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travelwiide · 5 years ago

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The Best Nation In Africa as indicated by Top Travel Bloggers

We haven't seen enough of Africa. Out of the considerable number of landmasses on the globe Africa is the one that energizes me the most yet I have just visited two nations (Karen has seen all the more however without me!!!) from this immense land. From The Pyramids in the north to Table Mountain in the south, Africa is brimming with world-class vacationer goals. Which made me think. If you have never been to Africa which would be the best nation in Africa to visit? I solicited some from the world's top travel bloggers that very inquiry and their answers are underneath. There are some astounding answers yet they all solid stunning, which implies our Africa container list has quite recently got bigger!

The Best Safaris in Africa

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Zimbabwe

I'd kid if I said that Zimbabwe is my preferred African nation simply because it empowers me to state I've traveled the world from start to finish! The nation remains a cherished memory to me due to the individuals I've met. At the danger of proliferating a generalization, Zimbabweans will, in general, be kind society who have a profound love for their country. Zimbabwe has experienced serious monetary difficulties as of late and, since the difference in authority in November 2017, an energetic, positive vibe is apparent. Zimbabweans truly accept that their nation is currently just getting started. As an admirer of nature and untamed life, I have encountered some exceptional game drives in Zimbabwe. Hwange National Park is an incredible spot to see birdlife and elephants. It's home to all of southern Africa's Huge Five. While strolling with guides from Dark Rhino Safaris in Matobo National Park I came surprisingly close to a gathering of white rhinos. That was an exciting second. Also, Zimbabwe is the main spot on earth that I've yet eaten barbecued crocodile and warthog. The last is the tenderest meat I've at any point tasted: genuinely flavorful! (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

MOZAMBIQUE

Individuals caused a stir when we disclosed to them we were beginning our African travels in Mozambique. We're as of now Overlanding through Africa in a Land Meanderer Safeguard with our two young men (matured 2 and 4). Many cautioned us of the degenerate police pulling over visitors in the desire for pay-offs and the horrendous pot-holed streets. Truly, the last is valid, particularly as you adventure further north, yet fortunately, the police appeared to be unengaged in us. The driving separations between goals in Mozambique are gigantic. A long time of practically nothing. Simply immense open scenes, dabbed with the odd dusty, unexceptional towns with kids that come up short on hovels to wave at the uncommon bystander. In any case, our long travel days were remunerated with immaculate unblemished seashores that we needed to ourselves, an interesting old-frontier design that looks back to the former days of the Portuguese, and a grasping feeling of experience that can be hard to track down on the present very much trodden planet. Mozambique won our love. Those immense scenes were intellectually liberating. The slamming waves rolling in from the Indian sea were animating. In any case, the individuals we will recollect so affectionately. Particularly the gathering of 15 neighborhood kids who raced to our guide when we stalled out in profound sand. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Uganda

Uganda is without question my preferred spot in Africa for such a significant number of reasons at the end of the day for the untamed life encounters you can have there. Uganda is generally well known for its gorilla trekking encounters which will perpetually be one of my preferred travel recollections. Words can not depict the sentiment of encountering these great creatures and I can say I have never felt an association with a creature as I did when I met the silverback mountain gorillas just because. In any case, Uganda has considerably something other than gorillas. You can go chimp trekking in various areas which is a perfect inverse encounter to the serenity and tranquil experience of meeting gorillas. You can likewise winged creature watching swamp strolls, cruising safaris which offer an extraordinary safari point of view and see the one of a kind tree-climbing lions of Ishasha I additionally love Uganda since you can have these encounters while withdrawing at night to some exceptional extravagance lodges. If you are searching for untamed life and extravagance, at that point, Uganda is unquestionably where you should be going. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

South Africa

South Africa best my rundown for most loved African nations to visit because there is something for everybody. From open-air climbs, superb nourishment and wine, astonishing landscape, and simplicity of untamed life seeing, it is essentially difficult to come up short on activities in South Africa. We started our week-long encounter with a couple of evenings in Cape Town, one of the most wonderful urban areas I have ever visited, effectively matching San Francisco. By day, we climbed Table Mountain, investigated the Winelands, visited the penguins at Rocks Seashore. We additionally meandered down to the Cape of Good Expectation where we appreciated brilliant vistas and clearing sea sees. Our week finished up with a three-night remain at Umlani Bushcamp simply outside Kruger National Park, where we saw copious untamed life, including obviously, the Enormous Five. The accommodation was first rate and the nourishment and wine are the absolute best on the planet as far as quality and creativity yet besides reasonableness. The main awful thing about our outing was that it was excessively short – we can hardly wait to return for another round.

Sudan

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); There are relatively few individuals on the planet who might think about traveling to Sudan – and a great many people called me insane when I chose to visit this nation. Be that as it may, I got compensated with a mind-boggling time, and Sudan immediately got one of my preferred nations on the planet. While the facts demonstrate that the south and the west of Sudan is perilous and ought to be stayed away from, the northern and eastern part is totally protected, and the truth is told, I really felt a lot more secure than in most different nations I've traveled to. Since there's actually no travel industry in the nation, all the individuals I met were so cordial. supportive and inviting. Nobody could ever trick you or do any damage to you, however, there was certifiably not a solitary day when I didn't get welcomed for tea or nourishment by inviting Sudanese in the city. It's really the individuals who make visiting Sudan such a delightful and special experience. With regards to sights, Sudan has numerous pyramids (in reality more than Egypt!) which you can – since there aren't some other sightseers, I had the vast majority of these spots very to myself! Visiting Sudan is likewise amazingly modest! I hope to pay around 2$ for a private room in a guesthouse, and under 1$ for a dinner in a café. I traveled from Egypt through Sudan and further into Ethiopia and it was incredible to perceive how the Center East gradually moves into East Africa, with Sudan going about as an interface. The nation is one of a kind and will presumably never be a major traveler goal. Yet, the individuals who are sufficiently brave to visit will have an excellent encounter!

