6 ms·

What I’ve learned about SEO (2018)

169 points by romain_g 7y ago

saagarjha 7y ago
> 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. :(
alexis_fr 7y ago
> 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 ) It always makes me sad that the sad state of the web is imposed by an artificial decision. Good article, very different from past years where repeating a keyword was useful.
- ALittleLight 7y ago
  I was confused by that part and by rule 7. "Rule #7: There is no secret. Craft amazingly good content." So... Craft amazingly good content by hiring a freelancer on fiverr to write boring top ten blog posts that aren't intended to be read by anybody but Google? On the one hand, I appreciate the author sharing strategies and ideas. On the other hand, this feels a lot like polluting cyberspace. By ranking your blogspam to drive sales on your dropshipping platform, or whatever, you're pushing actual good content off the first page of search results and into ignominy. It helps explain a general feeling I've had lately about the web getting worse and more generic.
mojuba 7y ago
> 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. 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 is 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.
franze 7y ago
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) as i am leaving SEO for good, im selling my SEO book for 1€/$ (Kindle Version, i can't set it to 0) https://www.fullstackoptimization.com/b/understanding-seo https://www.fullstackoptimization.com/b/understanding-seo
- fefehern 7y ago
  Just a notice: I am currently seeing it on Amazon for higher than $1
emerongi 7y ago
The real SEO is getting backlinks. They dominate every other aspect. Getting a high rank through "natural" SEO is really hard. 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 $$. 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.
- dclusin 7y ago
  Any thoughts on https://millionshort.com https://millionshort.com ? I've seen it mentioned here. I've thought about using it for stuff, but most of my searches are programming queries which google is actually really good at. It's noticeably better than DDG for programming because it usually infers correctly which language I'm talking about. But as you said, perhaps not so good for PHP? Also I use an ad blocker, so perhaps I'm not seeing what you're seeing.
  - emerongi 7y ago
    It doesn't help much. Most notably, it even removes credible sites like Wikipedia. Programming queries are a completely different thing. I'm talking about queries like "plumber in X", "build website", "which laptop to use" etc - queries where there's a very direct path from search to money being spent. Those queries are completely littered, you can just skip 10 pages and maybe you will find some actual professionals or enthusiasts with actual information.
    - 7y ago
chiefalchemist 7y ago
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. SEO is a good thing. But it's not always the best investment.
seibelj 7y ago
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.
- petra 7y ago
  Searches/topics that don't have any content , usually have very low traffic. So what's the point ?
  - joegahona 7y ago
    That would be true if the number of topics in the world were constant, but new topics materialize all the time, and the popularity varies on old topics. Articles get old/outdated and are fertile ground for new articles with updated information, etc.
    - petra 7y ago
      That might be true to rapidly changing fields. But most businesses work in slowly changing fields.
  - dazc 7y ago
    You don't necessarily have to get a lot of traffic in order to generate revenue. There are potentially profitable niches that are not monetized at all.
  - seibelj 7y ago
    I focus on the "long tail" because as a side-hustle entrepreneur you will never rank on the very popular keywords. You must monetize a lot of lesser-searched keywords, which in aggregate equal one very popular one, and you don't have to defend it obsessively.
- ALittleLight 7y ago
  What search tool do you use to find search keywords?
whsheet 7y ago
Nice content marketing piece and guide for an SEO beginner but I stopped reading here: > all with a 95% SEO acquisition strategy 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.
- hluska 7y ago
  How does organic traffic show your LTV !> acquisition cost?
  - chao- 7y ago
    I feel like there are a few unstated assumptions in whsheet's post. Even with those, of course, no advice is universal or without exception. They do make a good point, though. My version of the thought process is that, all else equal, SEO has three key disadvantages: 1. Attribution is often harder than some other channels, and your experimental design has to account for that. 2. There is a less direct, unitary through-line from dollars invested to dollars earned. Say you spend X dollars on various SEO improvements this month, and you get Y units of growth (conversions, revenue, etc.) that you can attribute to that SEO work. It is less reliable to assume (relative to other channels) that spending 10X on SEO improvements next month will reward you with 10Y units of growth. 3. If SEO is your dominant channel at 95%, and you ever hit the maturity in the channel, the effect of the above is can be fatal to a growth-oriented startup. However you measure your SEO-based CAC, it is probably going to be lower than the CAC of whatever your backup/next channel ends up being, and lower by a large amount. If you have to add in a lot of SEM with your SEO, CAC goes way up, and if your LTV was too precariously close to your CAC already, you are very likely to go negative on your unit economics. #2 and #3 are what I assumed whsheet was intending as I read their post.
    - hluska 7y ago
      Thanks for taking the time to write that out. It makes more sense now!
rolltiide 7y ago
Just run instagram story ads ZERO of those users will ever care or even notice your URL. Dont waste time on that ZERO of those users will ever type in a search string on Google to find you 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. It also works really well. 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.
- Jommi 7y ago
  Hey. Thanks for this comment, it really feels like a breath of fresh air. Do you have more to say on this topic?
vladmk 7y ago
Basics
PavlovsCat 7y ago
I love the web and making no-BS web things so much that I'm really glad I'm not a Startup and need to know none of these things.
jotm 7y ago
I would add: only use SEO for actual, useful services, content or products. 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
seriocomic 7y ago
I'm actually surprised that this article made the homepage and has received the upvotes it has on this (typically SEO sceptical) HN forum. 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). 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).
- anon1m0us 7y ago
  Well, hey look. They got their web page on HN and a corresponding bump in SEO cred just by hiring some folks to upvote it to the front page. You too can be a success on the internet! Just follow these 10 tried and true techniques. For just a simple investment of $999, my system will show you what to do. Do you want to be a millionaire too!?
- andrei_says_ 7y ago
  Could you link to one? Would love some high quality writing on the topic.
  - Jommi 7y ago
    I doubt he will link anything that works. It's because of how advertising works. It's usually a zero-sum game in PPC so tips/tricks usually only work when majority of people do not know of them.
TenJack 7y ago
> Medium blog posts are poorly referenced by Google. I've never heard this before and in fact have only heard the opposite.
tomhoward 7y ago
For whatever it's worth, Rand Fishkin seems unimpressed with this post: https://twitter.com/randfish/status/1180938925805846529 https://twitter.com/randfish/status/1180938925805846529
blondy16 7y ago
Hey @romain_g, huge thanks for sharing my blogpost!
gopi 7y ago
This is a better SEO guide for beginners 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 https://medium.com/startup-grind/seo-is-not-hard-a-step-by-s...

