[HN Gopher] Boring SEO guide for the non-lazy
___________________________________________________________________
Boring SEO guide for the non-lazy
Author : eljs
Score : 165 points
Date : 2021-09-30 14:15 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (boringseo.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (boringseo.org)
| cfferry wrote:
| Great article! I'll dig more into the skyscraper technique,
| thanks.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Good framing on the boring and non-lazy.
| sharkweek wrote:
| Respectfully, this is basically the equivalent of "here's how to
| build a house"
|
| * Buy some land
|
| * Buy some wood
|
| * Pour some concrete
|
| * Hammer the wood together on top of the concrete
|
| * Put on a roof
|
| There ya go, you know how to build a house!
|
| And to that end, SEO is simple on the surface - Make sure your
| site is super easy to crawl and loads super fast. Write search
| keyword-optimized content. Build (or as the modern SEOs like to
| say "earn") links from high authority sites.
|
| But none of those things are really that easy, in that they all
| take time, expertise, and honestly some times a chunk of luck (go
| and try to get a backlink from a site like Business Insider in
| the next 3 months, it takes a lot of stars aligning).
| genewitch wrote:
| "3. Draw the rest of the fucking owl"
| dvt wrote:
| > But none of those things are really that easy, in that they
| all take time, expertise, and honestly some times a chunk of
| luck
|
| And quite honestly, they don't even _work_ anymore. The
| Buzzfeeds of the world kind of killed SEO as a viable organic
| traffic strategy.
| sharkweek wrote:
| I don't understand the comment about Buzzfeed, but I disagree
| with the suggestion that SEO isn't a viable strategy for
| organic traffic anymore. There are billion dollar businesses
| that are entirely reliant on it as essentially a singular
| channel (not that I recommend this reliance, but it does
| work).
| rchaud wrote:
| > And quite honestly, they don't even work anymore. The
| Buzzfeeds of the world kind of killed SEO as a viable organic
| traffic strategy.
|
| Startups aren't competing for the same keywords as Buzzfeed.
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| I can assure these strategies still work when done well.
|
| Source: I run several SEO projects
| [deleted]
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Futhermore. It's a process. Once you get past the initial
| basics, it comes down to repetition.
| jedberg wrote:
| Today I learned about the broken link building technique. Wow
| that is gross. At least the way that site says to do it is by
| straight up lying to people about how the link moved to a new
| site.
|
| It wouldn't be so bad if they would at least say, "I made a page
| with similar information", but suggesting that people straight up
| lie about it tells me everything I need to know about the ethics
| of the site that is making that suggestion.
| enlightens wrote:
| I didn't take it that way, though I could be wrong.
|
| > I got an error message when I tried to click on this site:
| http://DeadURL.org/index.jsp
|
| > It looks like they made a change to their home page but
| didn't update it... anyhow, the correct link is here:
| http://www.FixedURL.org/
|
| I think both of those URLs are third parties and supposed to be
| the content that the site used to link to. Then the email
| template goes on with:
|
| > And while you're updating your page, I wondered if you'd be
| open to including some further resources that could help people
| struggling with similar issues.
|
| > Compelling Content Title
|
| > http://www.clientsite.org/compellingcontent
|
| > Compelling Content Title 2
|
| > http://www.clientsothersite.com/compellingcontent
|
| Which would be the URLs that you're trying to obtain links
| towards.
| pvitz wrote:
| From the linked guide at [0], I understand rather that you
| find the broken link on a website with relevant keywords for
| your niche, determine what the website behind the broken link
| said (e.g. through the use of the web archive) and then
| create new content saying essentially the same. Then, you
| would inform the webmaster that he could link to you instead.
|
| [0] https://moz.com/blog/the-broken-link-building-bible
| jedberg wrote:
| Ah I see, you're supposed to actually find the fixed link and
| then send it along with your own links. I guess that's
| slightly better.
| sjtindell wrote:
| Even more so, the guide says you can make the content
| yourself to replace the "lost" content. You're being
| encouraged to clean up the web, it's actually pretty
| wholesome.
| mdoms wrote:
| 0% of these SEO dweebs do it this way.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I disagree on not building your own blog engine as a general
| rule: Building a blog engine can be as simple as using a
| markdown-to-HTML converter library on your server, and using your
| backend's admin interface. Or a simple HTML page with a big text
| box and submit button. Depending on use case, this can be fine.
| The cognitive complexity of integrating with a 3rd-party engine
| can be more complicated than writing a simple one.
