SEO
A Basic 5-Step Guide That Anyone Can Follow
Several years ago, I worked in a startup with no marketing budget.
No one had any marketing experience either. Being the only person who had read a couple of marketing books, I was put in charge of the marketing strategy.
Without any know-how or marketing dollars, I read a couple of SEO blogs and tried implementing their strategies.
And it worked.
Sidenote.
Due to business challenges, the company no longer exists, which explains the sudden decline in traffic.
With the proper guidance, anyone can do SEO by themselves. You just need to know how to get started.
That’s what this guide is for.
Let’s begin.
If Google cannot find, crawl, and index your pages, it doesn’t matter what SEO tactics you pull out of the hat. Your pages just can’t rank.
So the first step is to make sure Google can do all of the above for your site.
The easiest way to see if any issues are hindering Google is to audit your website. You can do this by signing up for our free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT) and using Site Audit to run a crawl of your website.
When the crawl is done, you’ll see all the top issues plaguing your site. Click on the number in the Crawled column to see which URLs these are.
You can also click on the issue itself to see why it’s a problem and how to fix it.
To get search traffic, you need to target the words and phrases your potential customers are searching for. You can find what these are by doing keyword research.
Here’s the easiest way to get started. You can:
- Go to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer.
- Enter one or a few relevant keywords related to your website (e.g., if I were a massage therapist, I might enter massage therapy, back pain, back pain relief, shoulder pain relief, and more).
- Go to the Matching terms report.
Here, you’ll see over 400,000 potential topics. But that’s too many. So you’ll want to reduce the list to something manageable. Specifically, you’ll want to target keywords that can potentially send you tons of traffic but are not competitive.
We do this by using two filters:
- Traffic potential (TP) – TP is the estimated amount of search traffic you can potentially gain if you rank #1 for that topic. We can set it to a minimum of 100 to find topics that actually send traffic to your site.
- Keyword Difficulty (KD) – KD gives an estimation of how hard it is to rank in the top 10 search results for a keyword. The lower the number, the “easier” it is. While it does depend on your site’s “authority,” you can start with a reasonable number like 20.
This list is much more workable. Make sure you manually review each keyword to see if it’s relevant to your business.
Learn more: Keyword Research: The Beginner’s Guide by Ahrefs
Creating search-optimized pages is no longer about stuffing as many target keywords as possible. Keyword stuffing died over a decade ago. Today, Google can easily understand synonyms and semantically related words.
Then, how do you create pages optimized for search? Here’s how.
Match search intent
Google wants its users to be happy. To it, that means figuring out why the searcher is searching —i.e., search intent—and then showing them the most relevant results.
So if you want to rank high on Google, you’ll have to match search intent.
Fortunately, figuring out search intent is relatively simple. Since Google already works to serve the most relevant results, we can look at the current top-ranking pages to understand search intent.
Specifically, we want to analyze the three Cs of search intent:
- Content type – Is the primary type of content a blog post, product page, video, landing page, or something else?
- Content format – Is the primary format a how-to guide, listicle, review, opinion piece, news, or something else?
- Content angle – Is there a primary angle, such as the current year or content aimed at beginners?
For example, let’s suppose you want to cover the topic “how to save money”:
Here’s what we’ll learn when analyzing the SERPs:
- Content type – All of the top-ranking pages are blog posts.
- Content format – Surprisingly, instead of a how-to guide, people are actually looking for tips.
- Content angle – Simple/easy, proven, and fast are potential angles.
So we could potentially create an article titled “XX Proven Ways to Save Money.”
Learn more: What Is Search Intent? A Complete Guide for Beginners
Cover the topic in full
The best result for most queries usually covers everything searchers want to know about the topic.
An easy way to find out what subtopics and important points searchers want to see is to run a content gap analysis:
- Go to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
- Enter the keyword you’re targeting
- Scroll down to the SERP overview
- Check a few of the top-ranking pages
- Click Open in and choose Content gap
In this example, we’re targeting the keyword inbound marketing. You can see that many of these keywords map to potential subtopics:
These subtopics…
- What is inbound marketing
- Inbound marketing examples
- Inbound marketing strategies
… could make perfect H2s for our blog post.