Namibia

I began to look all starry eyed at Namibia even before we arrived at our first goal. It was a long excursion – directly to the air terminal from a day at work for a trio of global departures from London to Windhoek, where we moved into a small four-seater Cessna for the last jump to the Namib Desert. Worn out as I seemed to be, the weariness softened away as I looked down at the sun-warmed scene, the ground getting always bright as we approached our excursion's end, the shadow of our little plane going before us down beneath. As we arrived at the desert and diminished our height, I saw huge red sandhills canvassed in influencing blonde grass, oddly freckled with circles of exposed red sand edged with taller grass. On handling, our hosts from Wolwedans met us and we immediately drove from the airstrip to rising Cabin, a close camp made of canvas chalets on raised wooden stages. No opportunity to rest, we took straight off on a sun-killjoy drive! (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); During our remain, our aides uncovered numerous enjoyments of the 'Living Desert', including the riddle of those confounding "pixie circles". Dissimilar to exemplary safari goals where untamed life seeing incorporates the large five and a lot increasingly notorious creatures, here we delighted in the species that figured out how to flourish in this desert condition. From chameleons, creepy crawlies and snakes, to social weaver flying creatures, bat-eared foxes, jackals, wildcats, and mandrills… and the gigantic and striking gemsbok oryx. Around evening time, with no light contamination for a significant distance around, the sky lit up with a bigger number of stars and systems than I at any point envisioned noticeable from Earth, and promptly the following morning, we viewed from our beds as the sun dashed into the sky, tinting the sand in a quick-changing palette of brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds.

The Best Sailing Destinations of the World

Kenya

There's something somewhat uncommon about Kenya. It isn't only that the scenes are immense and fluctuated, that the natural life assorted variety is among the best on the planet, or that the sun consistently is by all accounts sparkling. For us, what tops off an already good thing sweet cake was the inviting and well-disposed nature of the considerable number of individuals we met during our travels out there. We were caused to feel like tragically deceased companions as opposed to inquisitive pariahs, and that is so significant when you're a long way from home in a nation that is so extraordinary to your own. Obviously, we were there to see the creatures and had picked Kenya given its notoriety for world-class extravagance safaris. We weren't frustrated. In the Masai Mara, we remained at Saruni Mara and delighted in the best-untamed life seeing we've at any point experienced, because of our master nearby warrior manage who went well beyond attempting to discover us surprising experiences. We saw a lion pursuing a cheetah, eat breakfast ignoring hippos in the waterway, and even joined a pride of lions out chasing around evening time. Further north we investigated the parched grounds around Saruni Samburu, again with a neighborhood warrior, who was overly benevolent and demonstrated to us the peculiar endemic untamed life for which the territory is well known, including the gerenuk, an impala which remains on its rear legs to eat tree leaves! Kenya is about decent variety and magnificence, and we left realizing we'd be back again soon. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Botswana

Botswana left us totally remembered with its huge scenes, shifted untamed life, and incredibly neighborly individuals. We wandered in overland from Namibia with little desires for Botswana and left vowing to return one day. Beginning with the safari involvement with the novel Okavango Delta where we had the option to see all the astonishing natural life in Africa from the center of the delta. Elephants, hippos, crocodiles, lions, or more all the one of a kind fowl animal types make a safari here exceptional. It isn't only about the delta however, one of my preferred stops in Africa is the god-like Chobe National Park. Here you can see impala, fish falcons, warthogs, wild ox, and a lot of elephants. Genuinely you will see such a significant number of elephants here as there are more than 120,000 wandering the recreation center! I likewise adored that the remoteness that you can feel in Botswana. There are just around 2 million individuals here, however, the nation is enormous. The administration has dispensed 40% of the land to parks and natural life so harmony and calm make certain to be had here.

Swaziland

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); While investigating Southern Africa, I made a stop in a little, landlocked nation called Swaziland. Swaziland felt like South Africa other than being smaller than expected in size. Local people communicate in English. There is an acceptable street framework. The Swazi individuals are warm. Furthermore, the landscape is amazing. In case you're in the capital, Mbabane, make a point to visit eDladleni Café. They are the main eatery serving Swazi cooking and it's delectable! So great that I returned a subsequent time. They open during the night. A plate is on normal 95 Rands (USD 8). One component I discovered entrancing about the Swazi culture is their conjugal traditions. A man can wed the same number of spouses as he needs except if he needs a Christian wedding. You need to pay for the spouse as a share. 17 cows if the lady is a virgin. For a non-virgin, the cost can be arranged. 1 dairy animals are 7000 rands ($550).

Cape Verde

Cape Verde is an island country off the shore of West Africa. Because of its political soundness and regular magnificence, Cape Verde has advanced into a well-known contract traveler goal for eager for sun Europeans in the course of the most recent couple of years. In February this year, I visited the Cape Verde islands just because. Because of their notoriety for being bundle occasion islands, my desires towards fervor and experience were very low. Yet, the island of Sal which I visited was totally stunning. The most stunning thing about it was local people. In typical places of interest, local people are frequently very tired of global guests. In any case, in Sal, everyone halted and approached me on the off chance that I was searching for help at whatever point I began looking somewhat lost. What's more, the rich history of Sal as a salt creating province for Portugal and its landscape persuaded me considerably more to return one day. The island offers a lot of exercises like kite surfing, plunging, and swimming and takes into account each spending limit. During my time on the island, I visited the green eye of Buracona, the salt fields of Pedra de Lume, and the extraordinary Kite Seashore – a seashore with several kite surfers. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Mauritius

Lying 2000km off Africa, Mauritius is a piece of the African mainland yet its rich history makes it a genuinely various country. In the past a Dutch, French and UK province, Mauritius is a mixture of societies including Indian, Sri Lankan, African and European and is summarized by the aphorism 'One Island, numerous people groups, all Mauritian'. This way to deal with life is a piece of the intrigue of Mauritius, the glow, and the prepared welcome. Individuals come here for the awesome seashores yet if you can drag yourself away from the coast, Mauritius has rainforest at Dark Waterway Canyon, professional flowerbeds, customary estate houses, a UNESCO world legacy site in its capital Port Louis, and a Hindu sanctuary flaunting a 180-foot tall sculpture. Seven Shaded Earths is a one of a kind land highlight with ridges of multi-hued sand inland. In case you're an untamed life watcher you won't have to move excessively far from your lawn chair, numerous mornings we watched dolphins playing seaward as we ate. The Seychelles tortoises are a typical sight in Mauritius and you can make a beeline for Casela Nature Park for a day at the zoo with breathtaking perspectives. In case you're making a beeline for Mauritius, appreciate the breathtaking dusks of the seashore resorts yet ensure you investigate past. Your endeavors will be remunerated with the experience of Africa meets India meets Europe on this interesting island. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Malawi

There's something exceptional about Malawi, yet in one way or another, it's regularly neglected as a travel goal, with numerous individuals preferring its celebrated neighbors. Indeed, Malawi is somewhat harsh around the edges, however for me, that is the thing that makes me love it that tad more. Malawi can be a provoking spot to travel, yet also one of the most fulfilling, and in case you're searching for a genuine African experience, this is the place you'll see it. It's the kind of spot where anything can occur and you never entirely know where the day will take you. I originally became hopelessly enamored with Malawi in 2009 while Overlanding through the nation and have been back various occasions since. It has all that I search for in a vacation goal – delightful mountains, extraordinary dusks, cool exercises, incredible safaris, and obviously, shocking Lake Malawi, the backbone of the nation and one of the most unwinding and relaxed places on the planet. Furthermore, it's extraordinary for those traveling on a tight spending plan! (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Be that as it may, the individuals truly give Malawi the edge. Malawians are the most inviting and warm individuals you would ever meet and before you know it, you'll be a piece of the family!

