The SEO way of thinking needs to go

SEO has come a long way to be where it is now, and many things have changed in the last ten years. It’s important that we are all aware of these changes if we are going to push ourselves to the next level, and in order to do so we need to start thinking outside the dusty SEO box that was created in the 90s.

Users have a huge impact in your rankings today, so it’s not just about building links to your domain and optimizing your site, you need to think about every single aspect of a website with your visitors in mind. It’s time to do SEO as a human and not as a robot. Below you’ll find six tips for humanizing and improving your SEO.

Top 6 tips for doing SEO (like me)

1. Develop and use your common sense

Think about what a regular Internet user would do if they wanted to show their appreciation for your site. Submit it to 1000 directories? I don’t think so. Review your product on their blog or write a post about your services? Probably. See? Easy.

Blogger outreach is a wonderful thing when done right. Instead of building links, try building relationships. Ask yourself: are you treating everyone who links to you as a “one night stand”? There’s no real value behind a link that didn’t come along with a human connection.

2. Choose a good RSS feed reader

Because you’ll have to read a lot, boy. If there’s anything we’ve learnt during 2011 is that search engines are no longer those plain indexing machines that we thought they were. Things are evolving and you have to know where you’re standing and what’s in front of you before starting to walk.

3. Avoid all those spammy strategies that should be punished with banishment

We all hate having to delete 100 spammy comments each morning just to end up finding another set of spammy comments at the end of the day. Please, stop with these kind of “techniques”, you’re not doing any good to your website nor to your reputation.

It may take some more time, but doing it right is the only way of doing it if you’re aiming to drive valuable (and convertible) traffic to your client’s website. Which leads me to the next tip…

4.  Do a lot of thinking, specially while you’re taking a shower

Or maybe while you’re doing the dishes, that helps me too, I guess there’s something about the water running through the pipes… Anyways, give your website 30 minutes of your time every day and use that time to think about ways to improve it. Good content is great but the only way to create it, is to think about a topic before you start writing it, and it will only be shared if you are able to develop a solid social media plan. And that applies to every step on the road. Thinking is good.

5. Never forget about the social aspect of our job

Meaning, you are trying to get other people to choose your client over their competition. As I said on my previous post, it takes a person to get a person. No matter how much time you’re dedicating to the metrics and the stats, these translate to people, and people don’t care about SERPs or the way Google works. They will click on the links they want, but if you have failed at delivering good content/products/services/support, they will leave your site and never look back.

6. Protect the Internet

It’s the only one we have -at least for now. It’s hard enough having to clean our planet, let’s avoid having to do the same with the Internet.

But you know what? Don’t go for SEO. We should all focus in providing an amazing product/service to our clients, being reachable, offering value to our local communities. That’s it, forget everything I’ve just said. People will find your site if there’s a network of happy customers supporting your business, so turn to social because SEO is so 90s!