17 Ways To Improve Your SEO in 2020

7/31/2019 17 Ways to Improve Your SEO in 2019
17 Ways to Improve Your SEO in

2019
by Brian Dean  Last updated Jul. 30, 2019
Today you’re going to learn EXACTLY how to improve your site’s SEO.
In fact, these 17 techniques helped grow my site’s organic traffic by

21.30% in 3 months:
The best part?
Everything here is working GREAT right now.
1. Get More Organic Traffic With “Snippet Bait”

2. Improve Dwell Time With This Simple Step
3. Find Low-Competition Keywords With “Ghost Posts”
4. Use Sitelinks to Boost Your Organic CTR
5. Want More Links? Be The Source
6. Target Keywords With BIG Commercial Intent
7. Grab More SERP Real Estate With YouTube Videos
8. Rank for “Topic + Statistics” Keywords
9. Optimize Old Content For User Intent
10. Content Partnerships
11. Repurpose Content Into Different Formats
12. Double Down On Broken Link Building
13. Find Backlink Opportunities With “Link Intersect”
https://backlinko.com/improve-your-seo 1/90
14. Target Brand New Keywords

15. Use Concept Visuals
16. Use Industry Glossaries for Keyword Ideas
17. Get Backlinks From Content Curators
Bonus #1: Find Question Keywords With Question DB
Bonus #2: Rank For Brand Name Terms
1. Get More Organic Traffic With

“Snippet Bait”
Over the last few weeks I’ve got my site to rank in 41 different Featured
Snippets.
Like this:
And this:
My secret?
A new strategy called “Snippet Bait”.
Here’s how it works:
First, find a keyword that you already rank for.
Why is this important?
According to Ahrefs, 99.58% of Featured Snippets come from the first

page results.
So if you’re on page 2, you have pretty much zero chance of getting in

a Featured Snippet.
For example, here’s a page from my site that was ranking on page 1.
Next, look at the Featured Snippet at the top of the SERPs:
And identify what TYPE of Featured Snippet you’re looking at:
Definition Snippet (“What is content marketing?”)

List Snippet (“Top 10 Content Marketing Tools”)
Table Snippet (“Content Marketing Tool Prices”)
Finally, add a snippet of content to your page that’s designed to fit

inside that Featured Snippet box.
(This is the “Snippet Bait”)
For example, I wanted to get in the Featured Snippet for the keyword
“nofollow links”.
So I wrote a little section that would fit PERFECTLY inside of a

Featured Snippet box:
And it worked! About 2 weeks later, the section I wrote was at the top
of the search results.
Nice.
2. Improve Dwell Time With This Simple

Step
Is Dwell Time a Google ranking factor?
In my opinion: YES.
After all, if someone quickly bounces from your page, it sends a clear
message to Google: people hate that page.
And they’ll quickly downrank it:
The question is:
How do you prevent people from bouncing?
Embed videos on your page.
For example, I recently compared my bounce rate for a sample of pages

with and without a video.
And pages with video had an 11.2% better bounce rate than pages
without a video:
That’s why I embed videos in almost every new post that I write.
Sometimes I make the video an entire step or tip:
Or as a way for people to learn more about a specific topic:
Which leads us to…
3. Find Low-Competition Keywords With

“Ghost Posts”
Here’s the truth:
Most “Keyword Competition” scores are WAY off.
That’s because most of them focus 100% on one metric: backlinks.
Are backlinks important?
Heck yeah!
But backlinks are only one piece of the puzzle. First page rankings are
also based on:
Organic click-through-rate
Search Intent
Page speed
Mobile-friendliness
Lots more
That’s why I now ignore most keyword competition scores.
Instead, I use “Ghost Posts”.
For example:
A few months back I wanted to rank for the keyword: “Free SEO Tools”.
According to Ahrefs, this keyword is “Super Hard” to rank for:
Instead of giving up, I decided to test this keyword’s difficulty with a

new technique: The Ghost Post.
Specifically, I whipped up a quick post and published it on the 4th page

of my blog feed.
In other words: I didn’t promote the post in any way (hence the name:
“Ghost Post”).
To my surprise, I cracked the first page for long tail versions of my

keyword (like “best free SEO tools”) within a week or so:
And I even started to pop in and out of page 1 for my target keyword.
That’s when I decided to promote the post on social media:

And give the content a much-needed upgrade.
As it turns out, this “Super Hard” keyword was ridiculously easy to rank
for.
In fact, I now rank #1 for that keyword:
Even though my page has WAY fewer backlinks than the other first
page results:
(Note: I’m not bashing Ahrefs’s Keyword Difficulty score. I’m just
showing you another way to figure out keyword difficulty).
With that, it’s time for…
4. Use Sitelinks to Boost Your Organic

CTR
Last year I decided to make Organic CTR a top priority.
But I quickly ran into a problem:
Besides optimizing your title and description for clicks, how can you
push more people to click on your result?
Sitelinks.
You probably already have sitelinks underneath your result when you
search for your brand in Google.
As it turns out, you can ALSO get sitelinks on all sorts of pages… from
blog posts to ecommerce category pages.
And these sitelinks can make a BIG dent in your click-through-rate.
How do you get sitelinks?
A table of contents.
For example, when I published this post, I added a table of contents

with “jump links” to each tip.
And once my page cracked the top 5, Google hooked me up with

sitelinks.
As you can see, these sitelinks REALLY help my result stand out.
In fact, sitelinks are one of the reasons my page has a 14.9% CTR.
5. Want More Links? Be The Source