Tunisia

From the capital city of Tunis to the Algerian fringe at Le Kef, Tunisia is loaded up with astounding urban communities and sights. The individuals, the commercial centers, the nourishment help your creative mind go crazy, conjuring up accounts of days gone by, much the same as the narrative of the Middle Eastern Evenings. A portion of the spots we suggest are the blue and white city of Sidi Bou Stated, the world legacy locales, for example, Carthage, El Jem, or Dougga, or the bright harbor city of Bizerta in the north of the nation. Shockingly, Tunisia is truly simple to get around. We leased a vehicle and experienced no difficulty finding our direction or perusing the signs. We adored the nourishment! I was unable to accept how much fish they ate, however, it bodes well with a long Mediterranean coastline. Some nourishment on the "must-attempt" list are leblebi, a chickpea soup, ojja with mergez (sheep hotdog) or eggs, a tomato-based stew, just as bunches of olives and harissa, a pepper sauce. You can't turn out badly. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Regardless of whether you need to visit the Star Wars shooting site of Tatooine, other-worldly no doubt, or visit some Roman period-authentic destinations, for example, Bulla Regia, you will cherish Tunisia as much as I did.

Zambia

Having traveled pretty broadly through Southern and Focal Africa, it's difficult to limit our preferred African nation to only one – yet Zambia is certainly up there with our unequaled faves! For a beginning, Zambia is home to one of the Seven Normal Miracles of the World: Mosi-oa-Tunya. Also called Victoria Falls, 'the smoke which roars' is the world's biggest cascade by volume and is probably the best power of nature you would ever plan to see. The falls are likewise an extraordinary spot for thrill-seekers as you would bungee be able to bounce 111m over the falls, swim to the very edge at the Heavenly attendant's Pool (and alarm every one of your companions at home with your photographs!), go wilderness boating on the rapids, and take a microlight flight as well. As though having an epic cascade wasn't sufficient, Zambia is additionally home to some chief safari openings, and without the enormous groups, you'd find in the Serengeti or Masai Mara as well. In the east, South Luangwa National Park is one of Africa's best-kept safari 'mysteries'; it's home to the large five and furthermore known for its enormous panther numbers. In one safari we spotted more than 6! Kafue National Park is another phenomenal national park for untamed life devotees as well. The individuals in Zambia are probably the most amicable we've experienced, it's additionally been positioned as perhaps the most secure nation, and there's constantly a great celebration or occasion going on – what more might you be able to need?!

But Why Zambian Safaris and Tourism

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Morocco

Morocco arrives on the most loved nation list for most travelers who have visited North Africa. It packs in everything from clamorous city quarters, picturesque oceanside towns, and fascinating Berber desert towns. The individuals are warm and inviting, the best suppers are home-cooked. The nation is rich with history, design, and craftsmanship. The mosques, Kasbahs, and medersas are entrancing instances of Islamic and Moorish style. The structures are similarly as excellent as the Map book Mountain areas. Mount Toubkal is the area's most noteworthy pinnacle, second to Kilimanjaro on the landmass. It's a nation for all travelers, you could go through weeks or months here submerging yourself in Moroccan culture and if like me you'll be persistently captivated.

Morocco: A Land of Enticement

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Egypt

Even though I haven't (yet) traveled Africa as broadly as I'd like, the preferred nation I've visited so far would be Egypt. Egypt had a lot more to offer than I at any point knew before I initially went. Truly, there are the pyramids and they are astonishing. Remaining before them caused me to acknowledge how karma I am to travel since I found out about the pyramids in school and never figuring I would really observe them face to face. In any case, the pyramids are only a little piece of Egypt's astonishing history to find out about. I was additionally intrigued by the flawless mosques I visited, spent a few loosening up nights on a nightfall journey of the Nile in my very own felucca (pontoon). I likewise did the absolute best scuba plunging of my life in the Red Ocean and went through a day riding ATVs in the desert. Egypt is additionally home to probably the least expensive tourist balloon rides on the planet. Additionally, when I visited, I never felt dangerous. Truly, there are some fairly forceful sales reps yet I never felt in harm's way. What's more, due to the occasions that happened a long time previously, the travel industry has not yet recouped. This implies organizations are in overwhelming rivalry for your business which means some mind-blowing costs and offers being tossed your direction! In case you're thinking about a visit to Africa give Egypt a look I was intrigued by how much there was to see and do!

A Stream Nile Journey in Egypt

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Tanzania

Besides having maybe the best monetary orders on the planet (when cash has a rhino, lion, or elephant on it, we're in flash fans), Tanzania is a delight just because guests to Africa searching for the ideal prologue to the miracles of the landmass. The nation of 58 million lay cases to apparently three of Africa's travel royal gems: Mount Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti (home of the surprising wildebeest relocation), and the dream place where there is Ngorongoro Pit. As it were, Africa's most noteworthy mountain, the set (basically) of the Lion Lord, and an enormous hole where you can spot rhino, lions, elephants, and most different creatures on your safari list. In any case, if you feel that Tanzania is simply one more spot for safaris and climbing, at that point you'd not be right. Off its eastern coast, a short ship ride from Dar Es Salaam, you can locate African island heaven in Zanzibar. Socially particular from the terrain (its 90%+ Islamic), Zanzibar is home to the kind of flawless white seashores, new fish, flavors and coconuts, and welcoming Indian Sea where you can have the sort of comprehensive or outside of what might be expected island experience of which you've constantly envisioned. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); We trusted you appreciated the excursion around Africa. If there is a nation that you love that is excluded from the rundown, drop us a line, and clarify why it ought to be.

source https://www.travelwiide.com/2020/05/the-best-nation-in-africa-as-indicated.html

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thorne93 · 8 years ago

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Fox the Fox (Part 1)

Prompt: Reader starts her job at the BAU, but her young associate and her have a chemistry they can’t deny; but will the fates let them be together?

