100 Lessons for SEO (Conti:)

11. SEO is evolving with marketing – Search engine optimization becomes more complex every day, which is why it’s incredibly important to stay up-to-date on industry news.

12. Write content to reach your audience – Yes, SEO is important, but if you don’t have something good waiting on your site for the visitors who find your company through the SERPs, there’s no reason to go to all the trouble of getting your site ranked well.

13. Every SEO needs to know programming languages – Your site’s code plays a big role in its optimization, so take the time to get familiar with what’s going on behind the scenes.

14. There’s no alternative to experience – With SEO, you can read all the books and blog posts in the world. But there are so many moving parts that, unless you actually do it, you won’t know if that strategy or tactic is working. I’ve been lucky enough to work on hundreds of different sites and have learned the hard way what works and what doesn’t. Until you get penalized and fix that penalty, you’re never going to be 100% sure.

15. Cute animals are the worst – Whenever Google releases an animal-themed update (like the recent “Panda” and “Penguin”), you know it’s time to get worried!

16. It’s all relative (think “rel=canonical,” “rel=alternative” and “rel=author”) – There are several different rel tags out there, so it’s SEO 101 to keep track of them properly, as each option can help ensure the proper flow of PageRank and SEO value throughout your site.

17. Internet marketing never dies (whether that’s SEO, ASO, PPC, CRO, mobile, email or display marketing) – Every month or two, I read an article about how some different aspect of SEO is dying. Here’s the thing… SEO will never die. It will evolve and the platform you optimize will change, but the theories and concepts will still there as long as people continue to run websites.

18. Keyword research is the only thing that matters – Do your keyword research wrong. You have to nail this down right off the bat because, if you’re wrong, everything executed afterwards will be a wasted effort.

19. There’s no replacement for unique content – Stop trying to fool yourself that your spun articles represent any kind of value for your audience.

20. It’s always better to be natural than over-optimized – In my opinion, Penguin was only the first step in what’s going to be a long line of future over-optimization penalties. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when your optimized-to-a-fault website gets dinged!

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100 Lessons for SEO

100 Lessons for SEO

1. Don’t link-build too fast – When I first started in SEO, I built a site and started going gung-ho, not realizing that I should pace myself. I’d built all the links I could, and then be totally inconsistent about my efforts in the following months. As you might expect, my rankings shot up but, tumbled down just as fast – a situation I could have avoided by taking a steady, more sustainable approach.

2. Meta descriptions matter – Even if they don’t have any SEO value now, they’re still useful from a CTR standpoint.

3. Don’t obsess over rankings and traffic – Things move monthly; not daily or weekly.

4. There’s a fine line between being analytical and being obsessed – When I first started, I would watch my site’s rankings every day, every hour, thinking something would change. As a result, I was wasting time obsessing over something I couldn’t change, when my time would have been better spent building extra links or writing extra blog posts.

5. There’s no replacement for a good product – I’ve done SEO for hundreds of sites, and I found the best SEO tactic is a great product – and that will never change.

6. There is a huge difference between optimizing ecommerce, lead generation sites, small sites and user generated sites – You need to understand not just the current situation of a website, but the type of website it is, as your whole strategy should revolve around the type of site you’re working with.

7. Tactics come and go, but creativity never dies – I hate seeing people blindly following the advice of other SEO experts, without even thinking about whether or not the techniques they’re using work well for their sites. You can’t go wrong by putting the emphasis on providing value for your customers and finding creative ways to do it.

8. Age is just a number – The age of a domain and site definitely help a site rank, but don’t let your young site intimidate you. There are plenty of other factors weighted in the ranking algorithms, which gives you plenty of other opportunities to beat your competition.

9. Big brands aren’t that hard to beat – In general, I’ve found that the bigger the brand, the bigger their budget – but the slower they are to move. Just think about how much effort it takes to move a speed boat versus a cargo ship.

10. Diversify everything you do – Google devalues entire link types on a regular basis, so don’t get caught with your pants down!


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