Boring SEO guide for the non-lazy • Hacker News Board

Re: Boring SEO guide for the non-lazy

#31

Post by chiefalchemist » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

sharkweek wrote: post #10

Respectfully, this is basically the equivalent of "here's how to build a house" * Buy some land * Buy some wood * Pour some concrete * Hammer the wood together on top of the concrete * Put on a roof There ya go, you know how to build a house! And to that end, SEO is simple on the surface - Make sure your site is super easy to crawl and loads super fast. Write search keyword-optimized content. Build (or as the modern…

Futhermore. It's a process. Once you get past the initial basics, it comes down to repetition.

Re: Boring SEO guide for the non-lazy

#32

Post by inerte » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #27

> Do not create your own blogging engine > This one is for tech folks specifically. Use Wordpress, Webflow, Hugo or whatever you want, but do not created your own engine. Creating your own engine is a lot of work and a big waste of time. Is this meant in the sense that existing blogging engines have good defaults with regard to SEO, and if you did it on your own you'd spend a lot of time figuring out by trial and err…

How to spend your time. If you want to create content, SEO it, make some money, use a pre-existing blog or CMS. If you want to build a CMS, build one. If you want to create content and your first thought is "but first, I need a CMS!" then you'll probably* fail at both.

* Everybody knows that one person who succeed in both, yay. There's way more that failed.

Re: Boring SEO guide for the non-lazy

#33

Post by owlninja » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

This site is auto-blocked by my organization's internet filter and is categorized as 'high-risk'. I wonder if it is because of the some techniques or examples shown?

Re: Boring SEO guide for the non-lazy

#34

Post by distortedsignal » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

Minor49er wrote: post #17

I hate to be that guy, but point 5 under what not to do should not have an apostrophe for the word "gurus" Edit: I got downvoted for this comment, but the author has made the change. My sacrifice was not in vain!

Could I ask why with the apostrophe is correct? Google defines "guru" as "a spiritual teacher, especially one who imparts initiation." The article uses the plural of the term. I don't know of any English rules about apostraphizing a plural - generally, I've heard that one should keep the apostrophe for possessives. Could you give me a reference for a rule about adding an apostrophe in a possessive?

Re: Boring SEO guide for the non-lazy

#35

Post by jakelazaroff » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

inerte wrote: post #32

jakelazaroff wrote: post #27

> Do not create your own blogging engine > This one is for tech folks specifically. Use Wordpress, Webflow, Hugo or whatever you want, but do not created your own engine. Creating your own engine is a lot of work and a big waste of time. Is this meant in the sense that existing blogging engines have good defaults with regard to SEO, and if you did it on your own you'd spend a lot of time figuring out by trial and err…

How to spend your time. If you want to create content, SEO it, make some money, use a pre-existing blog or CMS. If you want to build a CMS, build one. If you want to create content and your first thought is "but first, I need a CMS!" then you'll probably* fail at both. * Everybody knows that one person who succeed in both, yay. There's way more that failed.

Fair enough! Related comic: https://rakhim.org/honestly-undefined/19/

Re: Boring SEO guide for the non-lazy

#36

Post by mdoms » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

As an alternative to techniques like "broken link building" and "the skyscraper technique" have you considered jumping into a hole and never coming out? I am sick to the back teeth of cold emails from these SEO chowderheads fishing for backlinks.

How about, instead, you contribute to relevant communities (no, that doesn't mean spamming your keyword soup into them, it means making actual meaningful contributions) and promoting your work organically through real connections to real people.

Re: Boring SEO guide for the non-lazy

#37

Post by genewitch » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

sharkweek wrote: post #10

Respectfully, this is basically the equivalent of "here's how to build a house" * Buy some land * Buy some wood * Pour some concrete * Hammer the wood together on top of the concrete * Put on a roof There ya go, you know how to build a house! And to that end, SEO is simple on the surface - Make sure your site is super easy to crawl and loads super fast. Write search keyword-optimized content. Build (or as the modern…

"3. Draw the rest of the fucking owl"

Re: Boring SEO guide for the non-lazy

#38

Post by OJFord » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

distortedsignal wrote: post #34

Minor49er wrote: post #17

I hate to be that guy, but point 5 under what not to do should not have an apostrophe for the word "gurus" Edit: I got downvoted for this comment, but the author has made the change. My sacrifice was not in vain!

Could I ask why with the apostrophe is correct? Google defines "guru" as "a spiritual teacher, especially one who imparts initiation." The article uses the plural of the term. I don't know of any English rules about apostraphizing a plural - generally, I've heard that one should keep the apostrophe for possessives. Could you give me a reference for a rule about adding an apostrophe in a possessive?

Singular: guru; singular possessive: guru's; plural: gurus; plural possessive: gurus'.

(If the word ends with an 's' you can (or not) add only an apostrophe and omit the added 's', afaik it's down to style/how you'd pronounce it. 'Socrates' work' for example, because 'Socrates's' looks and sounds awkward.)

Re: Boring SEO guide for the non-lazy

#39

Post by Minor49er » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 6:27 PM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #38

distortedsignal wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could I ask why with the apostrophe is correct? Google defines "guru" as "a spiritual teacher, especially one who imparts initiation." The article uses the plural of the term. I don't know of any English rules about apostraphizing a plural - generally, I've heard that one should keep the apostrophe for possessives. Could you give me a reference for a rule about adding an apostrophe in a possessive?

Singular: guru; singular possessive: guru's; plural: gurus; plural possessive: gurus'. (If the word ends with an 's' you can (or not) add only an apostrophe and omit the added 's', afaik it's down to style/how you'd pronounce it. 'Socrates' work' for example, because 'Socrates's' looks and sounds awkward.)

Exactly this. Also, the other points in the list already follow this: "Research your keywords", "Do not pay for SEO courses", etc.

Re: Boring SEO guide for the non-lazy

#40

Post by rwmj » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

Back in the mid 2000s I part-owned a start up company and we made a reasonable living going around telling people pretty much the contents of this list (except for the backlinks stuff which is spammy). Good to see some of it is still relevant. I would add a couple more (from back then - don't really know if they're relevant now):

* Lightweight, accessible website mostly implemented in as close as you can get it semantic HTML. (We used to say, possibly inaccurately, that search engines are like blind web users - make your site accessible, and you're helping blind users and search engines).

* Read your log files. For every customer I used to ask for their log files, and then I'd read them. Very interesting insights can be had about how people find the site and where they go which is more difficult to see from tools. If possible I would spend a few hours tailing the logs live.