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Warnings: language

Word Count: 2665

Note: First whack at a dedicated Criminal Minds fic. A huge thanks to my beta @like-a-bag-of-potatoes I couldn’t have done this without her. Thank you all for reading!!

Song: Lost on you - LP

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Today is your first day. First day of a very intimidating job. But it was your dream job. Working to keep the worst of the worst off the street. Not the random muggers, idiot robbers, sad cases of vengeful murders. Those were all terrible, but you were now a profiler for the F.B.I in the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Nerves were electrifying every atom of your body but you tried to steady them, remembering that Quantico wasn’t a cakewalk - but that was good, it meant you were ready for this career. It meant that you could do this.

Taking a deep breath you walked into the office after going through clearance and found a familiar face.

“Mr. Gideon! Hi!” you said strutting forward and holding out your hand.

“Ms. Y/L/N, so nice to see you again. Please, just Gideon will do. Let me show you to your desk.”

Gideon showed you to your desk across from a young man, well, extremely young for this work - but who were you to talk? You were a spring chicken yourself.

“Y/L/N, this is Dr. Spencer Reid, over there is Derek Morgan, that’s Emily Prentiss, and the rest of the team is around here somewhere. Get settled in. Dial this number for Penelope Garcia, she’ll help you get into all the systems.”

“Thank you,” you said politely as you put your folders and books down on the plain desk. This really needs some me touch, you thought to yourself.

You sat down and noticed Dr. Reid staring at you, you couldn’t help but blush. He was cute in the unorthodox sort of way. Reserved, quiet, but by no means insecure. You couldn’t help the way your eyes trailed him, picking up every bit of evidence to build a profile on him. His clothing suggested he didn’t care about fashion, which meant he spent his mornings doing something else - he either never slept well or long and threw on whatever looked decent or he spent it doing some sort of academic task, certainly not jogging or working out. His stare was jarring, yet you remembered where you were and realized he was probably doing the same thing to you.

“Welcome to the team,” he finally said, extending his hand over the cubicle. You took his hand hand smiled warmly.

“Thank you, Dr. Reid.”

He smiled back at you but then returned to his work. The others nodded to you but seemed busy so they all went back to work as you got set up in your computer.

Suddenly, a blonde girl walked through the office area with a few folders and said, “Round table room, now, please. New case.”

Taking a deep breath, you stood and followed your team into the room and took a seat at the table, next to Dr. Reid.

“Atlanta, Georgia. Three victims with carvings in their chest,” she informed seriously as Gideon closed the door behind himself and the blonde girl used a remote to slide through crime scene photos.

“Anybody recognize these words?” Morgan questioned, his eyes scanning the room as he leaned back in his chair.

Simultaneously, you and Dr. Reid informed, “They’re Aramaic.”

Smiling slightly to yourself, you gestured to Dr. Reid. “My apologies, please continue.”

He narrowed his eyes at you for the fraction of a second but then dismissed it, going on to state what you already know about the words and what they meant. It meant, “He who shall be free, is a slave.”

You spent about fifteen minutes throwing around what sort of person it was you were trying to catch. From what you could tell, they were a narcissist. They wanted their work seen. They had a flair for the dramatic, making their calling card their victims, their ink and pad, their blood and skin. Knowing Aramaic they could be a professor or part of a Jewish community or theology student. The victims aren’t close to a college though. And by the look of the way the unsub wrote it, they had time to perfect it. It wasn’t scratched in quickly. They must know their schedules, so they have time to sit and watch someone’s routine, because the attacks happened during the day. The victims were two men and one female - so they didn’t have an agenda regarding sexual crimes, according to Emily. This killer wasn’t choosy as far as that went.

Morgan began comparing families of the victims, and your task was to determine anything else they had in common - church, clubs, jobs, school - anything that linked them together. You found out they all belonged to the same gym.

Like a whirlwind, the team and you grabbed your guns, files, and jumped on the jet to get down to Georgia. Dr. Reid sat near you on the jet and you had to say you were relieved. So far the only person you felt comfortable around was him and Gideon. You could tell Morgan was the type to tease and bust your balls, and on your first day and an important case, you didn’t need that. Emily was too focused on her job to be sociable. Hotch was pleasant to you, throwing ideas around, but he still seemed too distant, too unaccepting of a new team member. You could tell he needed time to thaw.

The case was discussed further on the way down. The unsub was identified as a man, probably, because he was able to overpower two strong men who worked out at the club, and the murders were done by strangulation of the hands.

After interviewing the gym managers, other gym club members, and neighbors, there seemed to be a pretty good profile coming along. Three people had witnessed the victims getting followed out by a tall, bald, bulking man on different days.

Gideon sent you and Dr. Reid out to find who all is listed as a member of the gym and to watch the surveillance cameras.

“Do you see that?” you said, leaning up and putting your finger near the monitor. “This guy has been eying that victim every few seconds.”

Dr. Reid leaned up next to you, you couldn’t help but notice how delightful he smelled. It was pine and black pepper, an unusual mix, he must mix his Irish Spring with another brand, or perhaps his cologne is black pepper...You thought, your mind already analyzing him.

“Ah, yeah, and he fits the unsub’s profile.”

The gym had a key card system that was used every time someone came into the gym. You and Reid matched the name on the keycard with the name on the timestamp from the footage. The name as Andrew Colton. You found his address from the gym’s sign up sheet and you and the team went to his home immediately. But the person who answered the door wasn’t Andrew -- well he was Andrew, he wasn’t the unsub.

“I lost my gym card about two weeks ago,” he explained after Gideon began questioning him. He seemed nervous but you thought it was all the guns that were pointed at his house.

“Do you know where you lost it?” Morgan asked.

“I think I left it at work.”

“Where do you work?” asked Gideon.

“I work at a bank, First Morning Bank. I didn’t mind too much at the time because I have been so swamped lately I haven’t had time to get to the gym.”

He was telling the truth, you could see it in his eyes, the fluctuation of his voice, his body language.

“Dammit,” Hotch muttered as they apologized to Mr. Colton and you all walked away.

“Well if he lost his card at the bank, then it has to be someone who works at the bank,” Dr. Reid suggested.

“Good thinking. Y/N, you and Reid go check the bank’s employees,” Gideon instructed. “We’re going to check and see if there was a pattern with the victim’s address or age and check for potential victims.”

“It’s a little much, isn’t it? First day on the job and you’re already in the midst of a confusing case,” Dr. Reid said as you walked to the rental car.

“I think I’m doing okay so far,” you said simply.

“You are. You’re doing a very good job,” he commended. You both climbed into the car, with you at the wheel. “So is this always what you wanted to do?”

“Catch criminals? Yes.”