169 points by romain_g 7y ago

> 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. :(

alexis_fr 7y ago

> 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 ) It always makes me sad that the sad state of the web is imposed by an artificial decision. Good article, very different from past years where repeating a keyword was useful.

ALittleLight 7y ago
I was confused by that part and by rule 7. "Rule #7: There is no secret. Craft amazingly good content." So... Craft amazingly good content by hiring a freelancer on fiverr to write boring top ten blog posts that aren't intended to be read by anybody but Google? On the one hand, I appreciate the author sharing strategies and ideas. On the other hand, this feels a lot like polluting cyberspace. By ranking your blogspam to drive sales on your dropshipping platform, or whatever, you're pushing actual good content off the first page of search results and into ignominy. It helps explain a general feeling I've had lately about the web getting worse and more generic.

mojuba 7y ago

> 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. 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 is 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.

franze 7y ago

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) as i am leaving SEO for good, im selling my SEO book for 1€/$ (Kindle Version, i can't set it to 0) https://www.fullstackoptimization.com/b/understanding-seo https://www.fullstackoptimization.com/b/understanding-seo

fefehern 7y ago
Just a notice: I am currently seeing it on Amazon for higher than $1

emerongi 7y ago

The real SEO is getting backlinks. They dominate every other aspect. Getting a high rank through "natural" SEO is really hard. 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 $$. 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.

dclusin 7y ago
Any thoughts on https://millionshort.com https://millionshort.com ? I've seen it mentioned here. I've thought about using it for stuff, but most of my searches are programming queries which google is actually really good at. It's noticeably better than DDG for programming because it usually infers correctly which language I'm talking about. But as you said, perhaps not so good for PHP? Also I use an ad blocker, so perhaps I'm not seeing what you're seeing.
- emerongi 7y ago
  It doesn't help much. Most notably, it even removes credible sites like Wikipedia. Programming queries are a completely different thing. I'm talking about queries like "plumber in X", "build website", "which laptop to use" etc - queries where there's a very direct path from search to money being spent. Those queries are completely littered, you can just skip 10 pages and maybe you will find some actual professionals or enthusiasts with actual information.
  - 7y ago

chiefalchemist 7y ago

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. SEO is a good thing. But it's not always the best investment.