Here’s the deal:
People don’t link to “great content”.
They link to sources.
For example, I published this guide to the Google Search Console last
year.
And I’m not afraid to say that it qualifies as “great content”.
The post is full of actionable tips:
It even has a custom design:
Despite being a very solid piece of content, it only has 159 referring
domain links:
On the other hand, check out this voice search study I published
around the same time:
Most people would also call this post “great content”.
But this piece of content has 764 referring domain links:
(That’s 79% more backlinks than my GSC guide).
What’s going on here?
Well, my Google Search Console guide isn’t that easy for someone to
link to.
Unless you’re writing about the GSC and want to send someone to a
resource to “learn more”, there’s no compelling reason to link to my
guide.
On the other hand, my voice search study gives bloggers and journalists
data that they can EASILY reference.
Which has led to hundreds of high-quality backlinks.
6. Target Keywords With BIG

Commercial Intent
When I first got started with keyword research I’d focus 100% on
search volume.
If a keyword got a bunch of searches, I’d say: “that’s good enough for
me!”.
Not anymore.
Today, I put A LOT of weight on commercial intent.
(In other words: how much are Google Ads advertisers spending on
those clicks?)
For example, I recently started targeting keywords like “link building

services”.
This keyword doesn’t get that many searches:
But with a CPC of $25.00, I know that the traffic is made up of legit
buyers:
(Fun fact: I published this page as a “Ghost Post”. As it turns out, “link
building services” is MUCH less competitive than most tools claim)
7. Grab More SERP Real Estate With

YouTube Videos
Found an AWESOME keyword that converts well for you?
Get bonus traffic from that term with a YouTube video.
For example, this post is targeting the keyword “how to get more
traffic”.
Unfortunately, I’m stuck in the #4 spot.
To make matters worse, I’m cramped below 3 video results.
(But I’m working on it 🙂 )
In the meantime, I decided to create a video on that topic.
And because I optimized my video the right way, it takes up valuable

real estate at the top of Google’s search results:
Want to see how I optimized that video? Check out this quick tutorial:
YouTube SEO: 9 Actionable Tips for Ranking Videos …
8. Rank for “Topic + Statistics”

Keywords
This is the dirty little secret that lots of sites use to get LOTS of
backlinks on autopilot.
For example, Student Loan Hero has over 21.1K links to its “US Student
Loan Statistics” page:
Here’s how they did it (and why this approach works so well):
First, they identified a topic that bloggers and journalists tend to write
about.
(In this case, stats about student loan debt)
Then, they created a page that curated stats from different sources.
Finally, they optimized that page around the keyword: “Student Loan
Debt Statistics”.
Which now ranks on the first page for that term:
Why does this work so well?
Think about it:
Who searches for “Topic + Statistics” keywords?
Journalists!
Specifically, journalists looking for stats to include in their

articles.
And when you rank for that term, you’re going to get linked to like
there’s no tomorrow.
Very cool.
9. Optimize Old Content For User Intent

I’ve talked about matching your content to search intent before.
But the bottom line is this:
If your site isn’t what searchers want, Google won’t rank it.
(No matter how many links you have)
For example, I first published this post in 2015:
As you can probably guess, my target keyword for that page was “SEO
Campaign”.
And I quickly carved out a spot on the middle of the first page of
Google.
So far so good.
But one day my rankings and organic traffic started to drop.
This wasn’t a super high-priority keyword. So I just kind of ignored the

problem and hoped it would go away.
It didn’t.
That’s when I realized that my content was a HORRIBLE fit for user
intent.
Specifically, my post didn’t outline an SEO campaign. Instead, I talked

about a single strategy (“Guestographics”):
So I went back to the drawing board. And I rewrote the post from
scratch.
This time, I made sure to publish something that someone searching

for “SEO campaign” would love.
Sure enough, the new version of the post now ranks #1 for that term:
10. Content Partnerships

I’m a BIG fan of Content Partnerships.
Why?
Because it makes your content promotion twice as powerful.
Think about it:
When you publish something on your site, you send as many people as
you can to your post.
But you’re only one person (or company). So your reach is pretty
limited.
But when you partner with someone else, BOTH of you send people to
your new content:
Which doubles the amount of eyeballs, links and social media shares
that you get.
For example, earlier this year I partnered with BuzzSumo to create this
content marketing study.
And because we both promoted it to our audiences, it got A TON of

traffic:
11. Repurpose Content Into Different

Formats
Last year I realized that I was making a HUGE mistake.
The mistake?
Every time I sat down to write a new blog post, email newsletter or
video script… I was starting from scratch.
Which meant it would sometimes take me 14 days to finish a single

blog post.
That’s when I realized something…
I already had TONS of content on my YouTube channel. Content that

people loved.
So I decided to base my next blog post on a popular video from my

channel: a video about getting more YouTube subscribers.
It took some time to turn my video into a blog post.
But it was 10x faster than starting with a blank Google Doc.
The best part?
My post did GREAT.
That post brings in 15,701 search engine visitors per month.
And it currently ranks in the top 3 for my target keyword:
Pretty cool.
12. Double Down On Broken Link