“Interesting.”

“And you?” you questioned with a sideways glance.

“Oh, yes, I’ve always been fascinated with the human mind. I decided that I should put my analytical skills to good use.”

You couldn’t suppress the smirk very well as you muttered, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

“You just quoted Spiderman...To me,” he mused, a small smile coming onto his face. At that moment you realized you wanted to see that smile again.

“Are you a comic book fan?” you asked, a twinkle in your eye, thinking you found a friend.

“A fan would mean I am emphatically devoted to it,” he began to explain. “I am not devoted to it, but I do enjoy the stories in them. I’ve read most every Batman comic book and half of the Marvel published works.”

“Wow,” you breathed as you turned a corner. “I wish I could say the same. I haven’t had the pleasure of reading quite that much.”

“I can read 20,000 words in under one minute. Perks of being a genius,” he informed. He wasn't boasting when he said it, it sounded more like an explanation.

“That sounds...like a lot of things,” you said quietly. You knew it had to be tiresome, exhausting, irritating. Being the smartest person in the room was great, until people couldn’t keep up with you, then it was incredibly hard. You weren’t a genius, you knew that. But you were highly educated and graduated top of your class from Quantico and from college.

Reid was surprised by your answer. Usually, he got responses about how weird that must be, or how great that must be, or how boring it must be to be a know it all. He’d gotten bullied over it, beaten over it, envied over it. But rarely, if ever, sympathized over it.

“It is. It can be. But I don’t mind. It means I help people, save lives.”

You smiled at the sweet thought. “How noble of you. You could be off in a major science or medical field. Or you could be using your mind for counting cards.”

“Actually, to count cards I don’t have to be a genius. You just have to be able know the strategy and keep up. Much like an algorithm,” he informed quickly, as if accessing a database.

“You know a lot of information,” you mused as you turned into the bank.

“I have three PhDs, three BA’s, and I have a lot of time on my hands. My job is also to know statistical information.”

“Well...you’re good at your job.”

“And for the record, I’ve been banned from most casinos in Vegas for counting cards.”

You laughed heartily in response, surprised. Dr. Reid looked so...innocent, you wouldn’t peg him for a conman.

Walking in, you interviewed several people ultimately leading to what seemed to be the only person who fit the description of the unsub - the janitor.

“He’d be here when no one would see him, he’d have keys to every office...But why go after Andrew? Why take Andrew’s gym card and use it to get close to the victims? How did he even know they all went to the same gym?” you questioned, wracking your brain as you stood outside in the wind.

Dr. Reid sat for a moment, thinking. “Unless, he didn’t take the card first. Say you know where all of your victims are. They all go to Club Fitness, right? In the morning? Now you’ve got to find someone with access to them. If you’ve been watching them long enough, he was bound to see Andrew at the gym.”

“So he swiped Andrew’s card…” you realized, finishing his thought.

Dr. Reid called the team and filled them in on the hypothesis. Gideon said it seemed to check out and instructed you to get the janitor’s home address and name. You found his address and his name was Marcus Forrester. You relayed the information then agreed to meet at his house.

He wasn’t at his house when you arrived, but inside you found a notepad with today’s date and a time on it. But above it, it read: One Mills KY

“Kentucky?” Emily said, confused as she looked at the yellow tablet. “He’s going to a city in Kentucky?”

“No,” you said immediately. “It’s an anagram,” you informed confidently. “It rearranges to: money kills.”

“How do you know?” she questioned.

“His other work wasn’t an anagram,” Hotch pressed, leaning over your shoulder.

“No, but his other work wasn’t meant to ward us off his path. His carvings were clear messages, his artwork. This, this is his knowledge that we’re getting closer,” you explained.

“Okay, so what are we supposed to do with ‘money kills’?” Morgan asked, getting frustrated.

“He works at a bank, right?” you said, peering over your shoulder.

You all got in your cars and quickly made your way back to the bank as it was closing. Only a couple of cars were left in the parking lot, but all of the lights were turned out.

The team made their way into the bank and saved Andrew along with two tellers from the hands of Marcus, who had them tied up and gagged behind the counter. Marcus was cornered as Morgan and Hotch distracted him and Gideon came up and restrained him. After releasing the victim's, you were on the plane, back to D.C.

The group congratulated you but only Dr. Reid sat next you and truly commended you.

“How were you able to work all of that out?” he questioned with fascination. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone piece something together that quickly, except Gideon.”

“Thank you,” you said quietly, relaxing in the white leather as your head rolled towards his. Your breath caught in your throat and thanks to your deduction ability, you could see that his did too. You could see the way his adam’s apple moved and the sudden intake in his chest that held still.

“You still haven’t answered the question,” Dr. Reid pressed, a little uneasy having to ask you twice. He didn’t like not knowing things about you.

“Because it’s my job. Because I was hired to be the empathizer.”

“But Morgan does that,” he informed, his eyes flitting to the agent nearly asleep across the jet.

“No, Morgan pretends to be in the situation to deduce what happened while in the moment. I deduce what’s rolling in his head, his thoughts, his emotions, his motives, his triggers.”

“So...you’re another Gideon,” he surmised.

“If you’d like to put it that way. I have my own tools of deduction much like Gideon, but I’m sure we come to the same conclusion, it just takes us down a different path at different times.”

“You know a lot about us, but we know little about you,” he said, intrigued as he eyed you up and down.

“I’ve read some of your files. I like to know who I’m working with, Dr. Reid.”

“You don’t have to call me doctor. None of them do,” he said. “Well JJ calls me Spence.”

A pang of jealousy surged through you as you heard his last statement but suppressed it by every means necessary and you were certain he didn’t see it, as his eyes had not changed nor his body moved. “I feel as though you’ve earned your title and it should be treated accordingly. However, should you prefer me not to use your title, I’ll call you Spencer,” you informed.

“That’ll work,” he said with a nod.

#fox the fox #part 1 #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fan fic #criminal minds fan fiction #spencer reid #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fan fic #spencer reid x reader #reader insert #dr. reid #dr. reid fic #dr. reid x reader

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dillenwaeraa · 5 years ago

Text

How Do I Make My Site Rank For a Keyword?

In my experience, the most common reasons a website doesn't rank for a specific keyword are:

The site isn't actually relevant

There isn't any single page which actually uses that keyword

There are too many pages which use that keyword.

It's true that a site might not rank because of something like authority or some kind of technical issue but for the average SEO team, increasing authority or fixing technical problems are far harder and take much longer than simply looking at the site and making sure we're not just misusing content.

