Discuss this article or ask me any questions you may have.
5
Hey Cory!
I'm Anthony... I've been doing SEO/SEM for 10 years now...
First, this is a great introduction to SEO for anyone who knows nothing (and obviously you've been successful with it.)
Second, just wanted to give a warning to you (and anyone who may read this) that point #2 in your strategy is technically right, but be careful with it.
If you're too aggressive with your anchor text (the text that links over to your site) you'll set off red flags and trigger an "unnatural link" penalty in Google Webmaster Tools.
Basically, MOST people who link to you are going to use your domain name or brand name as the link "Placecard.me" or "Cory from PlaceCard" something like that... this is naturally.
When Google's algorithm starts to detect a high number of optimized links like "printable place card templates", it seems unnatural.
I'd say the overwhelming majority (90%+) of your links should be branded or just your domain name... and every once in a while when you have an opportunity to get a bad-ass link from a super authoritive site (like IndieHackers ;) ), use that opportunity to slide your keyword into the anchor text.
P.S. Branded/Domain are just a couple of options...
You can link with images, you can link with brand + keyword, link with your name + partial keyword, etc.
Sorry if you already knew all of this, not trying to correct you - you're obviously doing a great job and getting results, but thought my advice could save someone from over-optimizing their anchor text and hurting themselves.
1
thanks czue and anthmye, your article and notes are really helpful
1
Thanks, glad my notes helped, feel free to pick my brain on SEO/PPC anytime, I'm a geek about this stuff.
1
Wow, great info - thanks! You obviously know way more than me.
I had no idea that unnatural links could be penalized. What are the implications of Google detecting optimized links? Is it something you can recover from?
Appreciate you taking the time to weigh in and provide some real expretise. :)
2
Glad to help!
It's absolutely something you can recover from, the best way would to be continue building good natural links and to change the anchor text that got you in trouble to something more natural.
Google Webmaster Tools also let's you "disavow" links (tell Google not to take them into consideration for your site), but this is overkill in 9/10 situations... I wouldn't go disavowing any links unless you've receievd a ton of spam/porn links to your site from someone trying to do negative-seo to you.
3
Great post czue, I think it'll be useful for a lot of devs. You mention doing writing to create backlinks but there are also some other ways. I'm kind of glad you don't go into it because it might create a paradox of choice or analysis paralysis in readers.
My background is SEO and I think the above approach is fine but if you have a dev background then there are so many neat ways you can get creative about building backlinks.
Evergreen content is a great tip - definitely a strategy I've been employing more with my content recently.
That other list is huge! Reminds me how much I still have to learn...
cheers,
Cory
2
No worries. I think you'll like it because you mentioned how most devs are intimidated by SEO. Coming from an SEO background I've always thought most devs would be natural at it.
It's a balance of creative and technical and being able to build useful resources makes for amazing link bait. Devs typically like that creative/technical balance and like building useful things, so I figure once they get past the unfamiliarity of it (or thinking "that marketing. Marketing bad. Me no like marketing") they'll be like: Oh doooope, this is just an extension of dev and feels like what I do anyway.
Except for the cold emailing part. But once they realize that a good response rate might to the novice seem low then I think they're fine with the persistent nature of it.
2
Awesome post, will make sure to refer to this...this validates a lot of what I thought was the case for a good practical SEO strategy but I didn't know about the canonical links. Thanks for sharing.
1
I had no idea about the nofollow caveat of non-custom-domain Medium posts. That bit of information expedited my migrating to a proper Medium publication :)
1
Hi Corey, thanks a lot for sharing your actionable SEO tips! Your post came up on a very timely basis for me as I'm diving deeper into SEO in hope to generate more traction for a scheduling SaaS that my husband and I are working on (https://www.cozycal.com/).
To be honest, I was pretty overwhelmed after reading those guides. SEO is such a large piece in the marketing puzzle and the fact that it often doesn't yield instant reward can be demotivating. Your article is super refreshing to read and not as convoluted as some other ones out there.
Just a quick question. Which Medium publications have you been submitting your posts too? And are they stringent on picking what's getting published or not?
2
Hi Kat,
Cool product! Reminds me a bit of patio11's appointment reminder.
For publications I've put a lot on Hacker Noon, as well as freeCodeCamp, Writing Cooperative and the Ascent. I think they have varying levels of stringent-ness (freeCodeCamp probably the hardest). I've never had anything rejected though I've also never attempted to submit something I thought was low quality or not that relevant (obviously by my own biased standards).
I think producing quality content and then finding a publication relevant to that content is probably the most important thing. If your blog is just promoting calendars or something I would guess it will be harder to get accepted.
1
Kat, out of curiosity what about those guides made you feel overwhelmed?
