My simple SEO strategy to reach the #1 position
I have a pretty stable SEO strategy for my HTML rendering API project, intending to reach the #1 position in Google rankings.
And I plan to automate it, but before I do it, I am curious to know your feedback on what I am doing wrong and what I can do better.
1. Discover keywords "on the go"
There are so many ways to discover keywords related to a niche. But my favorite one is the most proactive. I find them out "on the go":
- I write a post related to my niche with all my passion and without researching any keywords. I am focused on delivering as much value as possible.
- I wait until Google starts indexing it
- And I started gathering related keywords to my niche.
Here is a quick example of how I did. I wrote a simple but quite long post about how to take screenshots with Puppeteer sharing all my experience and passion about the topic:
I waited for 3-4 weeks and started gathering keywords related to the page in Google Search Console:
I filter by the page and open the "Queries" tab. Then I download a CSV file with all the keywords and their metrics.
That's my simple keyword discovery method. Is it complex? No. Is it slow? Yes.
The main benefits I see:
- Once published, I already have ready content that I can improve later, and people start visiting my site without overthinking it.
- Once people visit my site, I can start optimizing it for conversions.
- Google Search Console shows all related keywords to my page that I can rewrite the post for and improve my rankings.
The main downside is that I might miss the keywords. Writing the best possible content as early as possible is generally better. And the page might be irrelevant to my niche at all.
2. Prioritizing
Once I have all the keywords people use to search for my niche, I can start meditating on what might be the lowest-hanging fruit to pick up.
From the raw data perspective, it might seem the lowest-hanging fruit is the keywords with the most impressions but at relatively high positions and/or no clicks. But there is a ton of pitfalls in this reasoning and nuances.
You might have a low click-through rate (CTR) because of the search result Google shows. A user doesn't believe that your page might satisfy their search intent and doesn't click on the result item with your site. You need to improve your title and description of the content. And CTR must be considered within the position because it correlates.
So, for me, there is no single formula. My current approach is to use keywords that target the most painful problem, and I can provide a solution for it. In addition, I want to write for keywords with good volume but not competitive enough.
You will find your formula with time.
3. Publish and Continuously Improve
Publish and forget. No! That's the most costly mistake you can make. Google constantly improves the search engine to detect whether your content is helpful. You might start losing traffic without updates.
How do I decide what to update, and how often do I do it? I apply the same process I do when publishing new content:
- Discover keywords.
- Prioritize.
CreateUpdate.
I go to my analytics and check which entry pages from Google drove the most traffic to my landing page first because I want to work first on the content that might potentially convert visitors to users.
In this example, it was a post about how to hide cookie banners with Puppeteer, so my goal is to understand what keywords I can update for the most potentially "converting" page.
Then I go to Google Search Console, filter by page, and download keywords again.
I sort them by most impressions and see if I can mention them directly in the article or rewrite the post for them.
That's it. This strategy helps me now to grow aggressively, and I hope it will get me to the first position at Google.
Thanks
I might be super wrong with what I am doing.
Thanks for investing your time and reading. I am super curious to know what you think about my strategy.
And do you know any tools that automate and can streamline the described flow?
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Hey Dmytro, great post!
The main goal of SEO is to rank well in search results, thus increasing organic traffic and conversions.
To get started, you'll need to create clear goals and identify keywords relevant to your business. Then, you'll want to build a solid foundation using strategies such as link-building, social media marketing, and content creation. Finally, you should test your SEO tactics regularly to ensure you stay ahead of competitors.
Thanks for your input.
How would you research and identify all the relevant keywords? What do you think of my approach described in the post? Is it eligible?
Nice article
Thanks!
Nice article. One thing I'm confused about: Do you actually update the article to include the specific keywords? Or you just rewrite the article to more accurately address the questions implied by the keywords?
Thanks for the reply! It depends on the keyword.
If I see that the keyword implies rewriting the article, I will rewrite it. If I just need to tweak it a bit and update it, I will update it.
Does it make sense?
Sorry, I have read your post twice and I still really don’t understand what you are doing.
You could have just taken the easier and popular route of doing keyword research first and deciding on which keywords to write on.
I understand you are trying to do something different or new but I don’t see how this your innovative approach is going to b beneficial to you yourself and what you are trying to achieve.
I try to ship as quickly as possible and get the traffic instead of planning and researching. Does it make sense?
How would you do keyword research? Do you trust the numbers that you receive from tools?
This is one of the best written articles on SEO, by developer, I have ever read. Great work Dmytro 🔥
Thanks a lot, Amer 🙏
This is an awesome article. Very helpful and a quick read, but packed with a ton of insight. I'm working on a project that is focused on SEO and attacking long tailed keywords - sentientplatter.com ... will definitely try this update method once I start to get some traffic!
Thanks! Is it AI generated site?
That is the best article on SEO that I've ever read - it's practical, easily actionable and perfect for optimising for your business niche. I'm so sick of reading generic SEO optimisation articles. Thank you!
As it happens I'm looking for a video screen capture solution for an app I'm developing. Is that potentially on your roadmap?
Thanks.
I have launched recently animated screenshots. Does it make sense?
Or what do you mean?
