Going after GWMT queries - Smart or Risky???

[BeytzNet]

Hi,

I wanted to know if finding queries (using the GWMT) that are under-performing (not maximizing their potential) either due to

A. good position but low CTR
B. low to medium position

and change on-page items (titles and meta description for low CTR, add content to low position) is a good strategy or risky and may harm me further (but what do I have to lose...)?

[TakeshiYoung]

Yes this is a solid strategy.

Optimize your titles and descriptions for keywords that have good position & low CTR. You can also try adding Google authorship (if it's a content page) and semantic markup for reviews (for product pages) to get rich snippets displaying in the SERPs.

Targeting keywords that are ranking in the 5-15 range is also a good idea. Organize those by search volume, and do some onpage optimization. A few tweaks could boost their rankings and give you more traffic for a little bit of work.

[davidangotti]

Hey Betty,

I think using the data in a Google Webmaster Tools  account is a great place to start and that you are on the right track. In fact, this is usually one of the first things I look into for clients after some easy wins. Here is the workflow process that I usually use:

1. Visit: Webmaster Tools --> Search Traffic --> Search Queries
2. Expand the date range in the upper right hand corner to the maximum available date range
3. Click the "Download This Table" link directly above the query column
4. Delete all keywords with low volume (for example <100 impressions)
5. Filter "Avg. Position" to show queries with average ranking of 10.1 to 30
6. Dump the keywords into Keyword difficulty tool to determine the keywords with the least competition
7. Determine if you have content adequately targeting the keyword. If so, add the url to the spreadsheet. If not, denote the need for content.
8. Finally use the on-page grader to make sure your content is fully optimized to an A grade with the moz on-site optimization tool

I have found that keywords that have an average rank between 11-30 and have an on-page (moz tool) grade of C or less normally reach the first page with a spot of 10 or higher when the above process is applied.

[ClaudioHeilborn]

Hi Betty!

I will try to give you a couple of hints with my honest experience, but I believe you have answered your one question!

What do you have to lose?

A) Low CTR with high ranking?

Take a look on Title and description; maybe they are great for seo but not so great to work as bate so as to make your customer click.

Have you tried authorship? That could be a real change if you can go over the hurdles on making it work correctly. There is an excellent post about this and a "case" with troubleshooting

http://moz.com/blog/getting-authorship-to-work

On the other hand, definitely take a look of your page, creative and unique content and design,  try to show your best content or at least present your content in an attractive way, first I would try to imagine who is arriving to the query and try to fulfil his needs and doubts. Usually Infographics help and could be a good idea to make one if applicable.

B. low to medium position

Then you have the same problems but you need to improve your seo, I would make a try to on-page seo with titles, descriptions H, alt and so on... but as you know that is just to begin.

Hope it’s useful for your purposes,

Cheers from a nice sunny day in southern Spain.