Make your content unique
You should cover the topic in full. But that doesn’t give you leeway to copy-paste what’s already on the top-ranking pages.
After all, copycat content can neither stand out nor incentivize people to link to you (and links are an important ranking factor).
So you’ll want to make sure your content is unique. Here are some ideas on how you can do that:
- Personal experience – If you’ve successfully implemented something, write about it.
- Expert interviews – Reach out and interview experts in your field or ask them to contribute an opinion to your piece.
- Crowdsource – Get multiple people to contribute their opinions, expertise, and ideas.
- Original research – Add data to your post. You can do this by running a study, survey, or poll.
- Contrarian – Be the devil’s advocate. Consider an opposing viewpoint.
Make your content simple and easy to read
Content that’s hard to read is not only bad for SEO, but it’s also bad for business. How can you convince someone to buy your product if your copy can’t even be understood?
Keep your copy nice and simple. Use these tips:
- Avoid big words. Don’t say erroneous when you can say wrong. Always use simple language. If in doubt, use Hemingway to check your copy.
- Use formatting like bolding, italics, and lists to break up chunks of copy.
- Include multimedia like images, videos, and GIFs to illustrate your points and break up walls of text.
Sprinkle on your on-page SEO
This is the “icing” on the cake that makes it extra clear to Google and searchers that your page is relevant.
Follow these best practices:
- Use the keyword in the title – This is usually already included in your headline. But if you haven’t, see if you can work it in. A similar variation works too.
- Write a compelling meta description – While not a Google ranking factor, it helps to sell your article in the search results.
- Use short, descriptive URLs – Such URLs make it easy for searchers to understand what your post is about. The simplest way is to make the slug your topic.
- Add alt text to your images – Google uses alt text to understand images. Create a concise but accurate one for every image you use.
Learn more: On-Page SEO: The Beginner’s Guide
Links are an important Google ranking factor. You’ll likely need them to rank higher.
Link internally
When it comes to links, many people neglect internal links. But they’re actually important—not only because they pass authority between your pages, but they also help Google discover and understand pages.
The easiest way to find relevant internal link opportunities is to use the Link opportunities report in Site Audit. You’ve already run a crawl in step #1, so all that’s left to do is to see what internal links the report suggests you should add.
For example, Site Audit suggests that we can potentially add an internal link to our post on Google’s URL Inspection tool on our post about submitting websites to search engines.
Learn more: Internal Links for SEO: An Actionable Guide
HARO
HARO (Help a Reporter Out) is a free service connecting journalists to sources and sources to journalists. If you’re an expert in your niche, you can easily provide a quote and the journalists may link to your site.
Getting started is easy—you just have to sign up as a source on the website.
Then, you’ll receive emails with queries from journalists working for various publications. However, most queries will likely be irrelevant to you, so we recommend setting up a Gmail filter:
- Click the search options filter
- Set the “From” field to [email protected]
- Set the “Subject” to “[HARO]”
- Set “Has the words” to keywords you want to monitor (use the OR operator to list multiple keywords here)
For the best results, only respond to queries where you have relevant expertise.
Replicate your competitors’ backlinks
If someone is linking to your competitors, chances are they will link to you too. So you merely have to find out who’s linking to them and not you and find a way to replicate those links.
Here’s how:
- Enter your domain into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer (set it to Exact URL)
- Go to the Link Intersect tool
- Add a few competing homepages in the empty fields (set them to Exact URL)
Go through the results to see if there are any links you can potentially replicate.
For example, the website below links to both of our competitors. Looking closely at the links, we see they’re both podcast interviews:
Given that the host has already interviewed two of our competitors, they may also be interested in interviewing us.
Finally, you’ll need to track some metrics to know if you’re going down the right path.
The exact metrics you’ll need to track depend on your goals, but some of the most common ones are:
- Organic traffic – All non-paid clicks from search engines. If it’s trending upward, it may be a sign that your SEO efforts are paying off. Tools you can use: Google Search Console and Ahrefs’ Site Explorer (free in AWT).
