The traditional (dated) approach
Keyword saturation
The first part of the traditional approach to boosting a page’s rankings in Google is ensuring that textual content is well saturated with the target keyphrase as a whole as well as its component keywords individually (not always in the same keyphrase). Including long-tail keyterms to show depth of topic, and synonyms to show natural language. The challenge here is to ensure that keywords are built into the content in a non-spammy way, rather than appearing like “keyword stuffing”. The benefit of this approach is that the content is relevant to the target keywords, and the downside is that the content comes across as somewhat artificial – it hasn’t been made for the user, it’s been made for search engines, and these days this will be reflected in higher bounce rates which can be devastating to rankings!
Linkbuilding
Aside from on-site SEO work like keyword-targeted landing page creation; the other half of traditional SEO is focused on off-site strategy, that is linkbuilding. Traditionally, you’d build links to your landing pages to boost link equity, and you’d tailor the keyword-rich anchor text of these links in order to boost the targeting of your landing page for your target keywords. Search engines are getting ever better at detecting (and penalising you for) link schemes, which technically all proactive linkbuilding campaigns are – some spammier than others; and search engines are also getting ever better at recognising more foolproof quality signals thus making linkbuilding an evermore reduntant effort (it’s not dead yet, but is losing weight at a rate of knots).
The modern (ethical) approach
The modern approach to SEO is all about improving user experience; and endorsing a holistic marketing approach where SEO is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, and every aspect of that puzzle helps and is helped by SEO.
Modern off-site SEO
In this modern approach, the off-site aspect is all about sewing seeds for reputation building, without specifically constructing or negotiating for links, thus being proactive but in the most organic way, inline with an ethical ethos. The modern approach to off-site SEO is basically a type of digital PR involving plenty of social media to increase presence and profile in a way that would be described more as ‘inbound marketing’ than outbound, because it entails attracting people – and consequentially links – rather than pushing explicitly to get the links.
Modern on-site SEO
From an on-site perspective, the modern approach to boosting rankings focuses on solving the searcher’s need by giving them everything they want from their search. Provide them with all the answers, products, etc – whatever they are looking for, by getting inside their mind and giving them exactly what they want in abundance but concisely, thus minimising the rate at which they bounce back to search results (which Google monitors to determine how satisfied those searchers were by your site after searching with such a query).
The upside of this strategy is that you’ll have a natural pattern of growth, least likely to be penalised, and you’ll have so much genuine quality based momentum that you’ll stand the best chance of success in the long run, providing you ever get off the ground in the first place.
The downside of this modern method, is that it can take a long time for Google and the world to clock on to how good your page is because it takes some exposure to get recognised and ignite the viral growth pattern that you’re expecting. During this time, your entire business could fail. So don’t underestimate the value of traditional methods at least in the early stages of campaigning within a competitive niche from a startpoint of minimal resources where time is also of the essence; but likewise don’t under-estimate Google’s intention and ability to penalise you for using all or any old-school SEO techniques.
Hyper-specialisation
If you’re tasked with promoting a site that’s already well established, you may already have the basic level of exposure necessary to create great content and get rewarded for it fast, simply by publishing it on your established site; but if you’re just starting out, you’ll need a little help to get the ball rolling. You could turn to proactive linkbuilding, or you could turn to hyper-specialisation.
The tactic of hyper-specialisation to get the ball rolling, as part of a modern ethical (non-spammy) SEO strategy, involves focusing on a niche that’s less competitive than the one you’re struggling with. Keep refining your focus while generally improving your offering, to develop a USP that interests someone even if it’s only a very small target market, just to get the ball rolling with rank growth for longtail terms. Google will then come to appreciate your quality signals and gradually expose you to higher rankings for more competitive terms. The more exposure you get, the more your quality is recognised, and so begins the viral effect. This is viral content marketing, but it only works if your site is genuinely phenomenal.