Good Moz article on SEO

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   NateB11posted 7 years ago

   Keyword research is still important, of course, but this article points out the importance of user intent and how to optimize your content/site for it. https://moz.com/blog/single-best-seo-ti … op_content

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   1. 89

      Will Apseposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      That is pretty reasonable advice. And it chimes well with the line that HP has been pushing for years now, with only a few hints of blackhat skullduggery.
      
      I notice the writer is quitting MOZ, though. Poor old MOZ, I don't give it long...

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      1. 89

         NateB11posted 7 years agoin reply to this

         It chimes well with HP's reasoning except one thing that stood out to me that didn't is the author says not to mess around with high traffic articles too much because, as he put it, don't  fix it if it aint broken; he suggests reworking low traffic content.

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         1. 89

            Will Apseposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I'm superstitious about changing articles that already rank number 1 in search for the most important search terms.
            
            Most articles get a temporary boost if you change them -- useful for product pages around Xmas. Many articles will simply become irrelevant if you do not update them, certainly anything tech related.
            
            Horses for courses.
            
            I was interested to see that Moz reckons user metrics are increasingly important. Did I ever mention dwell times, lol?

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            1. 89

               NateB11posted 7 years agoin reply to this

               One thing I find interesting about sites like MOZ and SEO advice generally is that it all seems like a gamble; some of the advice is totally off base and doesn't work and sometimes you can glean a bit here and there that works. Probably too many variables - meaning what works for one site might not work for another, etc. At any rate, some advice I've gotten on SEO just hasn't panned out and sometimes I've gone against what is thought to be good SEO and have had successes.
               
               So, what I'm saying is I don't think just because someone writes for MOZ that they know what they're talking about. To a large extent, I'd trust admin here at HP because I've witnessed them apply principles they've tested and made them work, and they've outlasted other sites of this kind.

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               1. 89

                  Will Apseposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  HP SEO advice for writers is all you need as far as I can see. The learning center is pretty good.
                  
                  They take care pretty good care of the legit site architecture SEO, too, I reckon.
                  
                  There is the under the counter stuff but we hope no one ever looks under the counter.
                  
                  If HP focus on editorial issues this year, should be a bright future.

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      2. 60

         TessSchlesingerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Why don't you give MOZ long Some years back I worked for a SEO company doing content writing for them, and my boss (the one who did SEO) used to love Moz.

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         1. 89

            Will Apseposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Old-style Moz SEO was all about manipulating search engines. Google has gone a long way to eliminating the skullduggery with Penguin and Panda. MOZ has no real role anymore.
            
            Of course, HP has in place what they once described as an 'aggressive SEO' strategy. And we are the beneficiaries, perhaps.
            
            edit: I just noticed this thread in 'related' below: http://hubpages.com/community/forum/975 … da-mauling
            
            I really hated old-style SEO, back then. People would dash off a second-rate page in an hour then spend days creating backlinks. The mindlessness, the horror, lol.

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            1. 60

               TessSchlesingerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Strangely enough, even at that time I never did backlinks. And I hated the way one had to keep repeating the keyword. Yet despite no backlinking, a good number of my articles made it to number one in the serps.
               
               I am glad I can now write to the same specifications I would for a magazine but not as easy to get to top of serps now.

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               1. 89

                  NateB11posted 7 years agoin reply to this

                  When I first started writing here several years ago, there was a lot of talk about creating backlinks. I was resistant to any SEO at all back then because I thought we should just write what we know and I had no idea you have to have at least some knowledge of SEO to get any traffic of significance. Turned out soon after I had read all this stuff about backlinking, Penguin hit and penalized a bunch of sites for blackhat backlinking type stuff. I was always suspicious of it,the backlinking thing, seemed manipulative. I did, however, follow this very common advice back then and posted some of my articles to the useless site called Redgage, but soon took them down after considering the problems of backlinking.
                  
                  At any rate, like you I've seen pretty good success with articles without doing any backlinking at all. The natural way tends to work, people will link to your content and share it and that's probably the safest way to get a backlink.

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                  1. 60

                     TessSchlesingerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

                     

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   2. 60

      TessSchlesingerposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Good article, but I'm already doing all that, anyway. My problem is to find what people are searching for which has few articles written about it. It's a hit and miss affair. I've always thought that 'content is king' is bull. People won't read content just because it's content. For the same reason, I think blogs on business websites are silly.

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   3. 93

      Leonard Tillermanposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for this.  Many good tips and even a few I was unfamiliar with.  For me, trying to find a popular subject which has little actually written about it is key.  I find that to be like a needle in the haystack.

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   4. 58

      isparmoseopakarposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Yes. Keyword Research is first step in SEO. It's very important.

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