> Good info, but there has to be more to it than this.
Pretty much everything beyond "(1) Make sure the technical SEO aspects of your site are sound" (easy) and "(2) Write good content which people will share" (hard) quickly gets into hackier stuff that may attract some incremental traffic, but not necessarily "convert" as well.
A good place to start learning about more esoteric SEO tactics are the chapters at https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo. They can't overcome a lack of content/market fit, and the gains may be low if you can reliably measure them at all.
It's sad to think how much time webmasters spent (and are still spending), cumulatively speaking, to optimize their websites to do better in Google's search results.
It feels like every SEO guru writes about how to create articles that perform well, but how about marketing pages? How do you compete in a competitive market trying to sell something? Do you write good articles??? Anyone got any resources on something like this?
Millions and millions of dollars, years and years, and a good SEO agency.
I’ve tried reading up in competing in competitive markets and it’s nearly impossible. I’d give up unless you have the budget and/or go for something more niche. Instead of VPNs maybe go for “The First Eco-Conscious VPN” and compete with marketing and a novel idea rather than SEO. Else you’re going to have a bad time.
There is three levels in SEO. The foundation, the content and the authority. My experience is more e-commerce focused.
The foundation is the build, the technical aspects of your site. Few requirements when doing complex websites:
- Core Web Vitals above 90
- well formatted sitemaps,
- the simplest HTML possible,
- right meta,
- json-ld,
- headers ratio,
- really fast Time to first byte,
- perfect mobîle usability score
- alt tags on images,
- lazy loaded pictures below the fold
- http 103 preload on static assets and LCP assets
- inline SVG for icons ( SVG sprites better )
- responsive images ( something like imgix or thumbor is basically mandatory)
- the least amount of JS and CSS possible
- critical css generated for each template
A 100% lighthouse score on a simple text page is easy. A 90+on mobile for a complex e-commerce website is hard. But without a sane foundation you are diminishing the impact of everything else.
Then the content. Have better content than everybody. Hire writers. For each page, have real human content written. But there a some techniques :
- for each page choose a focus keyword and a secondary keyword
- this keyword should be in your title, H1, and url.
- secondary keyword should be in your h2 and meta description.
- don't forget modifiers ( like geographic or niche or vertical ). They should be in your title and meta description.
- run a TF-IDF analysis on your competition for your focus keyword.
- run a ask the public analysis on your focus keyword
- write your outline and incorporate the keywords that make sense from the tf idf and answer the questions that make sense from answer the public
But in the end, what matters is that your content is great, informed, well written, and has a brand voice. You don't want your content to smell like SEO content. Always prioritize the content quality vs keyword optimization.
Biggest issue on large websites: content cannibalization. When topics are really close to each other and would be relevant for same keyword, you need to find a way to whether move the focus upward to a category page, on add more différenciation between the pages.
Trick: optimize your content on the html side: lists should be html lists, for FAQs use the ld-jso ln for it etc... That's why a block editor is amazing for SEO.
Then, authority. Meaning back links. Don't use backlink services ( i built one in a previous life ). Focus on PR if you can. Do real marketing. But backlinks are not necessary to rank. My website is the best ranking website in its niche and country without any backlink effort.
You know Google loves you when you get indexed the same day you publish.
Create a process of content creation, publish regularly. Have regular internal linking reviews. Invest in a tool or two ( ahrefs and screaming frog ) for three hings : technical audit, keyword research and competition analysis.
Last advice: most SEO agencies are crap. They only sell backlinks and tepid 500 words blog articles. And most of the time, their work is outsourced via cookie cutter white label companies. But it's normal: they can't touch the foundations. And they don't have the skills as soon as you don't run on WordPress.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 33.1 ms ] threadPretty much everything beyond "(1) Make sure the technical SEO aspects of your site are sound" (easy) and "(2) Write good content which people will share" (hard) quickly gets into hackier stuff that may attract some incremental traffic, but not necessarily "convert" as well.
A good place to start learning about more esoteric SEO tactics are the chapters at https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo. They can't overcome a lack of content/market fit, and the gains may be low if you can reliably measure them at all.
I’ve tried reading up in competing in competitive markets and it’s nearly impossible. I’d give up unless you have the budget and/or go for something more niche. Instead of VPNs maybe go for “The First Eco-Conscious VPN” and compete with marketing and a novel idea rather than SEO. Else you’re going to have a bad time.
The foundation is the build, the technical aspects of your site. Few requirements when doing complex websites: - Core Web Vitals above 90 - well formatted sitemaps, - the simplest HTML possible, - right meta, - json-ld, - headers ratio, - really fast Time to first byte, - perfect mobîle usability score - alt tags on images, - lazy loaded pictures below the fold - http 103 preload on static assets and LCP assets - inline SVG for icons ( SVG sprites better ) - responsive images ( something like imgix or thumbor is basically mandatory) - the least amount of JS and CSS possible - critical css generated for each template A 100% lighthouse score on a simple text page is easy. A 90+on mobile for a complex e-commerce website is hard. But without a sane foundation you are diminishing the impact of everything else.
Then the content. Have better content than everybody. Hire writers. For each page, have real human content written. But there a some techniques : - for each page choose a focus keyword and a secondary keyword - this keyword should be in your title, H1, and url. - secondary keyword should be in your h2 and meta description. - don't forget modifiers ( like geographic or niche or vertical ). They should be in your title and meta description. - run a TF-IDF analysis on your competition for your focus keyword. - run a ask the public analysis on your focus keyword - write your outline and incorporate the keywords that make sense from the tf idf and answer the questions that make sense from answer the public
But in the end, what matters is that your content is great, informed, well written, and has a brand voice. You don't want your content to smell like SEO content. Always prioritize the content quality vs keyword optimization.
Biggest issue on large websites: content cannibalization. When topics are really close to each other and would be relevant for same keyword, you need to find a way to whether move the focus upward to a category page, on add more différenciation between the pages.
Trick: optimize your content on the html side: lists should be html lists, for FAQs use the ld-jso ln for it etc... That's why a block editor is amazing for SEO.
Then, authority. Meaning back links. Don't use backlink services ( i built one in a previous life ). Focus on PR if you can. Do real marketing. But backlinks are not necessary to rank. My website is the best ranking website in its niche and country without any backlink effort.
You know Google loves you when you get indexed the same day you publish.
Create a process of content creation, publish regularly. Have regular internal linking reviews. Invest in a tool or two ( ahrefs and screaming frog ) for three hings : technical audit, keyword research and competition analysis.
Last advice: most SEO agencies are crap. They only sell backlinks and tepid 500 words blog articles. And most of the time, their work is outsourced via cookie cutter white label companies. But it's normal: they can't touch the foundations. And they don't have the skills as soon as you don't run on WordPress.
Or do you mean dropping on forums / social media and asking "what do you guys think of X"?