|
| Which brings me to a big point the article missed: Page loading
| speed is important for search ranking. I have a blog I add to
| once every other month. It uses HTML and CSS, and I write it in
| Django admin using markdown. Lots of room for improvement UI-
| wise, for both reader experience and writing interface. Yet, it's
| a low-traffic site, and most of the blog entries show up on the
| first page of Google for relevant keywords. Relevant: It gets a
| perfect Google Page Speed Insights score, by virtue of being an
| HTML/CSS page.
|
| I bring this up for 2 reasons: Using a blog engine will probably
| make it tougher to get fast load times. You can rank high on
| Google just by having good content and fast load times.
| donohoe wrote:
| As a general rule; please do not build your own blog engine.
|
| Unless you're doing something simple, then fine.
|
| Also, do build your own blog engine if you are also happy to
| manage META tags for Twitter, OpenGraph (Facebook) and general
| META tags for each post. Also if you are good with generating
| your own schema.org JSON for Search engines, manage your own
| taxonomies (tagging, categories, events, locations, authors),
| and also generating/updating sitemap.xml as needed.
|
| One last point from above...
|
| > Using a blog engine will probably make it tougher to get fast
| load times
|
| No it won't. The blog engine is not the same as the front-end.
| You can modify the template, theme, or whatever as much as you
| like. You have full control here. Thats all on you.
|
| > You can rank high on Google just by having good content and
| fast load times
|
| Um, maybe - but not for anything that will matter. There is
| more to it than that.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| > Also, do build your own blog engine if you are also happy
| to manage META tags for Twitter, OpenGraph (Facebook) and
| general META tags for each post. Also if you are good with
| generating your own schema.org JSON for Search engines,
| manage your own taxonomies (tagging, categories, events,
| locations, authors), and also generating/updating sitemap.xml
| as needed.
|
| You don't need any of those as a baseline.
| matallo wrote:
| Taking a look at the source code I can't tell if the author
| used a generator but it doesn't look like it.
|
| I've worked in growth teams with a lot of SEO related work and
| I disagree too. Another thing is leveraging one of those
| engines to publish your content sooner, then iterate and build
| your own content management system.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| _> Do not create your own blogging engine_
|
| _> This one is for tech folks specifically. Use Wordpress,
| Webflow, Hugo or whatever you want, but do not created your own
| engine. Creating your own engine is a lot of work and a big waste
| of time._
|
| Is this meant in the sense that existing blogging engines have
| good defaults with regard to SEO, and if you did it on your own
| you'd spend a lot of time figuring out by trial and error what
| you could otherwise get out of the box? Or are they just making a
| value judgment on how to spend one's time?
| rchaud wrote:
| It's providing fair warning that writing useful content is a
| skill that takes time.
|
| Look at any HN post about personal websites. This community is
| more interested in discussing their SSG tooling than actually
| ever writing anything on that over-engineered Markdown
| converter.
| inerte wrote:
| How to spend your time. If you want to create content, SEO it,
| make some money, use a pre-existing blog or CMS. If you want to
| build a CMS, build one. If you want to create content and your
| first thought is "but first, I need a CMS!" then you'll
| probably* fail at both.
|
| * Everybody knows that one person who succeed in both, yay.
| There's way more that failed.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Fair enough! Related comic: https://rakhim.org/honestly-
| undefined/19/
| artembugara wrote:
| I highly recommend "Blogging for Business" by AHrefs. It's free.
|
| https://ahrefs.com/academy/blogging-for-business
| superasn wrote:
| This broken link building thing has kind of gotten out of hand
| though. I run a popular website and I had to create a very
| complicated filter just to keep those hundreds of emails I get
| about some 10 year old link or look Google changed Adwords to
| just Ads type emails. Also the free guest post email. Just no.
|
| There has got to be a better way to build these links if that is
| so important for SEO. I think email spam will drop by 10% the day
| this happens.
| rwmj wrote:
| Back in the mid 2000s I part-owned a start up company and we made
| a reasonable living going around telling people pretty much the
| contents of this list (except for the backlinks stuff which is
| spammy). Good to see some of it is still relevant. I would add a
| couple more (from back then - don't really know if they're
| relevant now):
|
| * Lightweight, accessible website mostly implemented in as close
| as you can get it semantic HTML. (We used to say, possibly
| inaccurately, that search engines are like blind web users - make
| your site accessible, and you're helping blind users and search
| engines).
|
| * Read your log files. For every customer I used to ask for their
| log files, and then I'd read them. Very interesting insights can
| be had about how people find the site and where they go which is
| more difficult to see from tools. If possible I would spend a few
| hours tailing the logs live.
| [deleted]
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Solid list. But there's a key idea missing. That is:
|
| Your site is not the customer. Google doesn't care. The customer
| is the real human person doing the search. Google's top priority
| is make and keep that customer happy. It's wise to try to do the
| same.
| dang wrote:
| This is not a valid Show HN - please read the rules:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html. I've taken that bit out
| of the title now.
