The SEO techniques that actually work /worked in 2017/2016?

[seoways]

What is your view on the trends link building,HQ content,AMP?

Looking for a meaningful dicussion.

 

[Zipix]

User engagement is getting bigger and bigger. But in order to actually reach this point you need:
1. Link building (to start gaining organic traffic)
2. HQ Content (to provide adequate answers to the questions for which your visitors are looking the answers)
3. Good UX (to make them happy so they can click and browse around for as long as possible).

As of right now this is how I proceed with every new site/article which I want to rank.
Links -> Upgrade Content -> Better the UX

Pretty happy with the results.

 

[MBS]

Stick with the basics. Build something useful and better than what is out there, promote it. Should work forever.

 

[seoways]

@Zipix and @MBS, Thanks for the useful comments especially the UX one. Can we be discussing something which is not common and new? HQ content and quality link building is always recommended. Please share more things you know which would work in coming years.

Thanks again.

 

[Kim Nguyen]

SEO techniques that actually work for me is having less than 10 percent exact match anchor text, build links every month, create quality articles once per week, easy navigation and having 1000+ words on landing page. In the age of minimalist many graphic designers have hard time to mix between designing and ranking but mixing they must. PBN still works as long as you don't repeat anchor text. Yes I know why waste time and money and send links to an obscure anchor text but you have to restraint yourself and use very long tail keywords or naked URL when you use PBN. Place links to build trust and not to rank is the key. yet once you take care of that you will rank naturally. I must say I spend $400 per month per site.

 

[Zipix]

@Zipix and @MBS, Thanks for the useful comments especially the UX one. Can we be discussing something which is not common and new? HQ content and quality link building is always recommended. Please share more things you know which would work in coming years.

Thanks again.

People always talk about links and content because this is the foundation of any new project/site/article. UX and conversion optimization come at later stages when you already have a decent income and a good amount of visitors from the said project.

There are some things about "HQ" content that bother me though. Often people get the wrong impression when "hq content" is discussed. Having the best editorial piece on a given topic does not equal = serp 1. The never-ending preaching that comes from authorities like Moz (build quality stuff and people will come) and the likes is just awful advice. No matter what type of content you publish you need to promote it to start getting traction. Some do it with organic seo, others go with social media promotion, then there is always the paid traffic option. It all depends on the niche. If organic traffic is your number 1 priority though, you need good content that gives the readers what they want just so they do not bounce back to the search results when they land on your site.

Dwelling time is huge right now. If you build a few links and you actually get decent rankings and start getting some traffic, dwelling time will be decisive whether you will keep those rankings or you will get pushed back to where you were. If in your industry the average time that a user takes to get back to the search results is 50 seconds and the visitors of your site press the back button after just 15 seconds, your rankings will not last very long, no matter the power of the links - I guarantee you this. If on the other hand, your visitors are spending 90 seconds on your site, you can expect very stable rankings and even a boost over time. Anyway, HQ content means, you give your users what they need, no more, no less. Combined with some decent link building you will cement your positions for quite some time.

You don't need to have the best-quality-journalist-style-$400-editorial-piece-wtf-awesomeness content to rank. But you still need relevant info, good grammar and you need to solve the problems of your visitors.

Good content + good links > outstanding content with crap off-site seo.

 

[seoways]

Yes, I completely agree with you mate. All our end-users need the CONTENT the most they wanted to read. If we can satisfy every single user of our site with our content, that is really great enough to stick our organic rankings to the top. As you said, if decent link building combines with it, will help binding our rankings to lead to the heights of SERPs.

If organic traffic is your number 1 priority though, you need good content that gives the readers what they want just so they do not bounce back to the search results when they land on your site.

Good content + good links > outstanding content with crap off-site seo.

 

[Joozed]

Regarding link building; try reverse engineering your competitors' link profiles. Look which sites are ranking on the first page for your targeted keywords > scan their link profiles > filter the sites where you can get a link too (forums, comments, directories) > build the link. If you google "ahrefs reverse engineering" you'll find a good guide.

