5 (Actionable) SEO Lessons I Learned in 2018
Kaylee Pope
Detroit-based content nerd who’s been here since the Tumblr era. | Content @ KORTX ??
Over the past 2 years, SEO has evolved at breakneck speed. From shrinking SERPs to no webpage voice searches on in-home devices (“Okay, Google can you stop making changes?”), this is not a skill you try once and put on your resume. It is not like riding a bike. If you learned SEO 5 years ago and haven't kept at it, you probably don’t know SEO now. Heck, if you learned everything there was to know about SEO a year ago, you’re missing a lot already. This industry changes with technology on a near daily basis. It also leaves you at the mercy of Google’s whims. That can be uncomfortable, but it can also be a ton of fun. A challenging industry means you get to try a lot of things. As an SEO, I love testing anything and everything. Nothing feels quite like discovering your page is ranking at the top of the SERP.
For all the SEO tests my team ran on the 30+ sites we host at Prime Publishing LLC, I would say about 30% of them produce actionable results and sometimes those actionable results are “well, we won’t do that again”.
We’ve run about 25+ tests of varying scale and success this year. Below are some tactics that have worked for us on multiple occasions on at least 2 domains.
1. Consolidate Content That is Optimized for the Same Topic
One great page is way better than 5 okay ones (you might not even know you have).
Variety is the spice of life and it stands to reason that your users would likely enjoy seeing a few versions of the same thing. Google, however, seems to have an issue with this. Many of our sites are 5+ years old, which means they have a lot of content. With several editors over the years continually creating content, we often create similar versions of the same page, often optimized for the same target phrases. We have found that when you have too many pages optimized for the same thing, Google gets a little confused and none of them rank well.
To test this, we have combined the content for pages into one URL or location before redirecting the other pages to this main URL. The result? Page one rankings!
We used to have 4 pages about “knit poncho patterns” and none of them were ranking. Now, we have one and it’s on the first page of Google for over 30 phrases!
How Do You Do This?
Simple! Find a list of pages optimized for the exact same thing. My recommendation for this is to either search in your content management system for important keywords or plug “site:yoursitename.com keyword phrase” into Google and see if you can locate similar pages. Generally, combining these can be super easy! Just put everything on one URL and redirect the rest.
Tip: Before creating ANYTHING for your website, check to see if you have old content you can repurpose or re-do instead of creating a brand new URL.
2. Old Successes Do Not Predict the Future
Old tactics are just that... old.
We have a lot of old pages that we tried to revive this year for months on end. These pages once brought in 25k+ clicks individually a month. They were our blockbuster pages that out-performed any new page we could dream up. They were steady and reliable…. Until about 2 years ago. Then, we started to see a pretty steady decrease to these old standbys. Assuming this was a problem of better content outranking us on main phrases, we got to work updating these pages with more recipes and patterns, videos, thousands more words, etc. Surely, we could win back that old success. Unfortunately, we were wrong.
The reason these old pages lost so much organic traffic was not because people had better pages for those “big terms”. It was because smaller, niche articles were now winning those long tail phrases. Google has learned how to meet intent much better. While our hub pages for “crochet hat patterns” once ranked very well, it’s no longer ranking for those long tail phrases that have a better match.
If someone searches “crochet baby hat pattern with flower”, Google has figured out how to find the crochet baby hat patterns with cute floral accents. It doesn’t just return scrollable hubpages from brands.This is especially true for many listicles (like recipes) where Google can build a listicle SERP of options instead of giving you the traffic.
Before you try and perform some CPR on old pages, take a moment to check SERPs for ranking phrases. Is your form of content outdated? Maybe it’s time to stop making lists of the best chicken casserole recipes and instead time to move towards making the casseroles themselves.
3. Specific is Terrific.
Niche pages down then niche some more!
