanding the measurement filter to a worth implicit 100 and/or decreasing the trouble filter to a worth little than 10.

2. Snagging much featured snippet mentions 

If your tract already ranks connected the archetypal leafage of Google results, an casual mode to get much postulation is to snag featured snippet mentions.

Featured snippets look astatine the apical of galore informational queries and stock a nonstop reply to the query, like so:

Ranking successful featured snippets volition amended some your share of voice and postulation to your website.

Using the Opportunities report, you tin entree a pre-filtered study of keywords where:

• You fertile successful positions 2 to 8
• There is simply a featured snippet successful the SERP
• You don’t already amusement up successful the featured snippet

You tin usage this database of keywords to amended your taxable sum and optimization with snippet-friendly contented successful each post.

The easiest happening to effort for SEO speedy wins is adding a caller conception successful your contented that straight addresses each keyword and its intent. Immediately underneath the section’s heading:

• Answer the question directly
• Fulfill the searcher’s intent
• Remove excess oregon filler content

For example, let’s look astatine the keyword “50 30 20 rule”. Currently, Investopedia is ranking successful the featured snippet with the pursuing text:

It is simply a nonstop yet succinct paragraph fulfilling the searcher’s intent of knowing what the regularisation is astir and however to apply it.

Compare that to NerdWallet’s content, which is ranking successful presumption 3 for the aforesaid keyword:

It has a akin magnitude of content. And, connected the aboveground seems to code the question straight since it begins with “The 50/30/20 rule is…”.

However, it doesn’t rather conscionable hunt intent due to the fact that it doesn’t springiness capable item for idiosyncratic to recognize the regularisation capable to use it. For instance, it mentions determination are 3 main categories that use to the regularisation but does not list them.

A elemental tweak to straight reply a question oregon amended fulfill searcher intent is often each that’s needed to assistance fertile successful much featured snippets.

3. Stealing competitor’s postulation by closing contented gaps 

SEO tin often beryllium likened to a contention betwixt you and your competitors.

Competitors who person been doing it longer are often overmuch further up than you and it tin beryllium hard to cognize wherever to nonstop your efforts to catch up.

A large spot to commencement for immoderate speedy SEO results is by looking for keywords wherever your competitors fertile successful the apical 10 positions, but you’re not showing up at all.

These keywords bespeak postulation imaginable for your industry. If they present postulation to your competitors, chances are precocious that closing these contented gaps volition besides boost your traffic.

By clicking connected this accidental successful the Opportunities report, you’ll get a pre-filtered study that has:

• Automatically loaded your apical 10 competitors
• Filtered retired keywords wherever you already rank
• Filtered keywords to lone amusement the ones wherever competitors fertile successful the top 10

You’ll besides beryllium capable to spot which competitors you person the biggest gaps with. For example, NerdWallet has the biggest gaps with Bankrate and Chase:

Not each gaps request to beryllium closed. There are galore times erstwhile competitors volition screen topics that bash not subordinate to your concern astatine all. In specified cases, skip the taxable and determination to the next one.

For a implicit process you tin follow, cheque retired my station How to Do a Content Gap Analysis [With Template].

4. Updating contented with declining postulation successful the past 6 months 

Reclaiming mislaid postulation is 1 of my favourite low-hanging effect SEO tactics. Preventing contented decay is simply a important portion of increasing a website.

From the Opportunities report, you tin entree a pre-filtered study successful Top Pages that displays each pages with declining postulation successful the past 6 months.

For these pages, you tin bash a page-level investigation to measure and hole things like:

• Poor keyword optimization
• Shallow topical coverage
• Intent misalignment

You don’t request to wholly rewrite contented successful bid to get show gains. For example, 1 of my past clients was steadily losing postulation connected galore of their top-performing blog posts.

Within 3 weeks aft my squad made immoderate strategical contented updates, we saw:

• 184% boost successful integrated traffic
• 460% boost successful keyword breadth
• 1220% boost successful conversions

Here’s an illustration of 1 of the posts we updated.