| deltron3030 wrote:
| One way to get quality backlinks is through a community like Help
| a Reporter, where journalists literally link up with bloggers.
| mdoms wrote:
| As an alternative to techniques like "broken link building" and
| "the skyscraper technique" have you considered jumping into a
| hole and never coming out? I am sick to the back teeth of cold
| emails from these SEO chowderheads fishing for backlinks.
|
| How about, instead, you contribute to relevant communities (no,
| that doesn't mean spamming your keyword soup into them, it means
| making actual meaningful contributions) and promoting your work
| organically through real connections to real people.
| cyral wrote:
| This, you'd be surprised how well it works. My latest web app
| (~1 year old) is on the first page for a popular single word
| keyword, and #1 or 2 for a ton of two word searches that are
| relevant to my industry. Google must know that people are
| finding what they are looking for because I've never made a
| site with such good search presence for such minimal effort (I
| don't have many posts or articles on the site, and do no
| outreach for backlinks)
| codingdave wrote:
| Anything that starts with talking about "your keywords" mean it
| is still written for people who are trying to get any site, about
| any thing, to have good rankings in hopes of future
| monetization... which is not the same thing as trying to get good
| rankings for your specific site.
|
| The only SEO you need to worry about for your own business site
| is "Write Good Content". And that does not have to be the vague
| wishy-washy meaning of "good". There are specific actions you can
| take -- (BTW, this is where you actually do worry about
| keywords.) Put the keywords you care about in the title, in the
| meta description, in headers, and in the content. This proves to
| the algorithms that the term really is accurate for this page. Do
| not spam keywords in meta tags, be accurate and selective. Use
| header tags to actually hold content headers. And make sure your
| HTML is valid. A few years back, I'd get really easy SEO gigs,
| with awesome search improvements, just by running a site through
| the w3c validator and fixing any problems that are listed.
|
| Once that is done, you'll start getting better placement in
| results. Afterwards, people will follow the link and read your
| content - at this point, Google watches whether or not they come
| back to their results and follow more links. If your content is
| engaging enough to satisfy them so they do not go back for more
| results, you'll get the final boost you need to stay at the top
| of the results.
| josefresco wrote:
| > The only SEO you need to worry about for your own business
| site is "Write Good Content".
|
| I provide SEO services to small businesses. Content creation
| alone is not enough, you'll eventually hit a wall. Just like
| creating a Facebook page/Twitter account and posting to it is
| not enough (anymore).
|
| "Build it and and they will come" doesn't work on the Internet
| when your new website is an island in the middle of an ocean of
| websites. Backlinks are the other side of the coin, and while I
| don't' agree with the advice in this particular article you can
| do everything else wrong, and with good backlinks you'll rank
| well.
| codingdave wrote:
| Enough for what? I've done my share of small biz consulting,
| and the discussion circles around why they want a web site to
| begin with. Honestly, I have yet to meet a small biz owner
| who gives a crap about the web site for its own sake. It
| needs to contribute to their larger goals. That is not always
| growth... I've worked with folks who are already at capacity
| for their size and want streamlined communications, not
| growth. Maybe a few forms for their customers to submit info
| to them, make appointments, etc.
|
| Maximizing search placement is sometimes useful for small biz
| sites, but it is never a goal in and of itself - it is a
| tool. SEO approaches need to regard it as such.
| josefresco wrote:
| > Enough for what?
|
| We're talking about SEO, so: "enough to increase your
| rank".
|
| I agree in the larger picture there's more to consider for
| a small biz. But purely from a standpoint of increasing
| rank, content creation alone is not enough.
| walshemj wrote:
| For small biz getting NAP (name address place) sorted and
| have some place to rank for your name is often the first
| priority.
| sdoering wrote:
| Exactly that. Every local small business website approach
| needs to be tailored to the business needs of the company
| in question.
|
| Some might need growth. Some, as you said, streamlined
| communications. I built a site for a small doctor's
| practice because she needed a way to inform about Covid
| regulations for the practice.
|
| And her imprint needed to be in line with the legal
| requirements.
|
| Nothing more. No SEO, no growth, no nothing. Too many
| patients already.
|
| One needs to take the business needs into account. Always.
| forkLding wrote:
| I find it hits the chicken and egg problem though. If you are
| starting out, most people end up on your business website/blog
| using keyword searches from Google or other search engines.
| Otherwise it is pretty hard from the get-go as a relatively
| unknown individual or company to generate content and hope it
| gets found.
| amozoss wrote:
| I agree writing good content and the tips you share about the
| title, meta description, headers, and valid html are spot on in
| my experience.
|
| Here's a small tweak that helped me with one of my articles.
