by romain_g on 10/6/19, 5:56 PM with 44 comments
by emerongi on 10/6/19, 7:34 PM
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.
by seibelj on 10/6/19, 7:39 PM
by seriocomic on 10/6/19, 9:49 PM
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).
by alexis_fr on 10/6/19, 7:14 PM
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.
by mojuba on 10/6/19, 7:23 PM
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.
by saagarjha on 10/6/19, 7:13 PM
:(
by chiefalchemist on 10/6/19, 7:35 PM
SEO is a good thing. But it's not always the best investment.
by whsheet on 10/6/19, 7:42 PM
> 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.
by jotm on 10/6/19, 9:26 PM
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
by gopi on 10/7/19, 5:22 PM
by tomhoward on 10/7/19, 4:48 AM
by TenJack on 10/7/19, 12:50 AM
I've never heard this before and in fact have only heard the opposite.
by blondy16 on 10/7/19, 10:12 AM
by franze on 10/6/19, 7:33 PM
as i am leaving SEO for good, im selling my SEO book for 1€/$ (Kindle Version, i can't set it to 0)
by rolltiide on 10/6/19, 7:57 PM
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.
by PavlovsCat on 10/6/19, 8:22 PM
by vladmk on 10/6/19, 8:12 PM