Building
I already published a guide to Broken Link Building.
So I’m not going to go over the process again here.
Instead, I’m going to show how I used Broken Link Building to get this
sweet backlink:
First, I looked for a piece of content on my site that I KNEW people

would want to link to. And I chose this CRO guide:
Next, I found a site that wrote about content marketing. And popped
their homepage URL into Ahrefs.
And clicked on “Outgoing Links” → “Broken links”:
Which showed me all of that site’s broken external links:
Once I found a broken link that was similar to my guide, I reached out
to the person that runs their blog. I let them know about their broken
link and offered my content as a replacement:
And because I added value with my outreach, they happily linked to

me:
That’s all there is to it.
13. Find Backlink Opportunities With

“Link Intersect”
It’s no secret that reverse engineering is a GREAT link building

strategy.
But it’s not perfect.
After all, let’s say you find a site that just linked to your competitor.
You have no idea if that site linked to them because they have an
existing relationship, they just sent an awesome outreach email… or a
million other reasons.
But when you look at who links to MULTIPLE competitors, it takes a

lot of the guesswork out of the equation.
(After all, what are the odds that the site has a great relationship with
three different sites?).
That’s where Link Intersect comes into play.
To use it, fire up good ol’ Ahrefs and enter three domains into their
Link Intersect tool:
And make sure to put your site in the “But doesn’t link to” field:
And voila!
You’ll see everyone that links to these 3 sites… but doesn’t link to you.
And if your site publishes better content than your competitors, there’s
a really good chance these peeps will link to you too.
14. Target Brand New Keywords

Want to find popular, low-competition keywords?
Of course you do 🙂
Question is:
How?!
Target NEW keywords.
I’ll explain…
Most keywords are competitive for the simple reason that there are
LOTS of sites trying to rank for them.
But when you target new terms, you’re competing with fewer
people.
Which means you can often rocket your way to the top of the search
results.
For example, last summer I created a guide optimized around the

growing term “Voice Search”:
Because the term “Voice Search” was relatively new (especially

compared to old school keywords in my niche like “link building”), my
guide cracked the bottom of the first page within a week.
And it currently ranks on the first page of Google for that term:
15. Use Concept Visuals

This is a way to get high-quality backlinks WITHOUT having to grind
with outreach.
In fact, I’ve used this approach to get links like this:
And this:
All without sending a single outreach email.
With that, here are the steps:
First, create an AWESOME visual that helps people understand a tricky

concept or idea.
This can be a graph, chart, visualization or table.
Here’s an example:
Next, feature that visual in your content.
And if the right person sees your visual, they’ll use it on their site:
Rinse and repeat for every post that you publish.
Pro Tip: Focus on creating visuals for NEW topics. That way, you’ll be
one of the few sites with a high-quality visual of that topic.
16. Use Industry Glossaries for Keyword

Ideas
Want some creative keyword ideas?
Check out industry glossaries.
For example, this nutrition glossary covers 100+ different terms:
You can either straight up copy these keywords into a spreadsheet.
Or use them as seed keywords and pop them into a keyword research
tool.
Either way, glossaries are an AWESOME way to find new keyword

ideas.
Pro Tip: Pop the glossary URL into the Google Keyword Planner for a
mega list of keyword ideas:
17. Get Backlinks From Content Curators

Most people struggle with outreach because they send garbage like this:
There’s a lot wrong with this outreach email.
But the biggest issue is that I don’t have a place on my site where
a link to their content makes sense.
So I hit “Delete”.
That person would have had a lot more luck reaching out to a Content
Curator.
Content Curators are just like they sound: people that curate their
industry’s best stuff.
For example, you might have seen the SEO Marketing Hub that I
created a few months back:
Well, because I got my content in front of Content Curators, I was able

to get a handful of links to my site like this:
No arm twisting required.
Bonus #1: Find Question Keywords With

Question DB
QuestionDB is like Answer the Public.
But in my opinion it’s actually a little bit better.
Why?
First of all, it’s MUCH easier to use.
Unlike Answer the Public, with crazy charts and images of some
bearded dude, the questions are laid out in a simple table.
And because QuestionDB focuses on questions that people ask on

Reddit, you can find keyword and topic ideas that most other tools
won’t show you.
Bonus #2: Rank For Brand Name Terms

Low competition.
High volume.
Great CPC.
I’m talking about brand name terms.
For example, look at these two keywords:
That’s right: Mailchimp gets searched for 280x more than “email
marketing software”.
And it’s the same story with most categories:
The brand gets WAY more searches than the topic or

category.
(The one big downside of targeting brand names is that you’ll never
rank #1. But it can still be totally worth it)
That’s why I’ve started to publish content designed to rank for brand
names.
For example, I have this BuzzStream review post on my site.
Not only does my page rank for “BuzzStream Review”:
But it also ranks high up on the first page for the popular brand
keyword “BuzzStream”.
Now It’s Your Turn…

Now I want to turn it over to you:
Which of the 17 SEO strategies from today’s post are you going to try
first?
Are you going to target brand keywords?
Or maybe you want to try Snippet Bait.
Either way, let me know by leaving a comment below right now.
189 Comments  
Dinsan
Interesting! I added TOC right away. Now I am going to try

optimizing YouTube videos. I am new to YouTubing, so this helps!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Nice. That should boost the odds that you get sitelinks! 👍👍👍
REPLY
Nathan Grieve
Another highly actionable piece. Everything is broken down into

actionable steps, what have we done to deserve you brian?!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks Nathan. I try to avoid high-level strategy and fluff.