I like your idea on updating instead of create
Thanks. It helped me to reach the first position for many posts.
what will be the plans to rank apkwind.com ?
What is the site about, your current traffic and your goals?
This is a great example! Once you find keywords, how do you incorporate them into your blog posts?
Do you find content and try to use these keywords or what's the strategy post-finding keywords?
All keywords are associated with some pages in Google Search Console. I update the pages. Or if keywords look too far, I create a new page and write for the found keywords.
Fantastic post!
Thanks for the kind words 🙏
This is a really good take. I wonder how many great article ideas are never written because people get scared off after starting with some keyword research.
Thanks! I don't trust today's keyword research, and it makes my posts dry.
This is amazing. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks 🙏
Thanks for sharing
Thanks 🙏
nice and without a lot of fluff
Thanks 🙏
I don't have a source for this but for some reason I believed updating content was bad for the SEO. There are many examples out there can prove me wrong tho. Anyways.
As others suggested short and concise posts for specific keyword groups may work well. Duplication shouldn't be a worry, you can always link to a throughout post. I may end up in your site for "How to take a screenshot with puppeteer". Take that information be happy or I see there is another snippet for "How to store them" or a full blown post from start to finish. I can jump there.
A good example could be hackingwithswift. Searched for "how to fetch a url with swift" and it's no surprise it's on the second position after stackoverflow. "auto position in swift" even it doesn't have the right words, it's on top.
Thanks, Anil.
Anyway, library versions are changed, and the code examples are getting broken. How can I not update the content?
You can update for sure but that doesn't correlate to a penalty, right? My experience with SEO is ancient and these are from potential rumors.
Frankly, I don’t know. Let’s see how my strategy works.
How then this page could be on second place by the keywords, not used on it (hackingwithswift I mean)? I checked this page: very weird. It's clear that page are not answering this request "how to fetch a url with swift" directly.
Regarding updating content: Web is not static - pages change. Search engine will reindex changed page in a while and reassume it (probably it smart enough to do that).
I'm no SEO expert, but the words I searched for are happen to be in the url.
https://www.hackingwithswift.com/articles/241/how-to-fetch-remote-data-the-easy-way-with-url-linesfetch, url, swift.Also the page's meta keywords goes like this;
<meta name="keywords" content="hacking with swift, apple, developer, news, tutorials, swift, ios, macos, watchos, tvos, api, swift 5, swift, swiftui, swift ui, tutorial, ios, ios 15, ios 14, ios 13, wwdc, apple, ipad, iphone, free, tutorial, guide, objective c, watchos, tvos, macOS, uikit, watchkit">swift, with swift...Beyond that keywords can not be the only metric for position. People who land on that site probably stop the search there so google thinks that's best possible page to put it up there.
Google doesn't take the keyword meta tag into account.
Yes, 100%.
What is your explanation?
Either this page satisfy user request or this is Google's temporary mistake. If 1: might be the content was different before and changed after. While users are still stop searching after getting on this page.
My intuition agrees with you.
Nice @DmytroKrasun
Thanks 🙏 Anything that could be done better? What do you think?
It’s lack of real example, using single page and it’s timeline.
For example: here is page A, position 23. I found this keyword, changes this way, got 10th place on this keyword after 2 months.
That’s how I need to do it. Thanks 🙏
I think the main problem: no one understands this approach. Because: you write useful content and then adjust it by keywords. Classic approach, widely used (see Arthi comment): use keywords first and then write article to cover it.
Thanks 🙏 It might be not the best approach. And that’s why I shared, to get feedback.
Why don’t you write new article (even small) with newly discovered keywords (by which Google associates your page) and then link them?
That’s a great question. I might end up writing many duplicate posts that might hurt rankings.
Thanks for this sir.
I hope it helps. Do you have any ideas how I can improve the flow?
It seems like you are familiar with content writing and google ranking.
If your purpose is conversion, then you should drop this strategy immediately. This is not a right way to upload you content. Here some points you should consider writing your content.:
Thanks a lot!
How would you do in-depth keyword research? I use Google Search Console for that and Keywords Everywhere. Isn't it enough?
SEM Rush is a good tool
Thanks!
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Good Article, Do you update content of with the suggestions?
Thanks! Yes, that's what I do.
If I see that the keyword implies rewriting the article, I will rewrite it. If I just need to tweak it a bit and update it, I will update it.
Does it make sense?
You are missing backlinks importance in your SEO strategy. Include backlinks creation strategy to outrank other websites.
Yes, thanks! But how can I do it? I don't have control over acquiring backlinks.
How can I use keyword prominence to make my keyword prominent?
I have three niche sites to do SEO and make prominent.
Press Sublimation ( https://pressublimation.com/ )
The Scopes ( https://thescopes.net/ )
Pickleball Lobby ( https://pickleballobby.com/ )
How can I use keyword prominence to make my keyword prominent?
I have three niche sites to do SEO and make prominent.
Press Sublimation ( https://pressublimation.com/ )
The Scopes ( https://thescopes.net/ )
Pickleball Lobby ( https://pickleballobby.com/ )
Oliver, it looks like your spamming bot is broken. Please, check the code.
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Oliver, what is the keyword prominence?
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