Searchers have changed! Their searches have become way more complicated as have Google algorithms that can rank and display that content. Ten years ago, you’d type a very simple search into Google and hope for the best. If you were looking to buy a hat, you’d type in “where to buy hats”. Now, searchers know exactly what they want and how they want it. So, they’re complicating their searches with increasing word counts. Now, someone might type “where to buy vintage fedoras in brooklyn cheap” or “cowboy hats online free delivery” or even “cowboy hat like John Wayne’s in true grit cheap online”. General lists just don’t cut it anymore.
This is a bit of a bummer because it means we’re making more content for smaller results. The plus side? If you do this right, conversions are quick and easy. People are searching for very particular things! If you have it, they will probably buy it.
Try finding the niche things your audience loves and creating how tos, lists, and reference articles out of these.
How to Do This?
I recommend starting with your main product, service, or niche and then working to add modifiers to this product. Some great modifiers include price, quality, time spent, location, proximity, and how/what/why/where.
Some of our best specific pages this year have upwards of 3 modifiers. Here’s Some Examples:
- 19 Bulky(1) Yarn Crochet(2) Blanket(3) Patterns(4)
- Why(2) You Should Thaw(1) Your Frozen Hash Browns(2) Before(3) Cooking (& How)(4)!
Tip: Sneaking in How and Why helps you win search snippets!
4. Keyword Data Doesn’t Matter All That Much
Write like a human.
SEOs have been bemoaning the uselessness of Google’s search data for years. Terms are combined. Some don’t have any data. Some have crazy high volume yet you see no traffic.
The truth is that SEOs hoping to gain insight into exactly how much traffic they can earn from data from ANY source will find nothing but disappointment. As searchers continue to type in (or talk in) increasingly complicated searches, the one perfect page with perfect keyword optimization model is going to go by the wayside.
I am not saying you should throw this tactic out altogether, but it is time to start assuming this data is a guide, not a promise. CTRs, the location of the searcher, the device they’re using, and so much more make this data far too unreliable and wily to tie down.
How to Do This?
Is there a need for the content? If so, create great content that is about that very thing using the right vocabulary and you should rank.
A great example of this is this page I created about clothing moths and yarn for our knitting site (content warning: there’s a gross bug picture on this page). The search for “clothing moths and yarn” isn’t huge. The search traffic to the page far exceeds the measly 0-50 search Moz gave me at the time. Because, as it turns out, people don’t know what these nasty little bugs are. So, people are googling things like “bugs eating my yarn” or “I found bugs in my yarn how do I kill them” or “why are there gross eggs in the yarn I had stored under my bed for 2 years.” Figure out how people are searching for your content topic and write like them!
5. Don’t Dismiss SERP Technology as "New and Shiny"
Because it's here to stay.
I have attended a few SEO conferences over the past two years and I tend to hear a lot of conflicting things when it comes to technical SEO and success. A lot of people love to note that technical SEO is something you can ignore unless you “have a problem” or “Google isn’t finding your site.” This is true in some regard. You can rank without all the bells and whistles of rich schema or AMP pages. Sure.
I am here to tell you, however, that being on the vanguard of these tools is going to give you some quick wins. Skipping adopting this technology? That will likely result in a problem when everyone else has adopted this markup. Eventually, everyone in the neighborhood will have bought the car while you’re still riding your horse to work.
We’ve have a lot of success with mobile traffic to our sites through implementing AMP on several of our sites. In fact on one of our biggest sites, AMP traffic constitutes nearly 10% of our total organic mobile traffic with only 50% of the pages currently set up for AMP.
We have also found that in order to rank for content that Google has a markup for (in our case recipes) using this markup is essential to success. I have a sneaking suspicion that Google is a little tougher on recipes as they are hoping that users will ask Google Home to teach them how to make cowboy casserole.
How to Do This?
Full disclosure, I am NOT a technical SEO. We have a tech team that handles all the more complicated code and site architecture stuff for us. If you're not a technical SEO, hire someone to do this for you.
Here are a few articles on AMP and Schema to get you started.
Thanks for Reading!
Hopefully you found some actionable ideas from this article!
If you’re interested in working with me or Prime Publishing LLC on your content goals (we publish crafts, recipes, budgeting tips, and more!), feel free to contact me through our customer service form or send me a LinkedIn message.