Actionable stuff is much more fun!
REPLY
Ashraful Islam
Thanks for this great article. Do you have any guide to rank for a
brand keywords?
I want to know more about “how to rank better for a brand
keyboard? “
REPLY
Brian Dean
I don’t have a guide on that. But in general, the same SEO

principles apply.
REPLY
Lubna
This post was really helpful, thank you so much.
REPLY
Brian Dean
You’re welcome, Lubna.
REPLY
Mona
Thank you, Brian. Learn a lot from you.
REPLY
Brian Dean
You’re welcome, Mona.
REPLY
Goel
You truly are a real genius. Some very incredible pieces of result
oriented steps mentioned in the post. Really appreciate your
guidance and analytical skills. Thanks for sharing great information.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks! 🙏
REPLY
Tom
wow Brian, this is another GOLD post! I am glad I clicked on the link
from your newsletter, so much value in this post. easy to read, easy
to understand, easy to act upon. you are doing amazing work for
the whole SEO community.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks Tom! I’m glad to hear that you learned some new stuff
from today’s post. 👍
REPLY
Kwehangana Hamza
Thank you Brian for having an impact on my SEO knowledge. I’ll

forever be grateful. My blog now ranks in top 500k with less than 50
blog posts with 10k search visits a month. To be exact, 47 posts.
Because i learnt one thing from you, not just pushing out content
but put out content that has a search volume that you can complete
on and rank well.
The rest is history.
REPLY
Brian Dean
That’s awesome! Congrats. 🎉🎉🎉
REPLY
Bilall
Amazing! The main point of these tactics are, anyone can apply
easily without any extra tools. Very easy, simple but awesome and
valuable ways. Thanks, Brian.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Happy to help 👍👍👍
REPLY
Joy Okoro
Hi Brian, awesome content always!
From the 17 SEO Strategies you’ve mentioned, I will be going with

the brand new keywords, especially those with low competition.
There are always chances of ranking for that keyword in few weeks
time.
Thanks Brian!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Joy, thank you. Nice! That’s actually something I’m going to

put more emphasis on too. Those new keywords are tricky to
find, but it’s GREAT when you do.
REPLY
Joy Okoro
I will be glad if you put more emphasis on finding low

competition keywords on your subsequent posts.
Thanks.
REPLY
Rumon
You are all time awesome.

Thanks for another greate article.
REPLY
Brian Dean
You’re welcome, Rumon. Glad you liked today’s post.
REPLY
Advik
Excellent. Alot of new things to try. I love the last one brand
searches. May i know how much traffic are you getting with brand
searches.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks Advik. I rank for quite a few so I’d have to do some math
to figure that out.
REPLY
Graham
Awesome stuff as usual Brian 🙂
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks Graham.
REPLY
Travis
Hi Brian,
Thanks for this. Hopefully I can translate these ideas on our venue
blog. Please let me know if you have ever done any Squarespace
SEO tips too as its hard to rank Squarespace websites compared to
WordPress.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Travis, you’re welcome. I might do a Squarespace SEO post in

the future. I don’t have a ton of experience with Squarespace so
I’d need to run some experiments first.
REPLY
Goran Blažic
You are amazing!!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thank you 👍 👍 👍
REPLY
Sylvester
Another great piece of content from the Master!

Thanks, Brian.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Sylvester, you’re welcome. Let me know how it goes.
REPLY
Tahsin Ahmed
Another great piece of content. You never seize to amaze me. Thank
you for sharing your knowledge 🙂
REPLY
Brian Dean
You’re welcome, Tahsin 👍
REPLY
Jacob
Loved your solutions and tips, especially Tip #8. Creating statistical
content that journalists can refer and use to not only promote your
site but validate their articles makes a lot of sense. Any tips on how
to aggregate data cheaply? Thank you for your million-dollar
content as always!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Jacob, you’re welcome. To answer your question, you’ve got

two main options.
1. You can source data from public sources. For example, this map
was created with some Wikipedia research.
https://www.collegeraptor.com/find-colleges/articles/college-
news-trends/senate-u-2015-where-the-114th-u-s-senate-went-to-
college/
2. Surveys. You can use surveymonkey to collect responses from

people in different demographics.
REPLY
Umer Qureshi
Brian, you always come up with an awesome article :).
Keep Rocking
REPLY
Brian Dean
👍👍👍
REPLY
Darshana R
Another awesome post. I need to make sure I’m up to the par on all
of these in order for my site to rank for the proper keywords. Thanks
for putting this up. Just what I needed to review.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Darshana, you’re welcome. These should definitely help your

rankings (that’s the idea anyway 🙂 )
REPLY
Angelina
Hello Brian,
Very nice article. Honestly, some tips still out of my reach as I am a

nub here but I would go first with broken link building strategy..wish
me good luck!
Thanks,
Angelina
REPLY
Brian Dean
You’re welcome, Angelina. Keep me posted on how things go.
REPLY
angelina scott
sure, I will.
Thanks,
REPLY
François
Repurpose content into different formats : when well executed, it’s

amazing!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Definitely! I think repurposing has a bad name because people

just reuse the same exact content. Like you said, it has to be
executed well to really work.
REPLY
Simraan
Landed here via Email