- Keyword rankings – The organic ranking positions in the search results for the keywords you’re targeting. You can track this using Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker.
- Referring domains – Number of websites linking to your site. We’ve already established earlier that backlinks are an important Google ranking factor. So you’ll want your site to get more of them over time. You can see how many referring domains your site has in Site Explorer.
- Search visibility – How visible your brand is on the market. You can track this by pasting the keywords that matter to you in Rank Tracker. Then go to the Competitors overview tab and check the Visibility column.
Final thoughts
This simple DIY SEO guide covers the fundamentals of SEO.
You can follow this guide over and over again to optimize your site and rank for meaningful and relevant keywords.
Then as you experience more success, you may even consider hiring an agency to take things to the next level. Or if you prefer to continue the DIY route, you can learn more on our blog, YouTube channel, and Academy.
Any questions or comments? Let me know on Twitter.
SEO
How To Drive Pipeline With A Silo-Free Strategy
When it comes to B2B strategy, a holistic approach is the only approach.
Revenue organizations usually operate with siloed teams, and often expect a one-size-fits-all solution (usually buying clicks with paid media).
However, without cohesive brand, infrastructure, and pipeline generation efforts, they’re pretty much doomed to fail.
It’s just like rowing crew, where each member of the team must synchronize their movements to propel the boat forward – successful B2B marketing requires an integrated strategy.
So if you’re ready to ditch your disjointed marketing efforts and try a holistic approach, we’ve got you covered.
Join us on May 15, for an insightful live session with Digital Reach Agency on how to craft a compelling brand and PMF.
We’ll walk through the critical infrastructure you need, and the reliances and dependences of the core digital marketing disciplines.
Key takeaways from this webinar:
- Thinking Beyond Traditional Silos: Learn why traditional marketing silos are no longer viable and how they spell doom for modern revenue organizations.
- How To Identify and Fix Silos: Discover actionable strategies for pinpointing and sealing the gaps in your marketing silos.
- The Power of Integration: Uncover the secrets to successfully integrating brand strategy, digital infrastructure, and pipeline generation efforts.
Ben Childs, President and Founder of Digital Reach Agency, and Jordan Gibson, Head of Growth at Digital Reach Agency, will show you how to seamlessly integrate various elements of your marketing strategy for optimal results.
Don’t make the common mistake of using traditional marketing silos – sign up now and learn what it takes to transform your B2B go-to-market.
You’ll also get the opportunity to ask Ben and Jordan your most pressing questions, following the presentation.
And if you can’t make it to the live event, register anyway and we’ll send you a recording shortly after the webinar.
SEO
Why Big Companies Make Bad Content
It’s like death and taxes: inevitable. The bigger a company gets, the worse its content marketing becomes.
HubSpot teaching you how to type the shrug emoji or buy bitcoin stock. Salesforce sharing inspiring business quotes. GoDaddy helping you use Bing AI, or Zendesk sharing catchy sales slogans.
Judged by content marketing best practice, these articles are bad.
They won’t resonate with decision-makers. Nobody will buy a HubSpot license after Googling “how to buy bitcoin stock.” It’s the very definition of vanity traffic: tons of visits with no obvious impact on the business.
So why does this happen?
There’s an obvious (but flawed) answer to this question: big companies are inefficient.
As companies grow, they become more complicated, and writing good, relevant content becomes harder. I’ve experienced this firsthand:
- extra rounds of legal review and stakeholder approval creeping into processes.
- content watered down to serve an ever-more generic “brand voice”.
- growing misalignment between search and content teams.
- a lack of content leadership within the company as early employees leave.
Similarly, funded companies have to grow, even when they’re already huge. Content has to feed the machine, continually increasing traffic… even if that traffic never contributes to the bottom line.
There’s an element of truth here, but I’ve come to think that both these arguments are naive, and certainly not the whole story.
It is wrong to assume that the same people that grew the company suddenly forgot everything they once knew about content, and wrong to assume that companies willfully target useless keywords just to game their OKRs.
Instead, let’s assume that this strategy is deliberate, and not oversight. I think bad content—and the vanity traffic it generates—is actually good for business.
