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!