|
| I wanted an article to rank higher when people searched for
| "slack user groups". Initially I had a question h2 with "What
| are Slack user groups?" and the first sentence started with
| "user groups allow you to group people...".
|
| I got a tip from a friend that I could add "Slack" somewhere
| near "user groups" to help with ranking. So I changed the
| sentence to start with "Slack user groups allow you to..." and
| it improved my ranking by 6 about a week later.
| candyman wrote:
| Finally! I hate the whole "keyword" thing because it makes your
| writing terrible (IMO). Of course you want the keyword and meta
| stuff to make sense but getting all these messages about "use
| your keyword here, here, and there" is just too much.
| Minor49er wrote:
| I hate to be that guy, but point 5 under what not to do should
| not have an apostrophe for the word "gurus"
|
| Edit: I got downvoted for this comment, but the author has made
| the change. My sacrifice was not in vain!
| distortedsignal wrote:
| Could I ask why with the apostrophe is correct? Google defines
| "guru" as "a spiritual teacher, especially one who imparts
| initiation." The article uses the plural of the term. I don't
| know of any English rules about apostraphizing a plural -
| generally, I've heard that one should keep the apostrophe for
| possessives. Could you give me a reference for a rule about
| adding an apostrophe in a possessive?
| OJFord wrote:
| Singular: guru; singular possessive: guru's; plural: gurus;
| plural possessive: gurus'.
|
| (If the word ends with an 's' you can (or not) add only an
| apostrophe and omit the added 's', afaik it's down to
| style/how you'd pronounce it. 'Socrates' work' for example,
| because 'Socrates's' looks and sounds awkward.)
| Minor49er wrote:
| Exactly this. Also, the other points in the list already
| follow this: "Research your keywords", "Do not pay for SEO
| courses", etc.
| eljs wrote:
| I should have left a comment: thanks for pointing that out, I
| made the change indeed!
| Minor49er wrote:
| Thank you for doing that. And also thank you for posting the
| excellent guide to begin with!
| toastal wrote:
| Another tip is that Google is not the only search engine
| mdoms wrote:
| It's the only one that matters.
| rchaud wrote:
| All search engines have roughly the same SEO guidelines. Google
| just offers a ton of analytics and search optimization tools
| than Bing doesn't.
| jl6 wrote:
| > Write good content
|
| Then why do pages at the top of search results for everyday
| searches like recipes all have that godawful life-story blogspam
| structure?
|
| Those sites are the polar opposite of "good content" and yet they
| hit the top rankings regardless.
|
| Nobody writing in good faith sets out to write "content". Anybody
| whose objective is "content" is not to be trusted.
|
| No, the way to get top ranking is to throw your readers under the
| bus and recognize how this game works: your objective is to
| create a page that shoves as many adverts as you can in your
| reader's face. Short content? Pad that shit out so you can fit
| more interstitials amongst its paragraphs. Google makes money off
| most of these adverts, so they are happy to reward such sites
| with high rankings. You're happy. Google is happy. Who else
| matters?
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Wikipedia has fantastic SEO and no ads at all.
|
| Recipe blogs all suck because it's nearly impossible to make
| money just publishing recipes. So every single one has to do
| the worst stuff just to barely survive. Song lyrics are a
| similar area.
|
| If you want to see a fantastic SEO play supporting a product,
| look up almost anything related to film production, like "line
| producer" or "second assistant director" or "call sheet." I bet
| you find a studiobinder.com link in the top 5 results. They
| publish a ton of super helpful and easy to understand content
| about how movies get made. And they make money via sales so
| they have no ads in the content.
| rchaud wrote:
| > Nobody writing in good faith sets out to write "content".
| Anybody whose objective is "content" is not to be trusted.
|
| The article is an SEO guide for startups, not recipe blogs,
| which exist in a separate category of SEO gamification.
|
| Startups usually get their SEO hits by writing detailed guides
| on something tangentially related to their product. For
| example, I will see posts from Lucidchart's website when I'm
| looking up "process mapping template". They've created a
| lengthy web page discussing different types of process mapping,
| and include downloadable templates.
|
| I had never heard of Lucidchart before, they appear to be a
| competitor to MS Visio. I ended up signing up for an account,
| but ultimately felt it wasn't right. I wouldn't have signed up
| at all if I felt the article I discovered wasn't useful.
|
| Of course you can choose not to bother with SEO at all and hope
| your website magically generates qualified leads.
| owlninja wrote:
| This site is auto-blocked by my organization's internet filter
| and is categorized as 'high-risk'. I wonder if it is because of
| the some techniques or examples shown?
| [deleted]
| ssss11 wrote:
| Don't listen to SEO gurus - ok
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-09-30 23:02 UTC)