You tin spot however 2 updates pb to unprecedented maturation that has been sustained for years afterwards. We much than doubled this post’s postulation compared to its highest anterior to the archetypal update.

Neither update was a full rewrite.

Rather, I tasked my squad to insert immoderate caller sections and reword a mates of existing sections truthful we could amended people a broader assortment of related keywords.

5. Rewrite aged pages with low-traffic performance 

While contented updates are a large speedy triumph for pages that ranked good and started declining, it’s not an effectual enactment for pages that person ever had consistently debased traffic.

At Ahrefs, we often people the MVP mentation of contented to spot if it takes. It’s however we equilibrium our content’s prime standards with maintaining a accordant publishing schedule.

The world is that not each of these pieces execute arsenic we hoped.

In these cases, we rewrite the pages that didn’t enactment out. The Opportunities study provides an casual mode to find pages you could see rewriting quickly. It takes you to a pre-filtered mentation of Content Explorer:

This study shows pages that person less than 50 estimated visits a period and person lone been published once.

These are often the champion candidates to rewrite.

For example, Mateusz precocious rewrote our nonfiction connected competitor investigation tools. He changed the space and added caller tools to the list. You tin spot an contiguous spike successful show aft helium published the new post:

6. Consolidate pages cannibalizing each other 

Keyword cannibalization is erstwhile aggregate pages connected your website fertile for the aforesaid keyword and vie with each other. It is often the lawsuit that they vie due to the fact that they fulfill the aforesaid intent.

There are galore cases wherever having aggregate pages ranking is not successful itself an issue.

For instance, successful the lawsuit of keyword diversification, you tin person aggregate pages ranking for the aforesaid keyword but without competing with 1 another.

In this case, you person greater visibility connected the SERP and tin gain much traffic.

The Opportunities study volition instrumentality you to a pre-filtered presumption of keywords you fertile for with aggregate URLs.

I urge checking retired each keyword to measure if the ranking pages are competing with each different or not.

If you spot them perpetually swapping positions, consolidating into 1 nonfiction whitethorn beryllium the champion determination forward:

However, if you spot them each ranking simultaneously for a decent magnitude of time, past that’s an illustration of keyword diversification and apt won’t request further enactment from you:

In this study you tin besides cheque retired your competitor’s websites to spot which keywords connection them large diversification opportunities and much SERP coverage.

Doing truthful could assistance you place caller angles oregon intents that your existent contented doesn’t cover.

In specified cases, you could effort creating a caller portion of contented targeting the aforesaid keyword but fulfilling a antithetic intent.

For instance, if you already person a explanation post, effort creating a how-to guide. The contented your competitors person volition beryllium a bully denotation arsenic to which angles and hunt intents volition enactment champion for the topic.

7. Redirect high-value links pointing to breached pages 

Links going to breached pages leak authority.

An casual mode to sphere that authorization is to constituent those links to high-value pages instead. Through the Opportunities report, you tin entree a pre-filtered study that shows you 404 pages connected your website with high-value links pointing to them:

For ample sites with galore breached pages, this study volition springiness you a targeted database of redirects to prioritize truthful that you tin halt leaking authority.

8. Build interior links for caller content 

Adding interior links betwixt contented connected your website is 1 of the quickest and easiest ways to amusement hunt engines what pages you privation to prioritize.

But, it tin beryllium challenging to enactment connected apical of interior links arsenic you adhd caller contented to your site.

For example, looking astatine my portfolio of contented connected Ahrefs, I noticed immoderate of my latest articles didn’t person galore links pointing to them. Or determination were unlinked mentions of the taxable successful other posts.

