Low hanging fruit for SEO are your opportunities for quick actions to take that can increase search engine rankings without waiting a long time.
SEO is like hitting the gym. You want immediate results, but it’s often a slow grind. Still, just like focusing on form over shortcuts gets you fitter faster, there are SEO tactics that can deliver noticeable wins without waiting months.
Below, we’ll show you high-impact strategies to save time and resources while boosting traffic and brand visibility.
Let’s get started.
1. Optimize Title Tags
Title tags (or <title> tags) are easily overlooked, but they’re a significant part of SEO. These HTML tags are the title text for any page you have that appears in search engine results.
Google commonly uses title tags as title links in search results. For example, here’s where you might see your page titles:
In this context, they’re basically what people read to decide whether to click on the link.
And then here’s how the title tag displays in a browser tab on Google Chrome:
Updating your title tags can increase your click-through rate (CTR), which signals to search engines that the content is valued by users, and boosts your SEO.
To optimize the tags, ensure that each one is unique, contains your target keyword, and uses the right capitalization and grammar.
The tag should be between 50 to 60 characters, and be engaging and make sense to the user journey – ask yourself, “Would I click on this?” and “Does this relate to the page users will be taken to?”
Related reading: What Is a Title Tag & How to Optimize Your Title Tags for SEO
2. Improve Page Load Speed
Page load speed is how long it takes for all the content on a page to appear. It’s an important metric because a low speed can lead to higher bounces (when people leave your page immediately) and lower engagement.
Both of these negatively affect SEO and equals less visibility for your page(s). In fact, according to Google, more than half of people abandon sites that take longer than three seconds to load.
To speed up your pages’ loading time, do the following:
- Compress any large image or video files to as small as possible without affecting the quality
- Combine or remove any unnecessary code from the page’s backend
- Enable browser caching and use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to distribute content to different locations
- Reduce the number of redirect links on the page
You can view more information about what ‘good’ page load speeds are and how to improve them on Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
3. Target Low Competition, Long-Tail Keywords
When it comes to keywords, there’s a sweet spot where you can find low competition, long-tail keywords. These terms are specific, they cater to more niche audiences, and they don’t have much content written about them yet.
Generally speaking, “long-tail” refers to keywords at the “tail” end of the search demand curve.
Targeting these types of keywords gives your content more of a chance of ranking high, fast.
To find low competition, long-tail keywords, use Semrush Keyword Magic Tool.
Simply enter a word or phrase that relates to your brand or page, select your target location, and you’ll be shown an extensive list of matching keywords.
You can then filter the results by low keyword difficulty (essentially the level of competition), and pick the terms that make sense to your brand.
Below shows possible low competition, long-tail keywords for ‘running shoes’.
Note that low competition keywords typically have lower search volume, but they still have a lot of SEO might.
They’re like doing a smaller task really well, versus doing a big project in an average way.
Once you identify your keywords, follow the usual practices for keyword strategy in SEO.
4. Identify “Weak Spots” Among the Competition
SEO is a competitive game, meaning you need to provide the best resource if you want to get the highest ranking.
But, to make the best content, you first need to know what your competitors have. Especially what their blind spots are, so you can specifically provide what they don’t.
You can get these insights both by doing a site-wide SEO competitor analysis or a SERP analysis on a keyword-by-keyword basis.
For example, let’s say you want to target this keyword “X.” In order to outrank the top pages, you’ll want to offer a resource on your site that is more relevant, more in-depth/informative, faster, and with more trust signals.
This is where you can use a tool like SERP Gap Analyzer. This tool helps you while creating new content or optimizing existing content by pointing out the specific weaknesses on the SERP that you want to target.
For example, here’s what the app shows for the keyword “seo keywords” and Semrush.com:
As we can see, the majority of the top 10 results on this SERP have a much lower Authority Score compared to Semrush.com’s domain.
Another weak spot here is that most of the title tags are missing the terms in the search query:
Plus, the load speed of the top 10 search results is slow on mobile which is a significant weak spot:
These are your low-hanging fruit — major flaws and weak spots on the SERP which make your target keywords easier to rank for.
5. Update Old Pages To Fight Content Decay
Updating old content shows search engines that you’re a trustworthy, expert source, and so your content should appear sooner in the list of search results.
Sprucing up your existing content is not only necessary, it’s a good way to drive new traffic to your website without creating new pages from scratch. It also keeps your brand ahead of competitors who will likely be publishing new content.
To start, pinpoint high potential pages that have seen a drop in traffic recently. Updating these pages should have the biggest impact on your SEO efforts. Then use this checklist to optimize old content:
- Add new information (if necessary)
- Check statistics, dates, and references are all up to date
- Fix spelling or grammar mistakes
- Use appropriate headers and header structures (H1, H2, H3, H4)
- Review all links to confirm that they’re not broken or to the wrong place
- Make sure there are no errors for images, videos or multimedia content
- Ensure that target keywords are included in the text and integrated accurately
- Edit the title tag and meta description to reflect any changes
Refreshing content is also good practice to keep your brand’s finger on the pulse of your industry.
How do you know which pages to update first?
You can use a tool like SERP Gap Analyzer.
With this app, you can connect your Google Search Console account to get a tailored list of recommended pages to update. These suggestions will be based on pages where you are ranking within the top 20 positions but have a low click through rate compared to your impressions.
The app will share specific changes you need to make to outrank your competition.
For example, here’s a sample report of the pages ranking in top 20 positions on topicranker.com that have a poor CTR and are losing traffic:
And here’s the report telling you how your content compares to the competition, and what adjustments you should make:
This example shows you that:
- Your content is lacking original insights, personal perspectives, or information that’s not already found in Google’s Knowledge Graph
- Your page needs the title tag rewritten and publish date updated
- Your page has fewer internal and external backlinks than your competitors’ pages
6. Fix Website Tech Issues
Tech issues are the silent saboteurs of SEO. Search engines crawl your website to understand and categorize your content, if they can’t do this because of technical issues, that will negatively affect your SEO. These issues can cause problems with user experience too, which will also penalize your SEO.
Common website issues you should be looking for include:
- Broken links
- Slow page speed
- Duplicate content
- Missing alt tags
- Pages not optimized for mobile
- No HTTPS security
- Missing meta descriptions
- Missing sitemap
Site Audit can help you detect the above and more automatically. Enter your website and the tool will highlight your site health, plus give a detailed breakdown of issues – stating why they are issues and how you can resolve them.
You’ll be able to identify plenty of low hanging fruit opportunities for your SEO, including crawlability issues, internal linking, markups, and more.
7. Clean Up Your Keyword Strategy
Without a clear keyword strategy, it’s common for websites to have multiple pages competing against each other for the same SEO rankings and traffic.
On Page SEO Checker offers SEO ideas for you based on your website and target keywords. One of the first things it identifies will be any instances of keyword cannibalization. In these cases, you need to make sure each page is targeting and focusing on its own topic, so they don’t compete with one another.
Here you can receive recommendations around your strategy, SERP features, content, semantics, backlinks, technical issues, and user experience. The tool explains exactly how to carry out each action, why it matters, and what level of difficulty it is.
In the example below, we can see that the brand has a strategy recommendation and a number of content ideas that could uplift its SEO impact.
Find Your Low Hanging Fruit For Juicy SEO Results
SEO doesn’t have to be a slog. These tactics can yield impressive results that give your brand more visibility online and contribute to bigger ROI in your company.
Once you’ve found your stride with these steps, take a look at more advanced ways to stretch your SEO success even further.