I ask because I'm looking into launching an "SEO for Devs" course in 2018, and I'm aiming to make it the best SEO course in the market; understanding where you're coming from would help me design the course from a learning-first approach. Thanks in advance!
1
Thanks for the post. I was sure, that duplicating content over multiple platforms, like having the same post in Medium and another resource can actually hurt your ranking on Google. Am I wrong?
I can also back this up with firsthand experience. E.g. if you search for things i've written about, the original source comes up despite the reposts on medium being much more popular/linked to.
Duplicate content without canonical links is definitely penalized.
I found the medium part particularly useful, I didn't know you could "import" content from your own place. That means that you can have your content in your own blog under your own domain and publish it in Medium/IH, right? If this is true, then I don't understand why the debate of "what's better, to have your own company blog or to publish on medium?". Obviously posting in your own blog servers you to get more DA, while posting on Medium might drive you more traffic and backlinks. So, with what you suggest you can have both!
2
Hi Mezod, thanks!
I found the medium part particularly useful, I didn't know you could "import" content from your own place. That means that you can have your content in your own blog under your own domain and publish it in Medium/IH, right? If this is true, then I don't understand why the debate of "what's better, to have your own company blog or to publish on medium?". Obviously posting in your own blog servers you to get more DA, while posting on Medium might drive you more traffic and backlinks. So, with what you suggest you can have both!
Yep, that's exactly right. Basically no downside to doing both! And you can send your audience (e.g. from your newsletter) to whichever version you are trying to build up. Lately I've been sending everyone to Medium because the more engagement I get there the more organic reach I get on the platform, but you can also send people directly to your site if you have other reasons to want them hanging out there....
1
Hey Cory,
Awesome article. I checked out your website too. I'd love to know more about why you decided to work on it, etc.
1
Thanks Matt! Glad you liked it. :)
I checked out your website too. I'd love to know more about why you decided to work on it, etc.
You mean the place card site? I've writtena fairamount about that already, but also happy to answer any specific questions you have here.
1
This comment was deleted 14 days ago.
1
Hi Andre,
Thanks! Yeah I think there are definitely limitations on search but for my product it made quite a lot of sense since place cards are a thing that people need to make rarely and in special circumstances.
Paid certainly can work great if your cost per click is below the expected revenue per paid visitor, but in my case those economics don't work out at all so it isn't really a viable channel.
Hey Cory!
I'm Anthony... I've been doing SEO/SEM for 10 years now...
First, this is a great introduction to SEO for anyone who knows nothing (and obviously you've been successful with it.)
Second, just wanted to give a warning to you (and anyone who may read this) that point #2 in your strategy is technically right, but be careful with it.
If you're too aggressive with your anchor text (the text that links over to your site) you'll set off red flags and trigger an "unnatural link" penalty in Google Webmaster Tools.
Basically, MOST people who link to you are going to use your domain name or brand name as the link "Placecard.me" or "Cory from PlaceCard" something like that... this is naturally.
When Google's algorithm starts to detect a high number of optimized links like "printable place card templates", it seems unnatural.
I'd say the overwhelming majority (90%+) of your links should be branded or just your domain name... and every once in a while when you have an opportunity to get a bad-ass link from a super authoritive site (like IndieHackers ;) ), use that opportunity to slide your keyword into the anchor text.
P.S. Branded/Domain are just a couple of options...
You can link with images, you can link with brand + keyword, link with your name + partial keyword, etc.
Sorry if you already knew all of this, not trying to correct you - you're obviously doing a great job and getting results, but thought my advice could save someone from over-optimizing their anchor text and hurting themselves.
thanks czue and anthmye, your article and notes are really helpful
Thanks, glad my notes helped, feel free to pick my brain on SEO/PPC anytime, I'm a geek about this stuff.
Wow, great info - thanks! You obviously know way more than me.
I had no idea that unnatural links could be penalized. What are the implications of Google detecting optimized links? Is it something you can recover from?
Appreciate you taking the time to weigh in and provide some real expretise. :)
Glad to help!
It's absolutely something you can recover from, the best way would to be continue building good natural links and to change the anchor text that got you in trouble to something more natural.
Google Webmaster Tools also let's you "disavow" links (tell Google not to take them into consideration for your site), but this is overkill in 9/10 situations... I wouldn't go disavowing any links unless you've receievd a ton of spam/porn links to your site from someone trying to do negative-seo to you.
Great post czue, I think it'll be useful for a lot of devs. You mention doing writing to create backlinks but there are also some other ways. I'm kind of glad you don't go into it because it might create a paradox of choice or analysis paralysis in readers.
My background is SEO and I think the above approach is fine but if you have a dev background then there are so many neat ways you can get creative about building backlinks.
My favourite resource for this (itself a link magnet) is this one: http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies.