Using the Opportunities report, I checked retired the imaginable interior links that could beryllium built. This is simply a useful presumption erstwhile moving connected a caller client’s tract erstwhile you privation to marque improvements crossed the whole site:

For my project, I wanted to prioritize lone links to my articles, truthful I searched for the circumstantial URLs I cared about:

Adding the suggested interior links led to precise speedy wins with postulation and ranking improvements successful nether 7 days for some posts:

9. Tidy up generic oregon over-optimized anchor text 

If you already person interior links connected your site, you tin besides summation immoderate speedy wins by checking their anchor texts are optimized well.

Anchor substance is the connection oregon operation that you marque clickable erstwhile you adhd a link, similar “click here.” For SEO, it’s champion to usage a premix of anchor text, including keywords, alternatively of lone generic phrases.

From the Opportunities report, you tin spot a pre-filtered presumption of each the interior links that person generic anchor substance similar “learn more”, “see more” and so on:

You tin get a elaborate leafage presumption for each anchor:

Unless it’s a halfway conception that’s portion of your page’s UX design, you could see modifying the anchor substance to optimize it better.

Find opportunities to modify the substance to see a keyword oregon adjacent variation.

Just beryllium cautious you don’t overdo it. The thought is to diversify your anchor text, not to worldly keywords in there.

10. Close nexus gaps with competitors 

Closing nexus gaps is akin to (and conscionable arsenic important as) closing contented gaps.

Links are often connected to however authoritative a marque is online. More high-quality links and marque mentions mostly pb to much online authorization and visibility.

In the Opportunities report, you tin entree a pre-filtered study with your apical 10 competitors and each the sites they get links from that you don’t.

You’ll besides get a birds oculus presumption of which competitors are getting the most links:

Unlike the Content Gap report, however, determination are 2 views you tin take from:

• Domains: You’ll get the database of domains that competitors person links from that you don’t. I urge starting present arsenic it’s a shorter database to enactment from to physique a decent outreach list.
• Pages: You’ll get a database of circumstantial pages linking to your competitors, but not you. If you privation to see circumstantial pages successful your outreach messaging, similar listicle posts that notation competitors but not you, this presumption is simply a amended fit.

11. Convert unlinked marque mentions into high-quality links 

Traditional PR focuses connected getting marque mentions successful high-tier publications.

While these are large for wide marque awareness, if there’s nary nexus with those mentions, they’re not large for idiosyncratic acquisition oregon SEO. Here’s an illustration of an unlinked marque mention:

If a scholar wants to larn much astir your brand, wherever they would usually beryllium capable to click, present they person to interrupt their travel to tally a abstracted Google hunt to find your website instead.

You besides miss retired connected the authorization that flows from the marque mentioning your website since links walk authorization from 1 tract to another. No link, nary travel of online authority.

Within the Opportunities report, you tin rapidly find each the publications that notation your marque and don’t nexus to you:

It’s worthy reaching retired to the authors of the articles successful this database to spot if they’ll see a nexus to your site. Not each websites let outer links, but it’s inactive a low-effort task that tin pb to immoderate speedy show boosts.

12. Fix immoderate captious method issues 

Technical fixes are the instauration of a steadfast website and bully SEO. There’s ever thing that needs fixing.

Technology gets upgraded, integrations break, oregon web show champion practices change.

Luckily, the Opportunities study offers a speedy and casual mode for you to show the method wellness of your website and to prioritize captious issues worthy fixing.

It’ll instrumentality you to a your latest website audit, pre-filtered to amusement the astir important errors. That way, you won’t tally the hazard of wasting resources connected fixing thing that’s low-impact.

In this report, you’ll beryllium capable to place issues related to pages, links, content, performance, sitemaps, and more. You’ll besides get adjuvant proposal and tips connected however to hole each issue:

Final thoughts

There is simply a full batch much you tin bash erstwhile optimizing a website for hunt engines.

But starting with these low-hanging effect SEO opportunities volition assistance you execute results that volition appease your clients oregon bosses reasonably quickly.

You tin cheque each of these successful nether 30 seconds successful the Ahrefs Opportunities report:

Want to spot immoderate different quick-win SEO opportunities here? Send maine your suggestions connected LinkedIn anytime 🙂