Build a Community and Subscriber Base
One of the things people who have been in the space long enough will tell you is that you should build a source of traffic independent of Google. Build a forum, engage in social media on Twitter or Facebook, or build an email list (shudder). I’m going to fully admit I’m not the most social of people. Community building is something I hate. I’m also a zero inbox kind of guy. The thought of filling up other people’s inboxes makes me twitch. This is an area that I know is important, but it’s still something I struggle with.
Be Pressworthy and Noteworty
To whatever extent possible, do things that are pressworthy and noteworthy in your space. You don’t have to be the most noteworthy, but you don’t want to be the least noteworthy either. You need to do things that, to people and search engines, look like press events. DO NOT think like an SEO when doing it. Getting a link from a trade website is great, but getting your domain or product mentioned without a link is fine too. In reality, getting your domain mentioned without a link is MUCH better than not getting your domain mentioned at all.
Fresh Data and Structured Data
Whether its true or not, people make the assumption that something written in the past 12 months is better than something written 5 years ago. I’m not going to say Google penalizes old websites, but they have designed a system that gives preference to newer, fresh pages.
With that taken into account, it makes a lot of sense to use XML and other structured markup to make sure Google knows the date your content was published/updated. I know this is in opposition to the entire evergreen content concept, but Google makes the rules. We just play in their sandbox. My advice? Update & refresh using the living URL method. Just be sure to update the date.
Rich snippets are much more click enticing in the SERPS. Do everything you can to format your data in a microformat they can read. Especially try to take advantage of author markup and review markup.
Conclusion
While a lot of these points may seem like common sense, it took a lot of trial and error to get to this level of understanding. Here are the key takeaways in this post:
- Build websites that have information people are looking for and solve problems, then add affiliate links. Don’t do it the other way around
- Find multiple revenue streams for your websites. Don’t depend on one offer or product
- Create natural looking websites. Don’t create algorithmic anomalies with bad linking practices
- Build a base of customers who look for you that don’t come from search engines
- Be press worthy. Do everything to look more like a legitimate business and less like an SEO
- Keep your content updated, especially the key important pages
- Use XML and micro data tags to help Google understand your website better and get rich snippets in the SERPs
photo credit: BigStockPhoto/Olly2