As always you are rocking with amazing tips Brian.
Can you please write a detailed article with tips and tricks for
LOCAL SEO.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks. Local SEO is definitely on my list of topics to cover.
REPLY
Francesco
When you talk about ‘Ghost Posts’ i’m a little bit confused. Are you
trying to say that we can write posts (skyscraper for example) and
rank also if we haven’t backlinks? What about the authority of the
site? Better content = better rankings, beside Site Authority? Thanks
for your great content!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Francesco, I’m more saying that you can better gauge a

keyword’s difficulty by putting something out there. That way,
you know if it’s worthwhile to invest the same and energy to
make a Skyscraper post. Does that make sense?
REPLY
Ola
It makes sense.
REPLY
Floyd
Hey, Brian…
I have been using some of your techniques to build links to my

brand new site. Its a bit of a grind but I have recently landed a link
with the content curator technique…
I have also tried broken link building but most of the pages that I
have found with broken links are from some outdated website which
I don’t get a response after doing my outreach…
I already know that the conversions rates are low on outreach.. but if
there are any tips you might recommend would appreciate it…
P.S: I have recently done a guest post and gave you a mentioned
and a link. though I might give you a heads up.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Congrats Floyd! To answer your question: a big part of the

success depends on how much your content replaces the old
content… or is a good fit for that page in general. In the example I
gave, my CRO guide wasn’t 1:1 replacement for the dead link. But
it did make sense for people to add it to their pages because they
tended to be “list of CRO resources” type things. Hope that
helps.
Also, thanks for the mention + link!
REPLY
Kris
Wow, Brian.
You’ve just given me couple of new ideas for my website. Thanks for
sharing your knowledge in here. You are a real Pro in SEO.
Greatings
Kris
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Kris, happy to help. Keep me posted on how things go.
REPLY
Ryan Bustamante
THANKS Brian! You always offer awesome insight with action items!
You Rock!
REPLY
Brian Dean
You’re welcome, Ryan. 👍👍👍
REPLY
Andy
Brian, it’s a great article. I have a question about the ghost posts.
You whipped up a quick post and published it on the 4th page of
your blog feed. Why do you mean by 4th page of your blog feed?
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Andy, I mean that instead of /blog, I published it at

https://backlinko.com/blog/page/4. The post wasn’t final yet so I
didn’t want a ton of people to see it yet.
REPLY
Ryan Cecil
On using custom graphics for backlinks, this has changed the game
for me (while keeping some of our designers MUCH busier).
Do you think the tag below it matters much? I usually do something

like “Graphic by Regex SEO” or “Illustration by Regex SEO”.
Thoughts?
REPLY
Brian Dean
Same here Ryan. It’s kind of a pain to create so many custom

graphics and charts (we’ve created almost 1k in the last year
alone!). But totally worth it.
I haven’t tested it, but I don’t think the tag makes much of a
difference.
REPLY
Scott Dobos
As always, amazing content, free of charge. Now the hard work is

implementing these improvements to the website!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks Scott! Exactly, implementing is the tough part (especially

if you have 100 other things going on).
REPLY
Leah
This post is the topic of conversation in my blogging mastermind

group this week. We are all going to pick 1-2 strategies to
implement right now and report back to the group (there are 5 of
us). Divide and conquer! Thanks for a post packed with strategies
we haven’t tried yet!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Leah, that’s awesome 😃! Keep me posted on how the

strategies work for you.
REPLY
John
Another golden article, thanks Brian!

But I can’t help to wonder how much time it takes for us “mortals”
to rank with ghost posts and similar, after all Backlinko authority is
(deservedly) high and doesn’t that make it a bit easier? Not to
undermine your incredible effort though..
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hey John, that’s a really good point. If your site doesn’t have
much authority, Ghost Posts might not be helpful. But as long as
you have SOME authority, you should at least be able to see how
competitive a keyword is with a quick Ghost Post.
REPLY
Michael Torres
I’ve been following you since April this year. Your blog posts are
truly helping out new bloggers like me especially on SEO.
Thank you, Brian.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hey Michael, happy to help. Hope the new blog is going well.
REPLY
Moire
Hi Brian,
Your content is always excellent. I really admire your ability to

present the content: always clear, actionable and with a lot of
visuals.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thank you. I appreciate that. It takes some extra work to get

posts like this all together. But I think it’s worth the extra effort.
REPLY
Joseph Ferland
Brian,
All great ideas and I think the best way is to put them all into a
check list for me to do. Although, I am getting ready to make
another post on my site, I found that the Question DB will be perfect
to incorporate into the current project to start with.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hey Joseph, Awesome! Yup, Question DB has been super helpful

for me too.
REPLY
Keteci
I read it with interest. Nice fixes, thanks.
REPLY
Brian Dean
👍👍👍
REPLY
Kingsley Felix
Woow,
Nice, so by using table of content you may land the position 0 on
Google?
REPLY
Brian Dean
In my experience, the table of contents is more helpful for getting

sitelinks. But having your page structured like that can definitely
help you rank in the position #0 spot.
REPLY
Tony
This is basically my to-do list for the next month or so. Thanks Brian!
REPLY
Brian Dean
haha nice! Let me know how it goes, Tony.
REPLY
Keith Lim
Another amazing piece of content Brian. But it’s useless if we don’t