I also love the evergreen approach to creating a canonical resource: https://moz.com/ugc/an-evergreen-content-case-study-part-two-another-year-on
Anyway, keep up the good work!
Hi Chris,
Thanks - those look like great resources!
Evergreen content is a great tip - definitely a strategy I've been employing more with my content recently.
That other list is huge! Reminds me how much I still have to learn...
cheers,
Cory
No worries. I think you'll like it because you mentioned how most devs are intimidated by SEO. Coming from an SEO background I've always thought most devs would be natural at it.
It's a balance of creative and technical and being able to build useful resources makes for amazing link bait. Devs typically like that creative/technical balance and like building useful things, so I figure once they get past the unfamiliarity of it (or thinking "that marketing. Marketing bad. Me no like marketing") they'll be like: Oh doooope, this is just an extension of dev and feels like what I do anyway.
Except for the cold emailing part. But once they realize that a good response rate might to the novice seem low then I think they're fine with the persistent nature of it.
Awesome post, will make sure to refer to this...this validates a lot of what I thought was the case for a good practical SEO strategy but I didn't know about the canonical links. Thanks for sharing.
I had no idea about the
nofollowcaveat of non-custom-domain Medium posts. That bit of information expedited my migrating to a proper Medium publication :)Hi Corey, thanks a lot for sharing your actionable SEO tips! Your post came up on a very timely basis for me as I'm diving deeper into SEO in hope to generate more traction for a scheduling SaaS that my husband and I are working on (https://www.cozycal.com/).
I have read a couple of other SEO step-by-step guides including Neil Patel's post on SEO (https://neilpatel.com/what-is-seo/) and another good one on Medium (https://medium.com/startup-grind/seo-is-not-hard-a-step-by-step-seo-tutorial-for-beginners-that-will-get-you-ranked-every-single-1b903b3ab6bb.
To be honest, I was pretty overwhelmed after reading those guides. SEO is such a large piece in the marketing puzzle and the fact that it often doesn't yield instant reward can be demotivating. Your article is super refreshing to read and not as convoluted as some other ones out there.
Just a quick question. Which Medium publications have you been submitting your posts too? And are they stringent on picking what's getting published or not?
Hi Kat,
Cool product! Reminds me a bit of patio11's appointment reminder.
For publications I've put a lot on Hacker Noon, as well as freeCodeCamp, Writing Cooperative and the Ascent. I think they have varying levels of stringent-ness (freeCodeCamp probably the hardest). I've never had anything rejected though I've also never attempted to submit something I thought was low quality or not that relevant (obviously by my own biased standards).
I think producing quality content and then finding a publication relevant to that content is probably the most important thing. If your blog is just promoting calendars or something I would guess it will be harder to get accepted.
Kat, out of curiosity what about those guides made you feel overwhelmed?
I ask because I'm looking into launching an "SEO for Devs" course in 2018, and I'm aiming to make it the best SEO course in the market; understanding where you're coming from would help me design the course from a learning-first approach. Thanks in advance!
Thanks for the post. I was sure, that duplicating content over multiple platforms, like having the same post in Medium and another resource can actually hurt your ranking on Google. Am I wrong?
My understanding is that as long as you get the canonical link it's not a problem. Medium claims the same, and Google claims to attempt to handle it when they can.
I can also back this up with firsthand experience. E.g. if you search for things i've written about, the original source comes up despite the reposts on medium being much more popular/linked to.
Duplicate content without canonical links is definitely penalized.
More info on this topic from Moz here.
It makes sense, thanks!
Hey Cory, great article!
I found the medium part particularly useful, I didn't know you could "import" content from your own place. That means that you can have your content in your own blog under your own domain and publish it in Medium/IH, right? If this is true, then I don't understand why the debate of "what's better, to have your own company blog or to publish on medium?". Obviously posting in your own blog servers you to get more DA, while posting on Medium might drive you more traffic and backlinks. So, with what you suggest you can have both!
Hi Mezod, thanks!
Yep, that's exactly right. Basically no downside to doing both! And you can send your audience (e.g. from your newsletter) to whichever version you are trying to build up. Lately I've been sending everyone to Medium because the more engagement I get there the more organic reach I get on the platform, but you can also send people directly to your site if you have other reasons to want them hanging out there....
Hey Cory,
Awesome article. I checked out your website too. I'd love to know more about why you decided to work on it, etc.
Thanks Matt! Glad you liked it. :)
You mean the place card site? I've written a fair amount about that already, but also happy to answer any specific questions you have here.
This comment was deleted 14 days ago.
Hi Andre,
Thanks! Yeah I think there are definitely limitations on search but for my product it made quite a lot of sense since place cards are a thing that people need to make rarely and in special circumstances.
Paid certainly can work great if your cost per click is below the expected revenue per paid visitor, but in my case those economics don't work out at all so it isn't really a viable channel.