seibelj 7y ago

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.

petra 7y ago
Searches/topics that don't have any content , usually have very low traffic. So what's the point ?
- joegahona 7y ago
  That would be true if the number of topics in the world were constant, but new topics materialize all the time, and the popularity varies on old topics. Articles get old/outdated and are fertile ground for new articles with updated information, etc.
  - petra 7y ago
    That might be true to rapidly changing fields. But most businesses work in slowly changing fields.
- dazc 7y ago
  You don't necessarily have to get a lot of traffic in order to generate revenue. There are potentially profitable niches that are not monetized at all.
- seibelj 7y ago
  I focus on the "long tail" because as a side-hustle entrepreneur you will never rank on the very popular keywords. You must monetize a lot of lesser-searched keywords, which in aggregate equal one very popular one, and you don't have to defend it obsessively.
ALittleLight 7y ago
What search tool do you use to find search keywords?

whsheet 7y ago

Nice content marketing piece and guide for an SEO beginner but I stopped reading here: > all with a 95% SEO acquisition strategy 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.

hluska 7y ago
How does organic traffic show your LTV !> acquisition cost?
- chao- 7y ago
  I feel like there are a few unstated assumptions in whsheet's post. Even with those, of course, no advice is universal or without exception. They do make a good point, though. My version of the thought process is that, all else equal, SEO has three key disadvantages: 1. Attribution is often harder than some other channels, and your experimental design has to account for that. 2. There is a less direct, unitary through-line from dollars invested to dollars earned. Say you spend X dollars on various SEO improvements this month, and you get Y units of growth (conversions, revenue, etc.) that you can attribute to that SEO work. It is less reliable to assume (relative to other channels) that spending 10X on SEO improvements next month will reward you with 10Y units of growth. 3. If SEO is your dominant channel at 95%, and you ever hit the maturity in the channel, the effect of the above is can be fatal to a growth-oriented startup. However you measure your SEO-based CAC, it is probably going to be lower than the CAC of whatever your backup/next channel ends up being, and lower by a large amount. If you have to add in a lot of SEM with your SEO, CAC goes way up, and if your LTV was too precariously close to your CAC already, you are very likely to go negative on your unit economics. #2 and #3 are what I assumed whsheet was intending as I read their post.
  - hluska 7y ago
    Thanks for taking the time to write that out. It makes more sense now!

rolltiide 7y ago

Just run instagram story ads ZERO of those users will ever care or even notice your URL. Dont waste time on that ZERO of those users will ever type in a search string on Google to find you 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. It also works really well. 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.

Jommi 7y ago
Hey. Thanks for this comment, it really feels like a breath of fresh air. Do you have more to say on this topic?

vladmk 7y ago

Basics

PavlovsCat 7y ago

I love the web and making no-BS web things so much that I'm really glad I'm not a Startup and need to know none of these things.

jotm 7y ago

I would add: only use SEO for actual, useful services, content or products. 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

seriocomic 7y ago

I'm actually surprised that this article made the homepage and has received the upvotes it has on this (typically SEO sceptical) HN forum. 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). 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).

anon1m0us 7y ago
Well, hey look. They got their web page on HN and a corresponding bump in SEO cred just by hiring some folks to upvote it to the front page. You too can be a success on the internet! Just follow these 10 tried and true techniques. For just a simple investment of $999, my system will show you what to do. Do you want to be a millionaire too!?
andrei_says_ 7y ago
Could you link to one? Would love some high quality writing on the topic.
- Jommi 7y ago
  I doubt he will link anything that works. It's because of how advertising works. It's usually a zero-sum game in PPC so tips/tricks usually only work when majority of people do not know of them.

TenJack 7y ago

> Medium blog posts are poorly referenced by Google. I've never heard this before and in fact have only heard the opposite.

tomhoward 7y ago

For whatever it's worth, Rand Fishkin seems unimpressed with this post: https://twitter.com/randfish/status/1180938925805846529 https://twitter.com/randfish/status/1180938925805846529

blondy16 7y ago

Hey @romain_g, huge thanks for sharing my blogpost!

gopi 7y ago

This is a better SEO guide for beginners 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 https://medium.com/startup-grind/seo-is-not-hard-a-step-by-s...