put action to it. So I’m going to start trying out some of the
methods and hope to see some results. For a new website, will these
work and what do you think is a reasonable time to see results? I
suppose I should use a serp tracker too.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hey Keith, thank you. And props for taking action. To answer your
question: some of these strategies (like SnippetBait) are
definitely geared towards established sites. Toa nswer your
question: it’s hard to answer because that depends on your niche,
keywords, current site etc. etc.
REPLY
Brady
Hey Brian, awesome guide.
Do you think small sites (let’s say DR 1-25) can take advantage of
the ghost post tactic? Or do you think that sites with a higher DR
will get the most out of it?
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks Brady. I’d say you need some DR for Ghost Posts to be a
reliable indicator. I’d say DR25 is a good minimum. But yeah,
bigger sites get the most out of it because their domain authority
gives them a better idea of where they’ll rank with a full post.
REPLY
Ruchik
Hey Brain,As always you have created an amazing content.I got

some nice ideas to improve my SEO.However,I would love to read
your article on topic how to get backlinks when you are not a big
brand.
You are such a big brand and you create an amazing content but
what about those bloggers who are new to in this business and
want to rank high?If you can create on article on that topic, I am
sure people will love it so much.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks. It’s true that big brands have an edge. There’s no denying
that. So if you’re just starting out, you have to put in the extra
work to create something AMAZING that stands head and
shoulder above what’s out there.
REPLY
Lalit
Dear Brian
Very deep and clear article on SEO. I am amazed how you have
done research a lot of. How you know? And most important you are
sharing also. That’s also reason you are outperforming. Good and
God bless 🙏 you.
Best Regards
Lalit
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thank you 👍👍👍
REPLY
Richard
Hi Brian.
Great article. I have this big fear for Youtube that I have decided to
overcome. So I will create videos for Youtube to get more traffic.
Hopefully, will some of them rank in Google 🙂
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hey Richard, sounds good. This should help you get started:
https://backlinko.com/hub/youtube
REPLY
Reece
Hi
Brain I’ve been reading your posts for some time now and find them
amazingly educational.
However there is so much info on your site and on the web,
sometimes it gets overwhelming. Do you have an article or a guide
on how to start SEO and in what order you should tackle each task,
i.e. keywords research, copy/content creation? link building. audit,
and then all these other tips and ‘How to’ articles you write about?
Especially for eCommerce sites, as we cannot write 2000 word

product descriptions for all of our products, nor is it easy to get
backlinks to an eCommerce site.
Best regards
Reece
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Reece, I hear you on that. SEO can get really overwhelming

really fast. I recommend checking out this guide that’s focused
100% on ecommerce SEO: https://backlinko.com/ecommerce-seo
REPLY
Reece
Wow thanks for the super fast reply Brian

You’re a star!
REPLY
Punith Alex
Brand name term is always my favourite and it works pretty well. So,
now the time to implement all these is the real time game changer.
Agree?
REPLY
Brian Dean
Yup! It’s all about execution.
REPLY
junaid hamid
Great Post.
I am going to work on snippet bait.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Nice! 🎉🎉🎉
REPLY
Ryan
Really nice post, I’ve already implemented the first tip. Will let you
know if that worked in two weeks as well :p
REPLY
Brian Dean
Nice! I’m curious to see how it goes. Are you on the first page for
that keyword already?
REPLY
Ola
Hello Brian,
Your blog is enough for a newbie in SEO to become a pro. I can’t
thank you enough for the great tips you share here. I would like to
mention that writing articles on low result keywords has been the
secret weapon I use to earn online. It works almost all the time.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks Ola.
REPLY
Lilly
I’m really grateful for your generous post, Brian. I’m definitely going
to implement TOC on some of my over 4k words posts, where I’m
trying to become the source. 😉 And I will also use the stats on
some new posts. Thanks to you, I also researched big keywords,
which I’d stayed away from, and found that many of the high CPC
and ranking articles are from 2014. Hoping some of my fresh new
content helps rank me higher. Love what you do, sir!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Lilly, you’re welcome. And glad to hear that you’re looking into
high CPC keywords. I used to be guilty of targeting keywords
that have a bajillion searches per month. Volume is still
important. But I try to pay attention to CPC when picking
keywords to go after.
REPLY
FV
Hi Brian,
whats your thoughts on Schema data to improve the SEO rankings?
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi, Schema has it’s place. But it doesn’t increase rankings. Google
has confirmed that and we have some data to support that:
https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking
REPLY
Shelbi
Nice post Brian. Do you think “table of contents” should be used in

every list post.
REPLY
Brian Dean
It depends a lot on the list post. For example, if you have 100+
items, a table of contents may not make sense. But if you can use
one, I would.
REPLY
Joshua
Another great read 🙂
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thank you, Joshua 👍👍👍
REPLY
Nishant
Amazing content again. I was waiting for your content and saw on
facebook. When are you going to write on SMO.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Nishant, I might have something on that soon.
REPLY
Manako
Thanks Brian. Helping me and to be honest, I have started blogging

just because of your blog. I can easily understand via your articles.
REPLY
Brian Dean
You’re welcome. Good luck with your new blog.
REPLY
Kyle Byers
Awesome post, Brian.
I just added anchor links / jump links to one of my recent posts to