So often, I’ve started working with teams who have spent months or years trying to perfect their technical setup, who’ve invested thousands in link building campaigns but haven’t made sure they include the keyword they are targeting on the relevant page.

I will explain in more depth below but here are the first eight things to do to find out why you're not ranking;

If you used to rank - check what changed

Do the quickest and easiest technical checks

Ignore link building until you know there is no other explanation

Make sure the keywords are actually relevant to your site

Make sure you have a page targeting the keywords

Make sure you don't have loads of pages targeting the keywords

Make sure the page you are targeting the keyword with is the right kind

Do more in-depth technical checks

Only now look at the harder solutions

That list is deliberately ordered to start with easy checks that could save all of your site traffic, steadily getting more granular and time intensive but always with a focus on the easiest thing we can do to make the biggest impact on the problem at hand.

1. If you used to rank - check what changed

If you don’t have any evidence that you used to consistently rank well then skip to step two. As a rule of thumb - you should only really focus on this section if you know that you consistently ranked top 20 for at least a couple months.

As an aside - if the keyword you care about is a “money term” like “Valentines Day flowers” and you seem to have lost traction just as the season is arriving, you might want to read Tom Capper’s post on how to rank for head terms for some insight. If you’re a smaller brand - the rankings may return to normal just after the peak season (which may be small consolation but could get people off your back while you do the foundational work).

Assuming you’ve seen rankings change for a selected number of keywords which you know you used to rank for, and it’s not a matter of “money terms” fluctuating around peak season, we can simplify things by splitting changes into three groups;

Someone changed something on your site so now you’re not doing as well

A competitor started doing something better so now you’re not doing as well

Google changed their algorithm so now you’re not doing as well

Someone changed something on your site so now you’re not doing as well

It can be really hard to keep track of all the changes on a site so it’s quite possible someone made a change you didn’t know about and that’s why you’re no longer ranking.

You could ask your devs, particularly if you already have a good idea of the dates to look into. Devs keep impressively detailed logs of what they’ve changed so that could answer your question quickly. However, it might not answer your question, and it could have been someone else changing something through the CMS who made no record of the change whatsoever.

If you don’t have a tool like Deepcrawl running regular crawls of your site but do have an old Screaming Frog crawl of your site then you can use my free Change Detection Google Sheet to help get an idea of what might have changed. If you can do that - have a look through the results and try to work out what changes might have caused these issues. In particular look for pages being removed or indexation commands, then expand your search to things like keyword changes.

If that doesn’t turn anything up, read through the rest of this blog post.

A competitor started doing something better so now you’re not doing as well

If a competitor started producing better content, or fixed something technical on their site, that could mean they jump up in rankings, pushing you down.

The key thing here is to look at historic data and see who might be doing better now.If you have historic rank tracking in a tool like Stat, start by looking for which competitors jumped up for the keywords you care about. You could even create a tag for the keywords you care about in specific and use the competitive landscape report to see what changed. If you don’t have historic data in something like Stat you could try your luck with Ahrefs to see if they happen to have historic data for the keywords you care about.

If you have no luck in either, the fact that your company cares about this keywords, could mean that someone on your team just knows which site is appearing which wasn’t there before.

If you can identify the site or sites which are doing better, look at the pages they’ve made, see what differences there are between theirs and yours (do they have more information? Are they a homepage? Are they featured in the nav?). Then as much as you can, without just copying the page - steal their tactics.

If you can’t find any sites in particular which seem to have jumped up, if you don’t have historic data or if your site just seems to have gone down then read through the rest of this blog post.

Google changed their algorithm

Marie Haynes keeps a great, comprehensive list of algorithm changes. If you used to rank - look at when you used to rank, and when you just stopped ranking. If that lines up (like, to the day) with a non-trivial algorithm change then that could be the culprit. If the algorithm change was recent, it’s worth leaving it a couple weeks to see if things settle down.

Google’s algorithm is, understandably a source of frequent stress for website owners because at any point they can turn a dial and it becomes as if we’re working in a completely different search engine. For this investigation, that is exactly how we should think about Google before and after an algorithm change. It is a different search engine. That simplifies our question because we’re no longer talking about keywords we used to rank for - we’re talking about keywords we never ranked for in this new search engine. That means we can follow a lot of the same principles for working out what’s going wrong.

Go through all of the steps in sections 2-9 in order as if you never ranked.

2. Do the quickest and easiest technical checks

As I said, it's easy to become convinced that some mysterious technical issue is preventing you from appearing. In the vein of that stereotype about mechanics - it's difficult to know when you ask an SEO agency if technical fixes are actually needed or if they are just blinding you with jargon (I've been on the receiving end of that myself when I was in-house).

I'm here to tell you that you don't need to start with those expensive agency conversations. You can start with some really simple checks and I'm going to give the complete layman's description of each one below. If any of the checks below return a result that you're not expecting, hop over to my colleague Ben Estes' great technical SEO checklist.

Check that Google has seen and saved some of your site

Have you ever noticed that Google lists how many results it found when we do a search? We can use that to get a rough idea of if it has seen and saved the pages on our site and to make sure we haven't, for some reason, been removed from Google.

Go to Google and then type; site:<your website domain>

So for example, if I wasn't to check the Distilled site, an individual page might be https://www.distilled.net/resources/seo-ab-testing-whitepaper/, to check the site, I take just "distilled.net" and write site:distilled.net

If the number of results Google lists is much higher or lower than you'd expect, then I'd check Ben's list. But I mean much higher or lower. If you think you’ve got about 500-1000 pages on your website and Google says it found a million pages, something is probably wrong. Likewise, if Google has only found 10 pages and you haven’t just launched your site, something is probably wrong.

You can also use this check for specific subdomains. For instance, if you have a blog at blog.yoursite.com you can write;

site:blog.yoursite.com

Check that you rank for your own brand name

As long as your brand isn't totally new, and isn't just a competitive term (think "Car Rentals" or "Injury Lawyers") your site should appear when you type in your brand name.

This bit is pretty simple. I feel like I should write more but that’s it - search for your brand name. Are you coming up? If so then great, on to the next step. If not - check Ben's list.

Check that your pages rank for their exact content

Go to some of your most important pages. For each, select one of the top paragraphs on the page, copy about a sentence and then paste that whole sentence into Google. If you don’t appear anywhere then there could be some reason Google hasn’t seen the page or it’s been removed. If you see other sites appearing with that exact content, that might be your problem!

