Five underrated SEO Tactics. For a very long time, I’ve been doing SEO. I started when I was 15, I’m 21, that’s 6 years to be exact. And I know there are a lot of stats and data out there about SEO and what works and what doesn’t, but in today’s blog, I’m not going to bore you with all that.
Underrated SEO Tactics
Instead, I want to share my personal experiences, and I want to tell you what I’ve learned over the years and what you can take from it to do better. Most of these lessons aren’t common and you probably haven’t heard of them before.
1. Updating Content Frequently Is Better Than Building More Links.
Lesson number one, updating content frequently is better than building more links. I know you need links to rank. So, if you have no links, go out there and build some. Look, I have friends that have websites that generate hundreds and thousands of dollars a month in affiliate incomes.
And we have clients from all around the world, so we see tons of data on what works. And yes, you need the links, but links only take you so far. We found that if you build fewer links but you update your content more frequently, you do way better when it comes to an SEO perspective.
And when I mean updating, I’m not talking about a word or two or an image or here and there, I’m talking about adjusting that page to be the best for your users and whatever that takes, better than your competition in other words.
Just think about Wikipedia and how often they update their content. It’s based on what’s best for the users, not for Google. But in the long run, funny enough that helps them with Google because Google’s optimizing for users as well.
So, spend more time updating the building links especially if you’re an established website. If you’re a new website, there won’t be much content on your website, you probably don’t have many links, focus on building more links.
2. Shortcuts Just Aren’t Worth It.
Lesson number two, shortcuts just aren’t worth it. So, there was this site called Battlefield Bypass which is an expired domain with a lot of authoritative links. These links were naturally generated and not purchased because it was a national park and it was part of a war that happened on that land.
So, I bought it, and I converted it into an online casino site years and years ago when I started my SEO career. Within months, I was ranking the top three positions for the term, “Online casino.” That keyword is worth hundreds and thousands of dollars a month in affiliate revenue, that’s millions of dollars a year.
That’s a lot of money, but within months Google whacked me, and all of a sudden that site lost all these rankings. In essence, I was trying to cheat the system by getting traffic and rankings, by cheating instead of providing value.
See, the sites that rank at the top, in the long run, are the ones that provide the most value, not the ones that cheat their way up to the top. Now I’ve learned a lot from this mistake and others but I had a shortcut mentality when I was young, and if I had to go back in time, I would stop taking shortcuts and I would’ve done what’s best for users, which would’ve been what’s best for my career.
3. It’s Easier For Brands To Rank.
Lesson three, it’s easier for brands to rank. When I was younger, I tried to fine-tune my SEO skills by learning every little thing from on-page SEO to off-page, I learned as much as possible and I still do today.
But over the years, I have become wiser, even though I still need to learn a lot more. And I found that working with large corporations at ad agency NP Digital, it’s taught me a lot. One of the things that have taught me is brand queries go a long way in Google‘s eyes and in their algorithm.
The more people search for your brand, and assuming a high percentage of them click on your result, it tells Google that you have a good, strong brand. And, if your brand is more popular than your competition, it tells Google that people prefer you over the competition.
And as your brand queries keep going up, what you’ll find is, that your rankings also go up. Once I learned that I focused more on building a brand. It takes well over five years to build a brand, so you need to be patient, but it helps a lot with SEO.
4. The Quickest Way To Grow Your SEO Traffic Is By Going Global.
Lesson four, the quickest way to grow your SEO traffic is by going global. A Google employee once told me that the majority of searches on Google aren’t in English. That’s obvious, right?
And it was to me at the time, I’m like, “Yeah, the majority of the world doesn’t speak English, what’s new with this.” But what she told me next wasn’t as obvious. She’s like, “Yes, Jayan, they don’t speak English, the majority of searches aren’t in English, but Google doesn’t have enough webpages and all these other languages for most topics.”
Once that clicked, I was like, “Oh wait, I need to transcribe my content into multiple languages.” So, I started doing that and I didn’t say translating, I said transcribe. The reason why is you have to adapt it to the local languages.
Now, the United States only makes up 25% or less of my traffic due to international expansion. You should go global if you want more SEO traffic.
5. Don’t Purely Rely On SEO.
Lesson five, don’t purely rely on SEO. I used to believe that SEO was the best marketing channel. And because of that, I focused purely on SEO at the beginning. Funny enough, I still prefer SEO over other channels but I don’t think it is the best marketing channel, I don’t think any marketing channel is the best.
I now take a different viewpoint. All marketing channels are great as long as you can make them work for you and drive your traffic, brand awareness, leads, and even sales. So, I don’t focus on SEO, but I also don’t purely focus on SEO.
My Opinion
I focus on all marketing channels as well as new ones that come up as long as I can make them work. And if any of them get crushed by platforms making an algorithm update, I don’t have to worry because my traffic sources are diversified.
If you need help with your marketing, check out our ad agency, NP Digital, we are the performance marketing agency here because we provide amazing results for our clients, and I hope we can do that for you as well, so hit us up. If you enjoyed this blog, share it. If you have any questions, leave a comment, I’m here to help.
