Search engine optimization is long-term strategy. You have to be working consistently on adding relevant content, optimizing existing pages and acquiring backlinks to finally start seeing highly anticipated organic traffic.

Yet, there is still room for quick gains in SEO, and those quick results have nothing to do with low-quality tactics or grey-hat SEO areas. In fact, those quick gains are able to bring long-lasting visibility.

Whether you want to impress your new SEO client or you are looking to boost your own organic SEO visibility, here are five areas you are likely to succeed within a pretty short period of time.

1. Get Ranked for Your Branded Searches

Every other business I come across fails to rank for all the search queries that contain their brand name, even the major ones. This is especially common for these two types of search queries:

  • [brand name coupons]
  • [brand name reviews]

More often than not these come up in Google Suggest results which means that potential customers are prompted to search instead of going straight to your site:

In the majority of cases brands are nowhere to be found for these search queries forcing their almost-customers to click a third-party result (and often losing those prospects because they are either distracted by seeing competing brands or change their minds due to negative things they read elsewhere).

Owning your branded search is extremely important! Lior Krolewicz of Yael Consulting offers the best explanation here:

When people include your brand name in their searches, they already know you. They are probably going through your conversion funnel right at this moment and need one last reassurance to convert. What they see in search results will either turn them into your customers or scare them away forever. Which will your branded search results do?

In fact, Google would always give preference to a brand’s site any time their brand name appears in a search query. The only reason why so many businesses fail to rank for their own branded search queries is that there’s no page on their sites that would be even distantly relevant to those search queries.

So the trick here is:

  • Create a page that curates brands’ coupons and / or reviews
  • Link to those pages from the footer or the navigation to create a sitewide link. Internal links do wonders when it comes to improving your organic visibility.

Sit back and wait. Google usually picks up that page quickly and starts ranking it #1. Here’s a rare example of this trick being well implemented:

It is also a good idea to set up tracking for these new pages to demonstrate how many more people are engaged with the company’s sales funnel thanks to those. Finteza is a good platform for that as it is very easy to set up and customize.

You can build your conversions funnels right inside your Finteza dashboard and then tool will start collecting data immediately:

2. Rank in Video Carousels

Google’s giving more and more organic visibility through so-called video carousels, i.e. a search element showing related videos. You will see them for every other search and if you search from a mobile device, that section will easily take your whole screen.

So hard to miss!

Yet, not many brands, even those producing video content on a regular basis, have their videos ranking in those carousels.

In fact, it is both easy and quick to get your video appear here, exactly because so few companies are after those search elements.

All you need to do:

  • Create a video targeting a relevant keyword. It can be as easy as using an online video to turn text and images into a video format. It is best if you have a distinct voiceover as Google is indexing video transcripts as well.
  •  Upload your video to Youtube, and add as much text as you can to give Google more data to crawl. Use this checklist not to miss any of the fields to complete:

For the fastest results, link to your video from your own website to let Google find it faster.

It is a good idea to optimize your existing videos on Youtube to get them ranked as well.

Make sure your video is branded well, so that searchers start recognizing your videos by seeing those video thumbnails everywhere.

3. Optimize for “People Also Ask” Results

Google’s “People Also Ask” boxes show up for the majority of search queries these days. These are “related” questions that aim at educating searchers and giving them more information to explore.

It is still pretty easy to rank your page show up as the best answer for those questions, especially if your site is already ranking on page one if you search for that question:

There are a few distinct benefits of ranking your site inside Google’s People Also Ask boxes, including:

  • Additional organic search visibility
  • Higher organic ranking by adding more relevant answers to your content

To get your site ranked in Google’s People Also Ask boxes:

  • Collect questions that show up for your target queries (this keyword research tool will help you to do that automatically)
  • Identify which of your pages are already ranking for those questions (Site Checker can help you with that)
  • Cover those questions on their respective pages as H2/H3 subheadings adding  one-paragraph-long answers immediately following the subhead. This will make it easy for Google to find an answer to each question.

To get a higher-level overview of questions that relate your primary keyword, use Text Optimizer that uses semantic analysis to identify relevant questions behind any word or phrase.

4. Create a More Clickable Search Snippets with Schema

Google supports all kinds of “enhanced” search snippets which stand out in search and often attract more clicks even if a page is not ranking #1. These are called “rich” snippets because they are enriched with the additional information Google was able to pull from a page based on the type of Schema it is using.

Here’s a good overview of those that are pretty easy to implement:

Structured markup       When you can use it What it does to your search snippet
Ratings If you review tools, books or products, consider installing one of these plugins to generate this rich snippets for your pages The rich snippet displays the reviewer’s name and the star ratings.
Course If your page lists available courses, use this type to trigger the list in search Shows a list of courses underneath your page title in SERPs.
Events If your page lists a schedule of events, you can use this markup to pull the schedule right into SERPs Shows a list of dates and links to events for people to sign up
FAQ If your page contains two or more questions followed by answers, use this plugin to create this rich snippet. It can be combined with ratings. Shows a list of questions underneath the search snippet. Click any of the questions to see an answer right away. It is a good idea to use this markup when you are doing “People Also Ask” optimization described above
How to If your page contains a detailed how-to tutorial on any topic (usually in DIY niche). Yoast plugin includes this markup. Shows time required, list of required tools/materials, and collapsible steps to follow.

To give you a better idea of what “rich” snippets do to stand out in search and attract more links, here’s a quick screenshot illustrating the point:

5. Get/Claim Your Knowledge Panel

This may not be as quick but it is a good way to wow your client for sure.

Google’s Knowledge Panel is a search element that displays what Google knows about a particular brand or a person. Here’s mine:

Some businesses already have a knowledge panel, while others may need work to be added to Google’s Knowledge Graph (i.e. Google’s understanding of the world). In either case, getting your (or your client’s) Knowledge Panel created or expanded is a great way to build a much more impressive representation of your brand.

It is a good idea to have knowledge panels created and optimized for both the main brand name and the CEO’s name as well. To get your brand into Google’s Knowledge Graph, use one (or a combination of) the following tactics:

  • Get nominated for industry awards
  • Get added to “Best of” lists on industry publications
  • Get your books added to “Google Books”
  • Have your brand added to Wikipedia

None of this is an easy task but the good news, each of those will build brand awareness and visibility, so it is worth your time! Plus, once Google knows about you, it will show your brand for a variety of searches, like this one:

Claiming your knowledge panel is an easy task, and once you are verified you can add more facts about your brand or yourself and make your panel much more detailed.

Bonus: Improve Your SEO Reporting

Your SEO reporting is another great way to impress your clients (or your boss)! Sharpspring reporting dashboard will help you create visual reports that connect a lot of data sources and as well as how your SEO efforts support all other marketing efforts:

Conclusion

SEO is becoming increasingly more complicated and expensive. As more huge brands are starting to compete for organic search visibility, it is no longer easy to rank your site on top or keep it there. The good news is, there are still great opportunities out there to those who are willing to try new tactics. Good luck!

AUTHOR
Ann Smarty
Ann Smarty is the brand NINJA at Internet Marketing Ninjas and the founder of numerous startups including MyBlogGuest, MyBlogU, ViralContentBee, and TwChat. Her content marketing ideas have been featured in The New York Times, Mashable, Entrepreneur, Search Engine Land and many more.