3. Ignore link building until you know there is no other explanation

Believe me, I understand the appeal and I often manage link building campaigns for my clients. Producing a large, impressive link-building piece often lets a team sidestep internal politics and dev queues to actually get something published. They also often look great and can sometimes secure TV coverage. I’ve even seen big Creative pieces as a way for the SEO team to get the attention and approval of the CEO to increase internal clout which makes other things easier. For some sites, links are that piece that's missing which would allow them to rank. However;

Links are almost never the answer.

Proper link building is hard, it’s expensive, and link volume is often not what’s stopping you from ranking.

You know what’s worse than having your CEO breathing down your neck because you don’t rank for one specific keyword? Having your CEO breathing down your neck because you don’t rank for one specific keyword and you’ve just spent £60,000 on link building campaigns which haven’t had an impact.

If you decide early on that you need links, the only way to find out you're wrong is after you spent all that time and money. There are much cheaper and easier things you should do and check before you even touch link building. If you get to the end of this list and you’ve done everything, then you can consider link building pieces.

4. Make sure the keywords are actually relevant to your site

It’s very easy to assume that everyone thinks and talks the same way we do, that because we refer to our core product as “widgets”, that everyone searching for “widgets” wants us.

Google is a business - their continued success is dependent on giving people answers to what they are actually searching for, so Google doesn’t care what you think is relevant, Google cares what 90% of people are searching for.

The easiest way to check what Google thinks something means, is to Google it (shocker). Start by getting the list of keywords you want to rank for. Then either Google each of them yourself, or use a tool like Stat, SEMRush, or Ahrefs to get the top 10 results for each.

If direct business competitors appear in the top 10, then that’s a sign Google thinks you can be relevant. When I say direct business competitors I mean sites which are trying to do the same thing as you. So sites using the same word to mean a different thing are definitely out, but you should also think again if all of the results are things like Wikipedia, or a listing site.

If all of the results are things like Wikipedia you might still be able to target the term with an informational blog post, if it’s all listing sites things become trickier and I’d start by focusing on other things and then come back to these listings-heavy keywords.

5. Make sure you have a page targeting the keyword

Believe me, the impact of just creating a page targeting a keyword can be stark. Below is a screenshot showing the difference before and after launching a targeted page. For the previous years the site was not ranking at all - having a page clearly targeting the keyword pushed them to position two within the space of a couple weeks.

It could be argued that this should be the first check but it's quite intentionally not. If it was, a person might never ask themselves "is it right for us to rank?" or "have I accidentally blocked Google from my site?" and those are more important questions in terms of saving your time and traffic.

There are a few ways to check this. You could use my keyword checker Google sheet to check if you’re ranking for specific keywords.

Get the keyword checker sheet here:

// <![CDATA[ hbspt.forms.create({ target: '#scenario-example-form', css: '', cssRequired: '', errorClass: 'none', errorMessageClass: 'hide', submitButtonClass: 'button orange', portalId: '2124102', formId: '6b1dc4ab-070b-4333-b4c6-0a491331ce06' }); // ]]>

The easiest if you're only checking a few keywords is to reuse the site: search we mentioned above. This time, as well as searching for your domain, search for your keyword too, in quotes. So for example:

site:distilled.net "technical audit checklist"

That will give you a list of all the pages on your site which specifically mention the keyword. There are a few possible scenarios here.

Loads of pages show up

Important - if loads of pages come up then your problem might be that you have too many pages competing for this keyword. Or a combination of that, plus having no one page focused enough. Instead of working your way down the list of pages, follow the steps in section six.

A handful of pages show up

You might still have issues with too many pages competing, so still take a look at section six. Before you do that - starting with the page at the top, work your way down the list, visiting each page, and try to work out if the keyword you want to rank for is the main focus of the page.

No pages show up

If no pages appear then you don’t have any pages, which Google knows about, which are targeting the keyword. Find a page which you would expect to target this keyword and make sure that Google knows about it. Then, just add this keyword in the title or meta description and monitor your progress.

If that’s not enough add some (valuable) content to the page targeting this keyword.

If that’s not enough then try creating a page or blog post specifically about this topic. Consider removing the keyword from the page you just changed to avoid cannibalisation issues which we discuss in section 6. If you don’t know what kind of page to create, read section 7 of this blog post.

6. Make sure you don’t have loads of pages targeting the keywords

Targeting a keyword with too many pages can and does hurt your traffic. Sometimes as badly as having no page at all.

The below is a modest example of a page jumping from around position 40 to position 7 because we removed the keyword in question from a bunch of other pages.

When too many pages are competing for the same keyword we often refer to that as “cannibalisation”. To check for cannibalisation, look for any combination of the following things;

A few pages are ranking for the keyword, but poorly. For instance, they’re all in the bottom half of page 2, or worse.

One page ranks well for a few days, but then for a day or so, another page starts ranking below it (i.e. one is in position 11, the other is in position 12). Then they both disappear entirely.

No page is ranking consistently well and Google keeps switching between different pages.

You can check for cannibalisation by using Search Console, a paid keyword tracker like Stat, or manual searches. I’ve given details for each below.

Paid keyword tracker

If you have access to a keyword tracker like Stat, track the keywords for a little while. If you’re using Stat, in the keywords report select the keyword you’re interested in.

Use the “Overview” tab to track rankings over time and look for things like rankings jumping up and down.

Use the “Archived SERPs” tab to check if multiple pages from your domain are ranking at the same time (they’ll be highlighted in yellow)

Search Console

Search Console is a great, free source of cannibalisation data with a few drawbacks;

Search Console reports won’t show keywords that you haven’t had any impressions for. So if you’re doing so badly for a keyword that no one even saw your site, you won’t see it at all in Search Console data.

Search Console data is sampled, so you can’t guarantee you’ll get every keyword.

Search Console data doesn’t make the distinction between multiple pages ranking, and getting site links so

For this result, Search Console would show the homepage, About Us, Jobs, Blog, and Resources pages as ranking, even though this isn’t a case of cannibalisation.

With that in mind, you can use this Google Sheet to check your recent Search Console data for keywords where you have a few pages ranking. There are instructions on the first tab of the sheet for how to use it.

Get the keyword checker sheet here:

// <![CDATA[ hbspt.forms.create({ target: '#scenario-example-form-b', css: '', cssRequired: '', errorClass: 'none', errorMessageClass: 'hide', submitButtonClass: 'button orange', portalId: '2124102', formId: '6b1dc4ab-070b-4333-b4c6-0a491331ce06' }); // ]]>

Manual searches

If you only have a handful of keywords you want to check for, you don’t have access to paid tools, and Search Console isn’t turning anything up then follow the steps in section 5. If you see a lot of pages coming up for a keyword, or even a handful of pages which are prominently targeting the keyword that could be your issue.