There are benefits to driving tons of traffic, even if that traffic never directly converts. Or put in meme format:
Programmatic SEO is a good example. Why does Dialpad create landing pages for local phone numbers?
Why does Wise target exchange rate keywords?
Why do we have a list of most popular websites pages?
As this Twitter user points out, these articles will never convert…
…but they don’t need to.
Every published URL and targeted keyword is a new doorway from the backwaters of the internet into your website. It’s a chance to acquire backlinks that wouldn’t otherwise exist, and an opportunity to get your brand in front of thousands of new, otherwise unfamiliar people.
These benefits might not directly translate into revenue, but over time, in aggregate, they can have a huge indirect impact on revenue. They can:
- Strengthen domain authority and the search performance of every other page on the website.
- Boost brand awareness, and encourage serendipitous interactions that land your brand in front of the right person at the right time.
- Deny your competitors traffic and dilute their share of voice.
These small benefits become more worthwhile when multiplied across many hundreds or thousands of pages. If you can minimize the cost of the content, there is relatively little downside.
What about topical authority?
“But what about topical authority?!” I hear you cry. “If you stray too far from your area of expertise, won’t rankings suffer for it?”
I reply simply with this screenshot of Forbes’ “health” subfolder, generating almost 4 million estimated monthly organic pageviews:
And big companies can minimize cost. For large, established brands, the marginal cost of content creation is relatively low.
Many companies scale their output through networks of freelancer writers, avoiding the cost of fully loaded employees. They have established, efficient processes for research, briefing, editorial review, publication and maintenance. The cost of an additional “unit” of content—or ten, or a hundred—is not that great, especially relative to other marketing channels.
There is also relatively little opportunity cost to consider: the fact that energy spent on “vanity” traffic could be better spent elsewhere, on more business-relevant topics.
In reality, many of the companies engaging in this strategy have already plucked the low-hanging fruit and written almost every product-relevant topic. There are a finite number of high traffic, high relevance topics; blog consistently for a decade and you too will reach these limits.
On top of that, the HubSpots and Salesforces of the world have very established, very efficient sales processes. Content gating, lead capture and scoring, and retargeting allow them to put very small conversion rates to relatively good use.
Even HubSpot’s article on Bitcoin stock has its own relevant call-to-action—and for HubSpot, building a database of aspiring investors is more valuable than it sounds, because…
The bigger a company grows, the bigger its audience needs to be to continue sustaining that growth rate.
Companies generally expand their total addressable market (TAM) as they grow, like HubSpot broadening from marketing to sales and customer success, launching new product lines for new—much bigger—audiences. This means the target audience for their content marketing grows alongside.
As Peep Laja put its:
But for the biggest companies, this principle is taken to an extreme. When a company gears up to IPO, its target audience expands to… pretty much everyone.
This was something Janessa Lantz (ex-HubSpot and dbt Labs) helped me understand: the target audience for a post-IPO company is not just end users, but institutional investors, market analysts, journalists, even regular Jane investors.
These are people who can influence the company’s worth in ways beyond simply buying a subscription: they can invest or encourage others to invest and dramatically influence the share price. These people are influenced by billboards, OOH advertising and, you guessed it, seemingly “bad” content showing up whenever they Google something.
You can think of this as a second, additional marketing funnel for post-IPO companies:
These visitors might not purchase a software subscription when they see your article in the SERP, but they will notice your brand, and maybe listen more attentively the next time your stock ticker appears on the news.
They won’t become power users, but they might download your eBook and add an extra unit to the email subscribers reported in your S1.
They might not contribute revenue now, but they will in the future: in the form of stock appreciation, or becoming the target audience for a future product line.
Vanity traffic does create value, but in a form most content marketers are not used to measuring.
If any of these benefits apply, then it makes sense to acquire them for your company—but also to deny them to your competitors.
SEO is an arms race: there are a finite number of keywords and topics, and leaving a rival to claim hundreds, even thousands of SERPs uncontested could very quickly create a headache for your company.
