At Evermore, we are asked all of the time about SEO. Specifically, we’re asked how to rank highly for certain keywords and how fast we can make it happen. People want to be the first result for their keywords.
Are there complexities to SEO? Absolutely. It can be dizzying.
That said, your path to #1 begins with a commitment to love your fellow human. Yes, love.
Focusing on People
In 2010, when I first started to writing my personal blog, I wrote about the Johnson O’Connor aptitude test. It really changed the course of my life, and I wanted others to benefit from my experience. I took a lot of time to go over my experience, because the test is around $700. My goal was to convince people who were floundering in careers that made them unhappy to take the test. If they couldn’t afford it, I wanted to provide enough information about my experience that they could intuit their own results, because most people know the truth about what they need to do, they are just too afraid to do it. I know I was.
Anyway, I really poured myself into this article.
Despite the fact that I knew nothing about SEO, the article has consistently ranked at the top or near top of Google for years under relevant searches. I haven’t made one SEO “tweak” to the article—ever. I didn’t “hack” anything, and I didn’t pay attention to the latest Google releases. I just wrote to help people.
If you search “Johnson O’Connor test review,” I’m #3 in the results, only behind powerhouse Yelp and the website for the test itself.
Engagement by Giving
People all over the world have commented on the article, thanking me for writing the blog post. Over four years later, it’s still holding strong and getting stronger as people engage with it through comments, social media, and linking.
There is a principle I live by that has consistently enriched my life and everyone around me:
The more you give, the more you get—but only if you give not to get.
You don’t have to know how it will pay off, just now that it will. That’s the miracle of it all. Unexpectedly, it paid off with SEO. When I read about “best practices” for SEO, I realized I had implemented them naturally, because I cared.
Thin Content
Recently, I read an article about how Google is taking a stand against “thin content”. Essentially, Google is trying its hardest to not rank unhelpful content, because Google is in the business of getting people great content (even if that is through ads sometimes). Many SEO gurus promote shortcuts, hacks, and formulas that are increasingly irrelevant, even as each new Google algorithm update seeks to invalidate these things.
Instead of trying to predict the future, commit to being a loving person and make the sacrifices it takes to actually help people meet real needs in their lives. Write to solve problems. Write to share helpful ideas.
There are SEO tools you can use (Evermore has some) to help you optimize what you wrote. There are SEO mistakes you can avoid, and SEO best practices to implement.
But, great SEO starts with a commitment to be helpful to others. While you may not always see the success I did, creating amazing content for your amazing products and services will serve you better in the long run. It will definitely serve as an easier target to hit consistently—and help define you as a resource for others—instead of spinning your wheels trying to hack smart search engine algorithms.