Try removing the site: search and flick through the first ten pages of results to see if multiple pages appear. Bonus points if multiple pages from your site are appearing very close together (i.e. positions 27 and 28).

Fix it

Whichever method you use to work out whether you are cannibalising on keywords, once you know, the next step is to fix it. Choose the best page to target the keyword - for a way to go about that, read section 7. of this post which is about making sure you’re targeting a keyword with the right kind of page.

Once you’ve chosen your page, you have two levers you can move. You can make your chosen page more relevant for the keyword, or you can make the other pages less relevant for the keyword. I’d advise first making the page you choose a little more relevant, then making other pages less relevant until either you see a result or you run out of things to do. If you’ve run out of things to do, start making your chosen page more relevant until you run out of options there too.

Making your chosen page more relevant can be as simple as adding content. If the keyword isn’t mentioned in your title, meta descriptions, etc. try adding it. If you’ve already done that, consider adding a short paragraph about the topic you want to rank for. Resist the urge to keyword stuff and don’t add content which doesn’t make sense on the page.

Making other pages less relevant can be as simple as removing content. If the keyword is in your title, meta descriptions etc. try removing it or using different words. If there’s specific on-page content which is about this keyword, consider moving and combining all of that content on the page you want to rank. If the whole page is about the keyword, maybe the page you’re trying to remove is actually the one that should rank? If you’re certain that this page isn’t the one that should rank, first check for other keywords it might be ranking for or, to make sure you’re not throwing anything away, then canonicalise it or redirect it to the main page you want to rank.

7. Make sure the page you are targeting the keyword with is the right kind

Sometimes, even if a site is the right kind of site, and a page is clearly the one you want to rank, Google won’t let it rank because it’s the wrong kind of page.

The main ways we can categorise a page on a site are;

Strength (Is this the homepage? Linked to in the nav? Or an old forgotten blog post?)

Specificity (Is this a broad page which just mentions the keyword or is it all about that term?)

Type (Is it a blog post or product page? This relates to search intent which we’ll cover below)

What you should do here is look at what is already ranking in the top ten.

Is it mainly sites homepages? In which case, the norm is strong (homepages get most of the focus of a site) and broad (homepages don’t tend to be terribly focused).

Is it mainly pages which don’t appear in those sites internal navigation? Which specifically dedicated to this keyword? You can often tell because the keyword will be in the URL of the page or a lot of the page content will be about the term. In which case the norm is probably weaker but more specific.

Then we need to work out whether the norm is for product pages or blog posts? Here is where we start down the rabbit hole of “search intent”. “Search intent” is the catch-all for “what the person thinks they’re going to get when they search”.

An easy way to see this in action is to search “ski” and “skis”. When we search “ski” Google thinks that we either want to know more about skiing or that we want to do something (in this case go skiing). When we search for “skis” Google thinks we want to buy skis.

A site which wants to rank for “ski” will not be able to do so with a page selling skis, no matter how strong and well-optimised that page is. So if most of the pages that are ranking are for holidays - your page should be about holidays. If they are mostly blog posts and Wikipedia articles, it should be an informational page - don’t try to sell something. If they’re all specific product pages - create a product page. While just following the herd isn’t usually the ideal strategy, looking at the category of content which is currently performing well is the best way to get a sense of direction, then you can tweak other things.

While you should be able to get what you need, at least for small lists of keywords, by manually checking, if you’d like to dive in to a more technical solution to checking search intent Rory Truesdale has been doing some excellent work on this and has written about it in Search Engine Journal.

Once you know the intent, strength, and specificity of content already ranking, you can start to play around with the strength and specificity. If you have a weak page which is also quite broad - experiment with making that page more specific by adding more content, or stronger by linking to it internally. If all of the ranking sites are doing so with strong, broad pages, for instance a page linked to in the top nav, experiment with making one of your strong pages more specific or choose an even stronger page, like your homepage for example, and see how specific you can make that.

A general rule of thumb is that you most likely won’t be able to go against the intent of a search, but dialling up either the strength or specificity of how you are targeting a term will make you more likely to rank.

If you have no pages on your site which target the search term and the right search intent - try changing one to target it, or creating one even if you have other pages (of the wrong intent) already targeting the term. If that causes cannibalisation problems you can then deal with them, if it doesn’t then you’ve got an easy result. To be clear here - you do not have to have one page for every keyword. You can have a page targeting more than one keyword, but if there is a topic you want to rank for, which would fill a page by itself, and it has enough value to your business to justify a whole page then make that!

If you have lots of pages on your site targeting the search term and only one of them has the right search intent, select that page as the primary page to target this term, increase how specific and relevant this primary page is (by adding content), and decrease the specificity and relevance of other pages (by removing content or removing the page altogether).

If you have lots of pages on your site targeting the search term and any of them could target the right search intent, start with the strongest page. Ask yourself - would my moodiest website visitors (and my boss) be happy if I put a paragraph on this page about this topic. If not, the topic isn’t important enough to go on that page. Repeat the process working your way down the list until you find the strongest page you can make more specific, then follow the steps in section 6. If you’ve done everything in section 6 and you’re still not seeing any improvement, maybe the page you chose was too weak. Try linking to it more internally or decide if you’d prefer to choose a stronger page.

8. Do more in-depth technical checks

If you’ve made sure you have, well written, strong, specific, relevant pages targeting the keywords you want to rank for, and you’re still not getting anywhere, you might be able to tip the scales by making some technical improvements to your site.

While a lot of technical improvements will improve overall site health (and there are lots of graphs of those) the screenshot below is directly from a report to another client where we made technical improvements bumped up page rankings for a business-priority keyword from page 2, to the middle of page 1. Since this point the page has consistently ranked around position 6-8.

Technical checks can be intimidating. Fortunately, Ben Estes has produced a great technical SEO checklist which will lead you through a lot of the most common technical issues.

9. Only now look at harder solutions

Just as no two businesses are the same, no two sites are the same. Google, quite intentionally, works in mysterious ways and sometimes when we’ve covered all of our bases we still don’t have a good idea of why we aren’t ranking. At this point you could look into deeper technical issues, using tools like log file analysis, you could compare site speed with competitors to see if that’s what giving them the edge, or you could try building links.

I hope you haven’t had to get this far, but if you have there are still options out there, and you can investigate them, or hire to solve them, in the knowledge that you’ve covered the core stuff already.

Good luck!

from Marketing https://www.distilled.net/resources/how-do-i-make-my-site-rank-for-a-keyword/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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donnafmae · 5 years ago