 

[SeoReborn]

....

I agree with what Zipix posted.

Maybe we should change the word high quality content. When ranking is concerned, google doesn't see the content as high quality, it sees the metrics. It looks at the relevancy (its a given right, obvious), the bounce rate, and time on site.

The low bounce rate and high time on site dictates 'quality' for the search engine.

I have a new site that has no links built to it. I see keywords rankings on page 5+ getting 1 or 2 visitors. Each time they come in, bounce rate zero, time on site average 7 minutes plus. Everytime I see this, I see the rankings slowly improving, moving up page 4, 3, 2. I have some keywords on the first page with no links what so ever.

So maybe we should talk about LBHT content (low bounce high time) instead.

I am not an advocate of content is king, post and pray.

In creating LBHT content, it is synergistic with the success of our linking campaigns, since LBHT content is generally engaging and a more linkable asset for linking campaigns.

Instead of spending time trying to create PBNs (which will eventually collapse), spend time creating LBHT content and make life easier in acquiring links on real sites.

 

[propipper]

I agree with what Zipix posted.

Maybe we should change the word high quality content. When ranking is concerned, google doesn't see the content as high quality, it sees the metrics. It looks at the relevancy (its a given right, obvious), the bounce rate, and time on site.

The low bounce rate and high time on site dictates 'quality' for the search engine.

I have a new site that has no links built to it. I see keywords rankings on page 5+ getting 1 or 2 visitors. Each time they come in, bounce rate zero, time on site average 7 minutes plus. Everytime I see this, I see the rankings slowly improving, moving up page 4, 3, 2. I have some keywords on the first page with no links what so ever.

So maybe we should talk about LBHT content (low bounce high time) instead.

I am not an advocate of content is king, post and pray.

In creating LBHT content, it is synergistic with the success of our linking campaigns, since LBHT content is generally engaging and a more linkable asset for linking campaigns.

Instead of spending time trying to create PBNs (which will eventually collapse), spend time creating LBHT content and make life easier in acquiring links on real sites.

A while back I noticed a page on my site with good organic traffic but the bounce rate was higher than I wanted. At first, it only had text (like a blog post). I then added some relevant sidebar content to that specific page and that helped a bit. Then embedded a short (but interesting) video which seemed to definitely help time on site.

I started testing a whiteboard video on a separate page to see if that would also increase time on site as well as lower the bounce rate. Still a little too early to tell though.

 

[Ollie Brady]

I agree with creating and developing LBHT content. Using VWO or Optimizely to splite test and fine-tune engagement metrics is a must.

 

[Casper]

I agree with what Zipix posted.
I have a new site that has no links built to it. I see keywords rankings on page 5+ getting 1 or 2 visitors. Each time they come in, bounce rate zero, time on site average 7 minutes plus. Everytime I see this, I see the rankings slowly improving, moving up page 4, 3, 2. I have some keywords on the first page with no links what so ever.

So maybe we should talk about LBHT content (low bounce high time) instead.

This sounds incredibly bot-able to improves ones rankings

it also sounds like an incredibly effective negative seo tool if used irresponsibly

 

[SeoReborn]

This sounds incredibly bot-able to improves ones rankings

it also sounds like an incredibly effective negative seo tool if used irresponsibly

Yeah but why make it complicated. With the effort and creativity involved to make bots spoofing ips in mass, doing random page views, time on site, might as well just create LBHT content. Even if the bots get it to rank, the actual traffic will dilute the signals and a potential negative signal to the search engine. It's just synonymous to creating pbns since we know links is a ranking signal, just get real links on real sites, get real people staying on the site.

 

[Calamari]

This sounds incredibly bot-able to improves ones rankings

This is very short sighted thinking. If your metrics suck so bad that you have to fake them, you won't make any money even if you do manage to "fake it until you make it" all the way to page one.