try to get in on that sweet sitelink action :D. (I’d used them just for
usability purposes on long posts before, but never realized the
potential benefit in SERPs.)
Brand new keywords sound super tricky to find — except for a ton
of easy ones that come around every January: simply adding the
year to whatever keyword you’re targeting. People can start getting
traffic from “2020” keywords long before they show up with any
kind of search volume in typical keyword-research tools, since their
data lags. (Hat tip to Glen Allsopp, who I got that idea from.)
And as a perfectionist (not in the sense that my work is perfect, but

in the sense that I’m a slow writer)… I love the idea of the “ghost
post”. What a great way to test the waters before committing to a
full-fledged post (and its promotion).
Will definitely be trying that one out.
Thanks for the great ideas!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hey Kyle, thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Re: brand
new keywords. They’re insanely hard to find for sure. They’re
hard to find using a keyword research tool. And when they do
show up, they tend to underestimate search volume by 10x. So
right now I do it kind of manually: read a lot of stuff in my niche
and take note of what’s trending.
REPLY
Akhand
Hey, Brian…
Thanks for the “Snippet Bait” technique. Now I am focusing on it.

Wish me good luck.
Thanks
Akhand
REPLY
Brian Dean
Good luck.
REPLY
Shujahat
Finally! Another great post from brain! I think silp structure is also a
ranking factor in 2019, isn’t it?
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thank you. I’m not a big silo structure guy.
REPLY
Kevin Zimmerman
Brian, I own and operate a small business in Florida (website below).

I had someone build my site. I hired someone in Cambodia (they
were referred) to do some SEO work on the site. They made some
changes and stopped responding. I received some error message
from Google saying my sight may not be seen on search engines. I
have no idea how to fix it. My traffic was good, not great but seems
to have nose dived. When I watch these videos and login to
WordPress I am completely overwhelmed. If this sight doesn’t start
producing soon it may put me out of business. Are you for hire or
can you refer me to someone at least to make whatever fixes are
necessary? Thanks 🙂 Hope to hear from you soon.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hey Kevin, I don’t do any client work or consulting. But for

something like this, you definitely want someone with SEO
experience to take a look. I recommend looking for a freelancer
on a place like getcredo.com or upwork.
REPLY
rolo
Hello Brian,
I always read your awesome content. Thanks for so much!
I hope you can help me with this:
I plan to leave WordPress and move to a web builder called “TILDA”

(much simpler for a non techie guy like me, and I liked it better than
WIX)
Do all your seo strategies work with any web builder or do some
just apply to wordpress? Do you think wordpress is a must to
improve seo?
Thanks for your advice Brian!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Rolo, I’ve never tried TILDA before. It’s obviously your call. But
my recommendation would be to stick with WordPress. That said,
99% of the SEO strategies that you read about here on Backlinko
apply to any site running on any site builder.
REPLY
rolo
Thanks! 😉
REPLY
Thomas
When you mentioned 4th page of the blog, it reminds me of a post

which we did a few while ago, but forgot to update the date when
we did the content upgrade. Side benefit of reading Backlinko!
Other than that, Just noticed that the backlinks from a typical page
here is kind of like more than our entire website combined.
Obviously we’re in a tinier niche, but someone needs to do some
catch up!
Tom
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hey Tom, nice! And thank you for your kind words.
REPLY
Jeroen van der Mark
Hi Brian,
Great content! Love it… 🙂
I have a question regarding the Youtube embed. What do you think

of lazyloading a youtube VID replacement with image.
In one way it increases the site speed and less external load/scripts.
But you are also missing out an external link to a Google domain.
Maybe Google even corrects/filters for Youtube video’s.
Curious what your thoughts are. We are going to experiment the

coming weeks.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Jeroen, that’s interesting. I haven’t tested that but it should

definitely speed things up. On the other hand, you don’t really
have a video there
that might keep someone’s attention longer.
REPLY
Dan Harris
Great article, Brian! As a video guy myself, I love your point #2

where you recommend embedding videos as I do that too. My
concern is that although more visitors stay to watch the video,
doesn’t video embedding slow load time thereby causing another
Google issue?
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hey Dan, good question. Yes, embedding a video slows things

down a little bit. But it’s not so bad. YouTube only loads basic
video info and the thumbnail until the person hits “play”. It’s
similar with Wistia.
REPLY
Nilesh Shirke
Hi Brian,
It seems actionable items for any website. I specially like your bonus
tip i.e. questionsdb
Keep sharing wonderful content as always.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks Nilesh
REPLY
Wouter
Hey Brian
i want to thank you with all your great tips and ideas.
This has really rocked our site to first place …
REPLY
Brian Dean
You’re welcome, Wouter. Glad to hear that.
REPLY
Chris Pontine
Hey Brian,
Great idea with the “snippet bait” idea.
I’ve explored this area but never thought about adding in a section
to really draw out the potential.
Thanks,
Chris
REPLY
Brian Dean
You’re welcome, Chris. Snippetbait doesn’t work 100% of the time

for me. But it definitely boosts the odds of getting in the
Featured Snippet spot.
REPLY
Rajshekhar
This is a pure gold information Brian. I along with 2 of my friends

have just started a technology based, how information site. We
haven’t started yet with the SEO part, however with these
actionable tips I am sure soon we will start to gain some rankings.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Sounds good. Best of luck with the new site.
REPLY
Koen
This page is just full of gold. Such awesome information, for some it
may look like small adjustments but these changes can really make
the difference out there. Thank you so much for sharing these
valuable secrets.. Very much appreciated! I will study them with care
🙂
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Koen, you’re welcome. I tried to mix in quick win strategies

