12 Rules for SEO

Are you loking for tips and tricks or rules for SEO when arriving on this site? Here is something to think about: A huge amount of all the SEO tips and tricks you read about do not really help you if you do not have the basics in place. For example, mastering schema-markup before making sure Google can read your site might be a huge waste of time. Or, focusing on optimizing one piece of content extremely well before you have the site structure on point will not take you very far. Let’s have a look at 12 rules for SEO that you can check with yourself or your SEO partner.

Are you buying Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or doing it yourself? Then read this!

12 rules for SEO – For avoiding chaos and misunderstanding

1. Always do your keyword analysis and have a backlog of the keywords you want to use on your site.

Use a large (or small) spreadsheet with your main keywords.

2. Always map your keywords to a page on your site.

Do this in the same spreadsheet. One keyword per row, and one url per row. Now your first and most important tool for SEO is ready—the large base document that will steer your work. This is the place you can go to for checking if your onpage is great for a specific page or keyword.

3. Always have a tool for rank tracking.

A lot of marketers say rank tracking is unnecessary. I disagree. We need a place where we see all our main keywords, all the urls that rank for these, the position we (and competitors) have, and the volume of monthly searches. My go-to tool for this is always SEMRush. It does all this and a lot more. If you want a cheaper tool, look at Wincher. Here is a review of Rank Trackers Wincher and SEMRush for checking Google Rankings, and a more detailed review of Wincher, the Cheapest Rank Tracker on the Market.

4. Always make a great site structure.

It is way too easy to create content today. Anyone can create content now, and there is most likely way too much content on your topic already. If you have a large site, I am quite sure even your site already contains this kind of content. What will make the new content the best? Have a look in your keyword mapping document and see if there is already a page about this topic in the structure. Why not create the content there? If it is a longer phrase, make it a “subpage” to the one that already exists. The rule here is that a more important keyword should be higher in the structure, and a less important one is lower.

5. Always check how Google see your site.

It might look optimized in the browser for a non-tech-savvy SEO, but in fact, the site may be using a JS engine for serving the content (React, Angular), and the source might be “empty.” Yes, Google can somewhat read these. But they are even better at reading a clean page source where all the HTML and content is printed as real, readable text.

6. Always make your internal link structure support your priorities.

Make sure your content that is lower in the structure automatically links back to the content higher in the structure (the more important content if your structure is well made). By automatically, I mean for elements like breadcrumbs, category links, and submenus. This will eliminate your content writers needing to know anything about where to link and where not to link. They write, the content is in the right place in the structure, the content is about the right keyword phrase, and if it is a subpage, the main page of the hub will also benefit from it. This goes the other way around too: Make sure content higher in the structure links to content lower in the structure.

7. Always create the best content about your topic.

Is your competitor already showing great content on this topic? Well, do not make a mediocre effort. Make sure your content is the best content online about the topic. Then you have a more realistic chance of ranking at some point. And create multi-content. Not only text. Not only images or video. A combination is needed to fit everyone and have possibilities to take positions.

8. Always create the content on the strongest possible site.

Creating the content on a powerful site or brand will make it rank higher than on a new page. It is just like that, whether your like it or not. A well written piece of content will have very different possibilities to rank depending on if it is on a strong page owned by a brand, or if it is on a weak/new site. Is your point only that you want to say something? Try to get your content posted on a large site. Is your point long-term growing your own site to become a great one? Post it on your own site, but focus a lot on making your site into a strong brand.

9. Always make sure your EAT is on point: Expertise, Authority, Trust.

Is your content expertise correct? Make sure it is. Can you see that your content is written by an authority in the topic? Make yourself an authority in your topic. Is your content true and written in a trusted way on a trusted site? Make sure it is.

10. Always put time into spreading your content.

If you put five hours into creating it, put as much into spreading it. Or put money into it. Do not just publish and wait. Most likely you’ll have to wait forever for anything to happen. Be active (or hire someone else to be active) on other authority sites around the topic, contribute to authority blogs and media sites about the topic, be active on the social media covering the topic, and buy ads to your content from other places about the topic.

11. Always look for strong and relevant sites that can feature and link to your content.

Link building is not dead. Creating exact match links that go straight to your content might not be as powerful as it used to be, but since your site structure is on point, getting branded links to anywhere on your site will still help you for a long time.

12. Always concider combining content instead of creating new.

The cleanup, combine, and relaunch technique is very useful. Publishing new content on old urls that already have history, age, traffic, and social proof might be very valuable for your new content. Especially if your old content is outdated but would compete with your new content in Google.

These are 12 basic rules for SEO to have in mind when thinking about what to do in SEO right now. Do you have other rules to consider? Please share!

This content is also available in Finnish on my colleague Katarina’s site: SEO – Täydällinen opas.