SEO can quickly create a moat of backlinks and brand awareness that can be virtually impossible to challenge; left unchecked, the gap between your company and your rival can accelerate at an accelerating pace.
Pumping out “bad” content and chasing vanity traffic is a chance to deny your rivals unchallenged share of voice, and make sure your brand always has a seat at the table.
Final thoughts
These types of articles are miscategorized—instead of thinking of them as bad content, it’s better to think of them as cheap digital billboards with surprisingly great attribution.
Big companies chasing “vanity traffic” isn’t an accident or oversight—there are good reasons to invest energy into content that will never convert. There is benefit, just not in the format most content marketers are used to.
This is not an argument to suggest that every company should invest in hyper-broad, high-traffic keywords. But if you’ve been blogging for a decade, or you’re gearing up for an IPO, then “bad content” and the vanity traffic it creates might not be so bad.
SEO
Is It Alternatives You’re Looking For?
Whatever the reason, in this article, I’ll share some alternatives to HARO and a few extra ways to get expert quotes and backlinks for your website.
Disclaimer: I am not a PR expert. I did a bit of outreach a few years ago, but I have only been an occasional user of HARO in the past year or so.
So, rather than providing my opinion on the best alternatives to HARO, I thought it would be fun to ask users of the “new HARO” what they thought were the best alternatives.
I wanted to give the “new HARO”—Connectively—the benefit of the doubt.
Still, a few minutes after my pitch was accepted, I got two responses that appeared to be AI-generated from two “visionary directors,” both with “extensive experience.”
My experience of Connectively so far mirrored Josh’s experience of old HARO: The responses were most likely automated.
Although I was off to a bad start, looking through most of the responses afterward, these two were the only blatant automated pitches I could spot.
These responses weren’t included in my survey, and anyone who saw my pitch would have to copy and paste the survey link to complete it—increasing the chance of genuine human responses—hopefully.
So, without further ado, here are the results of the survey.
Sidenote.
The survey on Connectively ran for a week and received 101 votes. Respondents could vote for their top three HARO alternatives.
Price: Free.
Help a B2B Writer was the #1 alternative platform respondents recommended. In my survey it got 22% of the vote.
Help a B2B Writer is a platform run by Superpath that is similar to HARO but focused on connecting business-to-business (B2B) journalists with industry experts and sources for their stories.
Price: Free and paid plans. Paid plans start at $99 per month.
Coming in joint second place, Featured was popular, scoring 18% of the vote.
Featured connects journalists with experts and thought leaders. It allows experts to create profiles showcasing their expertise and helps journalists find suitable sources for their stories.
Price: Free and paid plans. Paid plans start at $99 per month.
Qwoted is another platform that I’ve heard talked about a lot. It came in joint second place, scoring 18% of the vote.
Qwoted matches journalists with expert sources, allowing them to collaborate on creating high-quality content. It streamlines the process of finding and connecting with relevant sources.
Price: Free for ten pitches per month
Despite being the “new HARO,” Connectively came 4th on my list, scoring 12% of the vote—surprisingly, it wasn’t even the top choice for most users on its own platform.
Connectively connects journalists with sources and experts. It helps journalists find relevant sources for their stories and allows experts to gain media exposure.
Price: Free and paid plans. Paid plans start at $5.95 per month.
SourceBottle is an online platform that connects journalists, bloggers, and media professionals with expert sources. It allows experts to pitch their ideas and insights to journalists looking for story sources. It scored 9% of the vote in my survey.
Price: Free.
JournoRequest is an X account that shares journalist requests for sources. UK-based journalists and experts often use it, but it can sometimes have international reach. It scored 7% of the vote in my survey.
Price: Paid. Plans start at $1,150 per year.
ProfNet connects journalists to expert sources. It helps journalists find knowledgeable sources for their articles, interviews, and other media content. It helps subject matter experts gain media exposure and share their expertise. It scored 5% of the vote in my survey.
Price: 7-day free trial and paid plans. Paid plans start at $147 per month.
JustReachOut is a PR and influencer outreach platform that helps businesses find and connect with relevant journalists and influencers. It provides tools for personalized outreach and relationship management. It scored 3% of the vote in my survey.
