This new format helped Google figure out our paginated page URL patterns.
That way, Google spent less time re-crawling our paginated pages. And more time finding and indexing new stuff.
It also seemed to push Google to crawl more of our pages in general.
6. Build Backlinks With Podcasts
I’ve appeared on over 120 podcasts, including several popular SEO podcasts, as a guest.
And pretty much all of them have linked to me.
This is why I like to say: “podcasts are the new guest posts.”
Actually, going on a podcast is in some ways BETTER than writing a guest post.
To publish a single guest post you need:
Find a site that will accept your guest post.
Pitch them.
Write a draft.
Go through rounds of edits.
Then you finally get your guest post published.
With a podcast, all you really need to do is show up. And you’re good to go.
In fact, going on podcasts was one of the first link-building strategies that we used to build backlinks to Exploding Topics.
I advised my co-founder Josh to reach out to podcasts in the startup space.
And because Josh had an interesting story to share, a bunch of them said yes.
The question is: how can you get interviewed on other people’s podcasts?
I could write an entire post on this. But here are some pointers that I’ve picked up over the years.
Pitch for their audience: Your outreach needs to emphasize what specific things the podcast’s audience would get from your interview.
Get a mic: Legit podcasts care about audio quality. So I recommend investing in a high-quality mic.
Level up: Start with the tiniest podcasts you can find. Small podcasts are more likely to say yes. And you get good at being a guest (which is a real skill). Then, you can leverage those early appearances to go on bigger and better shows.
7. Forge a Content Alliance
A Content Alliance is where you team up with another business, site, blog, or YouTube channel on a single piece of content.
For example, I recently teamed up with Fractl on a post that they ended up publishing on the Moz blog.
In that case, I provided data from Exploding Topics.
But you can also partner with someone that has the data that you need.
It’s no secret that high-quality images make your content better.
Which can (indirectly) help with rankings.
So, what kind of images should you use on your site?
Well, a well-done SEO experiment discovered that “duplicate images” (like stock photos) can hurt your page’s rankings.
Which is why you want to use as many original images as you can.
For example, we work with a graphic designer to help us create super professional screenshots.
It’s obviously much easier and faster to just take a normal screenshot. But going the extra mile makes our images original. And more helpful.
We also create several custom visuals and charts for every post.
Again, these visuals aren’t cheap. But they’re worth it for the direct and indirect SEO benefits.
As a bonus, people might start to use your visuals in their blog posts.
For example, this chart from one of our posts has been embedded on dozens of different blogs.
And the vast majority of people that use that image link to Backlinko as a source.
10. Optimize Your Content For Keyword Relevance
You already know that there’s more to on-page SEO than cramming a keyword into your page 187 times.
In fact, Google’s “How Search Works” document explains that they look at “quantifiable signals to assess relevance”.
Specifically, Google wants to see relevant content on the topic that page covers.
Question is: how do you give Google the “quantifiable signals to assess relevance” that they want to see?
One strategy is to include LSI keywords on your page.
When you do, you’ll confirm to Google that your page is highly relevant for that query.
Which can give you higher rankings for your target keyword. And help you rank for more keywords.
If you write in-depth content you’ll probably use a lot of these LSI keywords automatically.
But you want to double check, there are tools out there (like Clearscope and Surfer SEO) that can help you find the right LSI keywords to include in your content.
These tools work pretty much the same way: they scan content that already ranks for your keyword.
And they bubble up terms that those pages use most often.
11. Create a Comments Section On Your Blog
Comments can help your SEO for three reasons:
First, comments may actually be a direct ranking factor.
Second, comments give users more stuff to read and do. Which can boost dwell time.
Third, a comments section is actually content that Google crawls, indexes and ranks.
In fact, a Google rep stated that they count all content on a page (including UGC).
Which is why I put a lot of effort into Backlinko’s comments section.
Not only do I reply to pretty much every comment. But we have someone that spends over an hour every day just to moderate them.
That way, 100% of the comments that end up on the site are high-quality.
Specifically, I added a table that compared the different ways to learn SEO.
And a bulleted list of skills that SEO specialists need to have.
Not long after, my page shot up to the #1 spot in Google.
Which boosted organic traffic to that page by 36.9%.
(Google uses 200+ ranking factors in their algorithm. So I can’t say for sure that Content Features made all the difference. But in my opinion, it was the main reason that my rankings improved).
14. Publish Topic + Year Content
Topic + Year Content are blog posts that cover key trends happening around a given topic.
And that post is optimized around the keyword: “SEO 2024”.
As you probably know, “SEO” is an insanely competitive keyword.
(Even for me… 🙂 )
But “SEO 2024” isn’t super competitive. Even though thousands of people search for it every month.
This brings in a decent chunk of traffic every month (especially early in the year).
Note: I should point out that this is VERY different than adding year to the end of a title tag.
For this strategy to work, your content needs to be focused 100% on the year in question.
For example, my annual SEO guide covers trends that are happening in the world of search engine optimization.
15. Get Backlinks From Unlinked Brand Mentions
Unlinked brand mentions are just like they sound: they’re mentions in blog posts and news articles that don’t link to your site.
Here’s an example:
And all you need to do is email the person that mentioned your brand. And ask them to add a link to your site.
In my experience, the conversion rate on this approach is fantastic.
That’s mainly because you’re not reaching out cold to someone that’s never heard of you.
Instead, you’re emailing somebody that already mentioned your site in a blog post.
Which means they’re primed to add your link.
The key here is to reach out fast.
For whatever reason, people are much more likely to edit a brand new post.
So the faster you send your email, the more likely you’ll get a link.
BuzzSumo’s “Brand Alerts” feature is perfect for this technique.
In fact, they even have a filter just for finding unlinked mentions.
16. Optimize for Google Discover
Google Discover is Google’s version of a social media newsfeed.
But instead of featuring posts from people that you follow, Google shows you high-quality content that they think you’d like.
And I’ve found that Google Discover can bring in legit amounts of traffic.
In fact, Google Discover sent me 6.6k visitors over a 90-day span.
According to Google, it’s impossible to optimize for Discover.
But that’s obviously not true.
In fact, a few paragraphs later they state that high-quality images can help you rank in Discover.
That’s because every result in Discover has a big image next to it.
And if that image stands out, people are going to click on it. Which can help you show up in other people’s Discover feeds.
So you want to make sure that every post that you publish has a super high-res og:image.
With that, here are a few things that I’ve found help with Google Discover SEO:
Content freshness (you get most of your Discover traffic the day a post goes live)
Original, high-quality images, charts and graphs
Engagement on Twitter (which Google indexes)
High level of traffic to a single page
Content about popular topics (Discover content suggestions are based largely on that user’s browsing history)
17. Find Low-Competition Keywords From Reddit
Here’s an easy way to find super low-competition keywords.
First, pop a subreddit into Semrush.
Then, look at all of the keywords that pages in that subreddit rank for.
And just like that, you have a list of super low-competition terms.
Yes, Reddit has a higher Domain Authority than you do (that’s why they’re ranking in the first place).
The thing is, most Reddit threads are super unorganized. And include lots of useless comments, like this:
Which means there’s plenty you can do to make your content better than a Reddit thread, like:
Organize information into steps
Add multimedia, like images and videos
Include external links to helpful resources
Include more up-to-date techniques, strategies, or information
Basically: any well-written post > Reddit thread.
This means your post has a good chance of outranking the original Reddit thread.
Pro Tip: Most subreddits rank for lots of keywords that you don’t want to target in the first place. A quick CPC filter makes it easy to find legit keywords. I recommend setting the minimum CPC to about $2. That way, you can filter out the junk.
