The real SEO is getting backlinks. They dominate every other aspect. Getting a high rank through "natural" SEO is really hard.<p>I know someone who makes $12MM/year from high-ranking websites in extremely competitive keywords... and it's all about peddling links, really. The first page of results rarely has any correlation with quality (of information/product) and more than likely the correlation is actually negative. You will find content written by non-experts who mostly just summarize Wikipedia articles, but littered with unimportant info to hit keywords. Searching for a product? First page will be dominated by whoever has more $$.<p>I grew up with Google and it really feels like it was a different time back then. I Googled "how to make a website" as a teenager, found out about PHP and started studying PHP documentation. From there I expanded into other languages and eventually built a career. Today you Google "how to make a website" and you will be guided through a WordPress installation on a hosting website with a $5 monthly subscription. That's literally a website by the guy I mentioned making $12MM/year - he takes a cut from each referral.
Use keyword search tool to find searches that have no high quality results. Then write a blog post for that topic and post the link casually on Reddit comments, twitter, etc. then wait a few weeks and it will be the #1 result. I have used this strategy for several years, it basically comes down to writing quality content on topics that don’t have any content.
I'm actually surprised that this article made the homepage and has received the upvotes it has on this (typically SEO sceptical) HN forum.<p>Probably less than 30% of the article would be considered "effective" (e.g. the advice is specific to, and likely to materially increase SEO performance) and the rest is either unsubstantiated (semantic tags and image compression leading to SEO ranking improvements) or unrelated to actual SEO (404 pages and other "engagement" advice).<p>There are much better articles that break down the basics, ignore the "SEO" parroting and that are substantiated by real data (based on test and trial).
> I must warn you: blog topics will seem really boring. That’s normal. You’re writing for Google, not really to bring lots of value to users. (But don’t worry, they only look at the pictures )<p>It always makes me sad that the sad state of the web is imposed by an artificial decision.<p>Good article, very different from past years where repeating a keyword was useful.
> Connect your website to all the services that Google offers: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google My Business, YouTube… Google [...] created them to collect and analyze as much information about you as possible.<p>Or rather, as much information about the users as possible. Add Google Fonts to the mix, also the hosted JS frameworks. Anything hosted by Google that is requested via your web site <i>is</i> information about the visitor for Google. This is evil in its purest form, but if you are to play the game then play it in full.
> Connect your website to all the services that Google offers: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google My Business, YouTube… Google did not create them to please you. It created them to collect and analyze as much information about you as possible.<p>:(
SEO is a tool. The myth is it's free. That's not so. It takes time. It's certain possible it's a tool that's not for you. That you get better marketing ROI elsewhere.<p>SEO is a good thing. But it's not always the best investment.
Nice content marketing piece and guide for an SEO beginner but I stopped reading here:<p>> all with a 95% SEO acquisition strategy<p>That's so wrong. Free organic traffic is great. But if you rely fully on organic traffic, it rather shows that your LTV is not bigger than your CAC and if Google or competition kills your search traffic, your business is done and/or you can't scale when your mighty SEO doesn't work anymore.
I would add: only use SEO for actual, useful services, content or products.<p>Don't trash the already bad SERPs with more junk (eg regurgitated articles written for £3, surrounded by ads and popups). That's just being a c__t
This is a better SEO guide for beginners <a href="https://medium.com/startup-grind/seo-is-not-hard-a-step-by-step-seo-tutorial-for-beginners-that-will-get-you-ranked-every-single-1b903b3ab6bb" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/startup-grind/seo-is-not-hard-a-step-by-s...</a>
For whatever it's worth, Rand Fishkin seems unimpressed with this post:<p><a href="https://twitter.com/randfish/status/1180938925805846529" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/randfish/status/1180938925805846529</a>
i have done seo since 2004 and now i'm leaving it behind for good. (reason: new google search console, amp, featured snippets and google ads the first 4 results anyway ... google lost its way a long time ago, they are internet cancer by now)<p>as i am leaving SEO for good, im selling my SEO book for 1€/$ (Kindle Version, i can't set it to 0)<p><a href="https://www.fullstackoptimization.com/b/understanding-seo" rel="nofollow">https://www.fullstackoptimization.com/b/understanding-seo</a>
Just run instagram story ads<p>ZERO of those users will ever care or even notice your URL. Dont waste time on that<p>ZERO of those users will ever type in a search string on Google to find you<p>MANY of those users can order from you with their phone’s native payment system, or will pull out their credit card and type it in using the crude mobile interface.<p>It also works really well.<p>Really should consider ditching a lot of last decade’s logic. And by last decade I mean that the 2020s is starting in 3 months. What even are your goals? Identifying that there are SEO optimizations doesnt mean they arent irrelevant optimizations to earning revenue. Are we still trying to drive traffic to ad supported food blogs so that 0.2% of “people” accidentally click them? Come on. You want recurring revenue from your SaaS service or reselling crap from Alibaba to hipsters at a 1,000% mark up.