FAQ: What are our top tips for SEO strategy?

1) Be real.

Invest real time in defining & refining your value proposition. Don’t spend your entire life spamming — it’s a nonstop uphill struggle.

2) Save time, but avert disaster.

Don’t get too technical about anything, except avoiding spam signals.

Focusing on trivial details is a common wasted effort; but if you miss a trick that leads to Google distrusting your intentions then the damage is potentially limitless. Technical SEO has its place — keep it in its box, allow it to champion accessibility, and take it very seriously when it alerts you to potential spam signals. In the case that this may be an over-reaction, it’s still a healthy exercise for improving user experience; but in case you fail to avert the risk — ouch!

3) Invest strategically.

Consider owned media as an alternative to earned media, for linkbuilding, for the benefit of your company’s worth and resource pool in the long run.

If you’re not a fan of strategic investment, stick with PPC. SEO is inherently more strategically investment oriented. And in SEO, large ‘owned media’ centric campaigns may require more up-front investment for the same level of short-term results as ‘earned media’ centric campaigns do (just as paying off your mortgage often (but not always) costs more than simply renting), but in the long term, owned media offers infinitely greater levels of control, reliability, equity and ROI to benefit you and your clients or partners.

Just don’t get caught link-scheming! Be careful how you link-build. Even excessive guestblogging for linkbuilding purposes gets sites penalised these days, so be very careful how you handle everything relating to linkbuilding — be it owned, earned or paid/rented — even be careful with ad space buying which can look like linkbuiding if there are links involved.