Everybody's looking for the magic bullet to SEO. They are all sure if they search for it realllllly hard and read the right blog posts they will find the simple solution to all things SEO. Unfortunately, not so much. SEO is hard, time consuming...but worth the investment. As you know, "what counts" in SEO changes a lot so we've compiled a list of the our top 5 seo tips for rankings in 2013 and we're here to talk about it today.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Welcome to our Top 5 SEO Tips video. I'm Chad Hill, and I have Adam Stetzer here with me.
Good afternoon, Chad. This is a fun topic today. Everybody's looking for the magic bullet. They're sure if they search just right and read the right blog posts that there's not one SEO tip that's really going to tip the scales for them. So let's talk to our viewers about this.
Maybe we'll disappoint some, because we're not going to talk about title tags and schema.org and search engine friendly URLs and robot.txt. But let's really get to the heart of the matter, and really give our viewers something that will actually help change their rankings. So what are our recommendations for the Top 5 SEO Tips?
Right. And from a convert of a person who used to be looking for that silver bullet, here it is, straight from a person who's converted from there. The first one is, and the really second one is, basically, content is king. So both making sure that you have fresh, interesting, engaging content on your website. And then that you're actively pursuing opportunities to contribute content to other websites about your category. And then seeking to earn links back to your website. Those are the first two most important things.
Right. We can't emphasize that enough. Content is king. You've read it. You've heard it. You've seen it in the forums. You've seen it in other videos. We're saying it again to you. Yet it took me, and it sounds like you, too, Chad, several years until that really, really sunk in. Because there's this strange condition that people have where they just keep searching and don't want to hear that, and want to keep looking for the magic answer.
So sure, there's ways you can tune your content better or worse on-site based on title tags and keyword usage and other technical aspects. But that's really minor in comparison to getting excellent content on your site. And likewise, what Chad said, number two, content is king off-site, too. Link building is dead. You've read that.
Google is really after people who do link building the wrong way. Certainly those who sell links, people who do link building in spam-y ways. So you, again, need to focus on the quality of your content as you syndicate it and promote it out through social media channels, through guest blogging, through video, through all the other things that we talk about quite a bit on our blogs. But it has to be good stuff. It has to be useful for the end user.
So one and two, content is king. Find something useful to say. Well, what's three through five?
The third one is then patience. And it's basically that SEO takes time. So if you're the kind of person that knows they can't stick with something for the long haul, SEO may not be for you. But for those who do, are able to think about this in six months or a year time frames, SEO could be an awesome return on investment. And in many cases, be the best source of leads that you'll have.
Right. And this is another one that's hard for people to hear. Because everyone says yeah, sure, I'm in it for the long haul. But the percentage of people who fail to continue with these activities past a month or two, certainly who don't make it for a full year of disciplined execution, is really high. And frankly, quite disappointing, given that these statistics are so strong in terms of SEO having this excellent return on investment. So patience is key. Slow and steady wins the race, right?
Exactly. And then of course, the next one along the list here is diversification. And just like in your financial life, you want diversification in your SEO approach. And that's really for two reasons. Because one, at any given time, maybe something you're doing falls out of favor. And tactics change, and what counts changes. So you want to make sure that you're really taking a diverse approach to both.
Again, creating content on your website as well as finding places to connect with your audience through guest blogging opportunities or all the other ways that you can earn links back to your website. So diversifying is really important.
And here's where research is really helpful. Because it will spark new ideas for new ways to do things, new ways to syndicate content, new types of content to push out to the Internet, new ways to earn backlinks. But make a time for research, and then stop and move to execution through that disciplined approach we've talked about. Because too much analysis really just leads to paralysis.
And I think the final thing to add to this conversation, the fifth of the top 5 seo tips, is trying to integrate SEO into your entire marketing strategy. So rather than having an SEO team that's off trying to do one thing or two things, look at your entire marketing effort and think about how each thing you're doing for, again, throughout your entire marketing plan, has an SEO component. And how you can make everyone help achieve your SEO goals.
Yeah, and that's excellent, Chad. This is really sort of reaching enlightenment in terms of SEO marketing. It's the nirvana of SEO. It's that day you wake up and you realize, SEO is not a standalone activity. It's in everything that I do for my marketing currently, but I could do better.
So really, we've talked to a lot of folks. And once they turn that corner, sounds subtle, sounds simple, but it really is a change in your mindset. And once you sort of integrate SEO into everything you were already doing and think of, well, what's the secondary benefit for the search engine? The quality of what you're doing goes up. Because those initiatives are primarily focused on marketing and branding and PR. But then you're getting search engine benefits.
Once you reach that, your will be fantastic. So these were probably not the top 5 SEO tips you were really looking for. Most people are searching for much more technical detail on how to tune things. And in our opinion, they spend too much time there, and too little time on the top 5 SEO tips that will really make you rank.
