Some lessons I’ve learned from my time working in SEO.

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Remember to check for this on migration day:

Disallow: /

Usually a low priority for devs, but a high priority for SEOs.

Look twice, migrate once.

While we’re on migrations:

Don’t expect them to go live on time but make sure you’re on time. Delays can actually help you focus on the things you thought you didn’t have time to focus on.

Don’t migrate on a Friday.

Ask a lot of questions and be nice.

It’s amazing how much more you get done when you have a good relationship and you understand their business, constraints, and goals.

SEO evolves but the basics remain the same:

Content (make people happy)

Links (make people happy so much they link to you)

Tech (make search engines happy)

Nothing happens without action.

Don’t treat audits, keyword research and strategic presentations as ‘deliverables’. But vehicles to persuade action.

Brand can be a significant driver of growth. Strip it out as best you can, so you don’t have false positives in your SEO strategy.

Use leading indicators (rankings, non-brand clicks etc.) to really understand your contribution.

Don’t claim results you have no claim to.

Revenue attribution sucks. Often you’ll have more influence than what’s reported.

It’s difficult.

If organic traffic is going up + total revenue is going up, your client will be happy.

Don’t remove content because your audit says it’s had 0 sessions in the last 3 month.

Relevant content can make a difference *indirectly*. You just won’t know until you remove it.

The easiest way to compete with the big guys is to become the best in your niche.

Google rewards authority. You can usually do more by focusing on one thing.

And on doing less...

Clients have finite budgets. Doing a small bit of everything can lead to small results and no budget.

Sometimes you’ve got to take measured risks and put all your eggs in one basket.

Or test -> then exploit.

Clients have finite budgets...

Leverage high impact activity.

- Embed SEO into product.
- Educate others for scale.
- Define processes that turn into habits.

All of the above depend on relationships.

Work with, not against paid teams.

Use their data.
Share your data.
Save money.

Accept that bidding on brand is sometimes for the greater good. It’s cheap and targeted.

It’ll lower organic conversions, but that convo is easier with shared reporting + good relationships.

And on reporting...

Your reports are shared upwards: where decisions are made and detail doesn’t count for much.

- Start with your results
- Then how
- Then why

That’s in the right order and enough detail for most stakeholders.

Search volume at a keyword level only paints part of the picture of opportunity. (remote SEO jobs)

Grouped keywords show opportunity at page level (..,remote jobs in SEO,..)

Keyword classes show opportunity at scale. (remote [category] jobs)

Put issues in context.

Relative > absolute.

“1,200 pages have missing pages titles” doesn’t mean much.

“80% of pages have missing page titles” means something.

80% of pages with missing page titles make up 80% of organic traffic” means more than something.

When you push content live only 20% of your work is done.

Think, how can users:

- Find it externally.
- Find it on-site.

Over time think, is it:

- Up-to-date.
- Targeting the right keywords.

Search results are like houses. You can own them or rent them.

Some keywords are more challenging. ‘Best buys’ and ‘reviews’ are predominantly ‘owned’ by affiliates.

You can get higher CTR by being in more results. Marketplaces + aggregators + social media help with that.

And finally, get a second opinion.

Have a team/peers with different views than your own.

Follow people that are smarter than you.