Price: 14-day free trial and paid plans. Paid plans start at $50 per month.
OnePitch is a platform that simplifies the process of pitching story ideas to journalists. Businesses and PR professionals can create and send targeted pitches to relevant media outlets. It scored 3% of the vote in my survey.
Price: Free.
PitchRate is a free PR tool that connects journalists and highly rated experts. Useful for subject matter experts looking for free PR leads, media coverage, or publicity. Or journalists looking for credible sources. It scored 1% of the vote in my survey.
Price: Free and paid plans. Paid plans start at ~$105 per month.
A UK service that connects media professionals with expert sources, press releases, and PR contacts. It scored 1% of the vote in my survey.
Price: Invitation-only platform.
Forbes Councils is an invitation-only community for executives and entrepreneurs. Members can contribute expert insights and thought leadership content to Forbes.com and gain media exposure. It scored 1% of the vote in my survey.
Price: Free.
Yes, you read that right.
HERO was created by Peter Shankman, the original creator of HARO, who said the platform will always be free. It scored 1% of the vote in my survey.
Peter set up the platform after receiving over 2,000 emails asking him to build a new version of HARO.
Price: Paid. Sign up for details.
Meltwater received no votes in my survey, but I included it because I’d seen it shared on social media as a paid alternative to HARO.
It’s a media intelligence and social media monitoring platform. It provides tools for tracking media coverage, analyzing sentiment, and identifying influencers and journalists for outreach.
Price: Free.
Expertise Finder also received no votes in my survey, but it was included as I saw it had been recommended as an HARO alternative on LinkedIn. It’s a platform that helps journalists find and connect with expert sources from universities.
HARO had a dual purpose for SEOs: it was a place to acquire links, but it also was a place to get expert quotes on topics for your next article.
Here are a few more free methods outside the platforms we’ve covered that can help you get expert quotes and links.
We’ve already seen that JournoRequest is a popular X account that shares journalist requests for sources.
But you can also follow hashtags on X to access even more opportunities.
Here are my favorite hashtags to follow:
I used to track the #journorequest hashtag to find opportunities for my clients when I worked agency-side, so I know it can work well for quotes and link acquisition.
Here are two opportunities I found just checking the #journorequest hashtag:
Here’s another example from the Telegraph—a DR 92 website:
Certain types of content are more likely to be shared by journalists and PRs than others.
One of these types of content is statistics-based content. The reason? Journalists often use statistics to support their points.
Once they have included your statistic in their post, they often add a backlink back to your post.
We tested this with our SEO statistics post, and as you can see, it still ranks number one in Google.
Another method is to use the Linking authors report in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. This report shows the authors’ names who link to any website you enter.
You can see which authors link to their site by entering your competitor’s domain. Some of these authors may represent outreach opportunities for your website as well.
- Head to Site Explorer, click on Linking authors
- Type in your competitor’s URL
- Contact any authors that you think may be interested in your website and its content
Tip
If you download your website’s linking authors and your competitors into a spreadsheet and put them into separate tabs, you can compare the lists to see which authors are only linking to your competitor’s website.
When I was about to wrap up this article, I was contacted by Greg Heilers of Jolly SEO on LinkedIn.
He said he’d sent 200,000+ pitches over the years and wanted to share the results with me.
These are his top three platforms over the last 1,000 pitches he sent. Interestingly, we can see that it’s similar to my much smaller-scale survey.
Hopefully, the data here speaks for itself. The high-quality links and traffic from HARO alternatives is considerable.
This research shows that Featured gained the most link placements in this campaign.
We have compiled some helpful content related to link building that you can get your teeth into. These hand-picked guides will take you from beginner to expert in no time.
Here are my favorite resources on this topic:
Final thoughts
There are many options for sourcing expert quotes and getting links for your next marketing campaigns. HARO may be dead, but its legacy lives on.
My highly unscientific survey suggests that most “new HARO” users liked Help a B2B Writer the most, but for HARO purists, there really is only one choice—HERO.
Give your favorites from this list a whirl, and let me know if you have any success. Got more questions? Ping me on X. 🙂
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