In order to drive SEO results for your website, you need to:
And a lot more.
What I’m getting at here is, SEO in 2024 is not something that “just happens” to your website. It’s something you have to work for both actively and deliberately.
That said, moving on to #2:
There are dozens of marketing channels you can use these days. Instagram ads, SEO, Google Ads, and so many more.
The thing is, though, that not all of these channels are going to be right for your business or your stage of growth.
For example, a lot of people with very fresh businesses (think, almost no customers) were asking how to do SEO.
Well, the right answer here is that you shouldn’t.
For a new business, the most important thing you need to do is drive customers today, not next year.
Unless you have a lot of capital, your business won’t survive till your SEO kicks in.
In such cases, you’re better off using marketing channels with a more short-term impact, e.g. PPC ads, social media, direct outreach, and so on.
Way too many websites I studied looked extremely poor.
Why? Because they had almost no information on whom the person/team behind the website was.
Say, I want to work with an estate agency. The first thing I’d do is check out their “About Us” page and see who’s the team running the agency.
And if their “About Us” is just generic copy-paste drivel with no team information, there’s zero chance I’m going to reach out to them.
Want to add legitimacy to YOUR website? Here’s what you can do:
If I want to order something online, 99% of the cases I’ll just order from Amazon. I know, for a fact, that:
Now, if you want me to order from YOUR e-commerce store, you really have to work on your brand.
Why should I order from YOUR website instead of Amazon?
If your site is a list of random drop-shipping products you scraped together, I am not ordering.
If you’re selling random household stuff (which I can get faster from Amazon), I am not ordering.
On the other hand, if your store is built around a type of product line (e.g. you’re selling forged metal sculptures), then that’s something a bit more unusual and interesting.
I NEVER tell people that they’re in an oversaturated niche. I truly believe that if you’re good at what you do and passionate about your business, you’ll stand out even in a very overcrowded niche.
That said, to make that happen, you need to differentiate your product/service.
Let’s say, for example, you have a crypto/blockchain blog. You won’t be able to compete with big media in terms of how fast/well you cover crypto news. Chances are, you also won’t be able to outrank them on Google (unless you’re going to spend a TON of money on link-building or PR).
So, what can you do to stand out with YOUR blog?
Here are some examples:
Around 10, 20 years back, you could maintain a blog audience with subpar content.
Today, literally everyone and their grandma writes blog content. Businesses, freelancers, bloggers, e-commerce stores, agencies, they all have a blog, and they’re all publishing content.
With so much content out there, you really need to create exceptional content in order to stand out.
What’s good content, you might ask?
Well, good content is: