What's your best hidden SEO secret?

[seoforward]

SEOMOZ and the web in general teaches me so much everyday, and I know it's basic but to write for the audience not the engines

[kaashifk]

My best SEO strategi is to get moving and to stop consuimng infomation..in the begining i used to buy way to much SEO stuff, an dofun dmyself suffering from infomation overload.. Till one day i just formulated a plan and got cracking..

My plan..

effective keyword research

identifty top 3 competitors and opensite explore them

cheack,check and double chek ALL your onsite meta data

recheck all onsite meta data

proceed to offsite

first and foremost submit to directory sites

then spend and hr each day to build backlinks, aiming to build 1 extra link than the day before BUT also take a gap day on a random day each week inbetween, use this day for admin tasks like checking analytics,rank checks,check if any of your links have been indexed etc but above all, use this day to go back to your 1st day of the weeks links you tried to build and check up on them etc etc

Also try and get a guest blog op for yourself on a blog in your niche.

Finally,stay far away from anything remotely dodgy!

hopes this helps and good luck!

[petrakraft]

Hi Kaashif - thank you for sharing your "secret".

[seospain]

Not so much a secret but for me it's build a quality site for users and not for engines, don't rely solely on Google and other organic search traffic (use multiple channels like newsletters, blog commenting, link bailt, blogging, social etc) so that if you organic rankings are hit, it doesn't take out your business completely. Work hard on converting the visitors you do get by making good use of Google Analytics, usability testing and conversion optimisation. Ok, so that was more than one but I couldn't help myself.

[HiveDigitalInc]

1. Create a bunch of blackhat, auto-genned spammy sites in your space...

2. See what they automatically get long-tail traffic on...

3. Write content on your site targeting those keywords...

[petrakraft]

Lol - that's a different approach ...

[tomcraig86]

Our site is customer facing, and we need to keep the content low in some cases, so we use different JQuery plugins to 'hide' some content from the viewers.... but not search engines

I wouldn't say it's black hat as the content is 100% original and very authoratitive (optimised oviously), it's just a way of getting your content on the page without having the old CSS margin: -10000000000000px trick I bet you all know!!

[dlrPaul]

Red Bull - "It gives you wings!

[petrakraft]

Off topic - this doesn't apply

[NickPateman81]

Great idea Donnie. This comment may well have changed our initial SEO strategy. I'm guessing you've got experience in this area - can I be nosey and ask what your testing process is?

Many thanks!

[MontanaFlynn83]

Very nice feedback, thanks for this.

[Tradingpost]

RSS TO TWITTER!

[AaronSchinke]

So true. I still think we are secretly being productive in the down town. SEO is much more creative than people give it credit for. A little bit of everything involved!

[jdeb]

I've long held a business idea based on just this issue: hiring out henchmen who are paid to beat you up if you don't meet your deadlines. I'm sure a "gun to your head" option, charged hourly, could be arranged to suit your particular requirements.

[Shareef-Defrawi]

Stop hoarding the link juice and link out to related sites! Not so much a secret but something that is too often overlooked.

[IslandLogic70]

A website called SEOmoz.org. Shh.

[IPINGlobal54]

Remembering to keep an open mind to new ideas and concepts, testing them, and ensuring that I keep a mental note of both "do more of that" when they work and "not even if hell freezes over" when they don't (except when google changes something).

[WME]

Meet with your Client's face to face.

Once they can see how confident and passionate you are about SEO and their success, they will trust you further and be quicker to take on your ideas and recommendations.

[SEO-Doctor]

Social is..... (go test)

[glennfriesen]

Indeed. I tried to explain this truth to my employer once. He didn't get it. Now he's not my employer, and their site's traffic plummeted to 30% of what it was when I "spent half my day farting around".

Farting around isn't. It's accessing inspiration. It's competitive research. It's market research. It's natural link-building. It's accessing actionable information. It's expanding your mind to think outside the box of your perceptions. It's relationship-building. It's really important, even though it's difficult to forecast the ROI of such "R&D"