Build Some Links, Get some Brand Mentions

[secretagentdad]

Just wanted to post an old but great blog post here from a dead seo blog thats aged incredibly well by industry standards. Check out of a few of the other posts, they're way trueer than what you will get from twatter. The advice is lucid, simple and exactly what YOU need to be doing if YOU want to rank.

Here is my TLDR and finger wavey lesson for a couple of people that are triggering me from this forum.
Stop rewriting your heading tags and rearranging your urls.
That's just procrasination and vooodoooism once you've already got it mostly right.

Go make some noise. You're not gonna rank for shit with out it.

http://www.hustleandsavvy.com/on-page-seo-doesnt-matter/

 

[Randall F]

Sounds like someone is trying to stirring up a hornet's nest.

Every year that pass onsite SEO have less and less importance in order to rank, however those who want to win will always try to boost every ranking factor no matter how small is the measurable impact.

 

[10past10]

Yes, of course it matters somewhat, but the amount that you can do strictly with domain authority and links totally dwarfs on-page factors to the point where you can rank a page that doesn’t even exist anymore just by using links.

While I agree with this I still think it's not very good advice to ignore on-page SEO. There are a lot of small markets where you can win just by getting your on-page in order and having the right content and keywords. Fixing your on-page issues is just low hanging fruit most of the time, why would you ignore it?

 

[secretagentdad]

You can fix your basics anytime.

You can't fix lack of history of acquiring links.
You can't fix lack of history of people talking about your brand keywords.
You can't fix lack of history to your brand feeds on platforms.
You can't fix that nobody cares about you enough to look you up.

The key to sem is advertising. No noise no ranks.
If your sites slow and you don't rank for a while you can fix it and start ranking.
If your contents middle of the road, you can update it to be better.
You can't fix lack of off page history over night.

Now is the best time ever to build and flip sites.
The markets absolutely bonkers on fire.
Get revenue going and flip. Multipliers are crazy.
Our bst has gotten very good and the current google meta has basically all of our promotional vendors able to rank sites.
If you have a decent value proposition for the keywords stop fiddling with the minor details and start buying promotion and quality promotable assets of all kinds. You can reinvest the money you get from ranking easily. Sites seem to be able to rank with timelines under 2 years again.
With search console you can actually get results from testing things and dial in if you are capable of paying any attention at all to high level planning.
Who knows how long its going to stay this easy for.
I'm to dumb to rank when its hard.

 

[MeEatBrains]

start buying promotion and quality promotable assets of all kinds

So you are saying that you are pushing paid traffic and it moves the organic rankings? Can you expand more on that?

For local, traffic does wonders (I mean driving traffic to GMB. Traffic from various sources, sent directly to GMB or channeled via various T1 properties). Even fake traffic works (really high quality proxies are needed tho).

 

[secretagentdad]

I’ve heard credible reports of Business cards and car decals working really well for local seo.

Googles system as a whole is intended to be reflective of what people already want.

Do some demand generation and you become the desired result. People will scroll right past the competition and go for what they already have in mind.

I haven't itemized what exactly works but why would I care? When I launch a product I try to make it desirable, then, add repeated media impressions to get it into my target audiences heads.

If it’s sticky it stays there and I get mind rent. Google has a funny way of compounding returns on mind rent. It’s a win more platform.

 

[scottb]

Any suggestions for creating more buzz on a limited budget?

I had started doing some outreach to get brands listed on one of my sites that has a directory aspect to it. I was debating on the best way set up the emails to take advantage of any signals it could create and chose between:

• No link - so they hopefully google the brand name, even though most probably just copy it from the email. (Currently doing this)
• Link to knowledge panel
• Direct link to site (aka I'm overthinking it and traffic is traffic)

The site did alright with very little age compared to the competition, so I suspect it helped. Any one else have any good ideas of ways to create more brand searches, mentions, etc that won't break the bank.

Traffic leaks are another thing that comes to mind that could have a secondary benefit like this.

 

[secretagentdad]

The biggest most important thing is that you have to have a distinguishable and memorable brand name.
Nothing ever works if it doesnt stick.

For directories you're selling the fact that you already have traffic and look like a good bet to get more of it in the future. I'd chill on the monetizing if you're looking to make a media play like that. Compounding your traffic / building your userbase is a better use of time. Sales of network effects tend to slow growth if you get to pushy with them early.

If you're going to traffic leak I'd skip everything except deep and earnest participation with the top couple channels you've identified. Smaller channels that are high quality have a weird way of growing over time if you give them a bit of signal boosting. Look for real community, even if its small.