(like snippetbait) and some more involved stuff (like Be The
Source). So yeah, glad you enjoyed the post.
REPLY
Shannon
Hey Brian! Thanks for sharing definitely useful! Just wondered, do

comments (like this one) help your content rank better?
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Shannon, you’re welcome. I give my thoughts on that here:

https://backlinko.com/seo-strategy#buildcommunity
In short: my take is that, yes, comments do help a little bit.
REPLY
Slava Rybalka
Good stuff Brian. Looks like a good SEO hacks compendium to me.
Some of these things I already knew, like adding a video on your
site, but the majority of tips are pretty insightful. Definitely adding
to my list of bookmarks and putting these tips to use. #6 and #16
are gold.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hey Slava, thank you. It’s pretty hard to create a list post with
100% brand new stuff. But I tried to feature as many new
techniques as I could (or least add my own twist to existing
strategies).
REPLY
Roger Lapin
The play button on the Reddit video does not play for me?
REPLY
Brian Dean
That’s a screenshot of a video.
REPLY
David Mahen
Brian, this is an amazing resource, especially for a newbie like me.

I’ve bookmarked this for future reference as I progress. Big Thanks!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi David, happy to help. If you’re new to SEO, I’d also recommend

reading this: https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/seo-best-practices
REPLY
Ian
I have also done some reviews on other brands. I can’t be sure but I
don’t really think it helps me. I rank on the first page for some
brands – even competitors but I am not sure if it helps at all.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Ian, by “help” do you mean traffic? Conversions? Both?
REPLY
Wade Cockfield
Bringing it again Brian – great post, love the snippet bait idea
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hey Wade, thank you! Featured Snippets are slowly taking over
the SERPs. So I’m glad I at least have one strategy I can use to
take advantage.
REPLY
Priscilla Tan
Oooooh… I love the idea of using concept visuals. Looks like Canva
is going to come in handy here. 😃 As always, a big thank you, Brian!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks Priscilla. Yup, Concept Visuals are great. Personally, I’m

terrible at graphic design so I’m useless with Photoshop and
Canva, LOL.
REPLY
Kevin L
WOW it is not often that I get to use the words “Treasure Trove” but
that is exactly what I found here on on Backlinko! Arrrrr 🙂
But seriously thank you I seen a few of these things but it takes
hours of searching and to have so many top strategies in 1 place is
gold for us newbies (actually an SEO Oldie getting back in the game
lol) Thanks!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Kevin, thank you. I’m glad you learned some new stuff (or at
least got a refresher on some older SEO strategies from back in
the day).
Also, nice pirate reference!
REPLY
Rebecca
Great post! So many great tips, I’ll have to keep coming back for
memory refreshers! The tips that stand out the most for me right
now are the one about statistics, the one about graphics, and the
one about pitching to content curators, and the one about including
videos in your posts. And the one about Questions DB!
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hey Rebecca, thank you. Glad you enjoyed it. Yup, QuestionDB
was a nice little find that I’ve been using quite a bit lately.
REPLY
Hollee
What an amazing post! It’s probably the first post I’ve ever
bookmarked so I can utilize all these sweet hacks! Thanks for
sharing it all with us. Anyways, I do want to ask what you
recommend for content curation? I’d love to know!
Thanks again 🙂
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Hollee, you’re welcome. Did you mean a tool for content

curation?
REPLY
Andrew
Embedding a video into your blog articles is a strategy we have

been pushing clients to do for a while now and it works amazingly
well for specifics type of content like reviews, HOW TOs etc.
Great post Brian. Love it.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks Andrew. It makes sense that videos would work even

better for product review pages and how-to content. Videos
usually do a better job of explaining that sort of thing than text.
REPLY
Jonas
One thing that you always do on your blog post, you always add
“2019”. Are that good for any reason and next year do you will
change to 2020?
REPLY
Brian Dean
I add that to emphasize that these strategies are new. Also, lots
of people search for “keyword + year” in Google.
REPLY
Mamun Mondol
Really awesome post again! I got idea of what I need to rank a 50+
KD keyword. 🙂
REPLY
Brian Dean
Nice!
REPLY
Alfred
Hi Brian,
I’ve been reading your blog for more than 2 years and I love it. This
is the first time that I leaving you a comment.
I’ve 2 simple questions:
・Ghost Post: Don’t you think that the Authority that you and
Backlinko has, was the factor that made you easily rank for the
keyword “best free SEO tools.”
・ How did you find out that “link building services” was having a
big CPC? I know that you Ahrefs tell you but I mean, how did you
actually find that keyword? Any idea to make this process faster.
Another great post, thanks Brian!
My two favorite tips in this post were Target Keywords With BIG
Commercial Intent and Link intersect.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Alfred, thanks for your comment. To answer your questions:
Ghost posts: It made it easier for sure. Domain Authority is a

super important ranking signal. The idea of the Ghost Post is
more to let me know how hard it will be to rank. Actually getting
to #1 is a different story.
Link building services: You can actually sort the results in Ahrefs
and SEMRUsh by CPC. That’s what I do.
REPLY
Hassan Ahmed
Hi Brian,
It was such a great piece of content. All the tips and strategies you
shared are highly actionable.
Thanks
REPLY
Brian Dean
You’re welcome. It’s all about taking action!
REPLY
Morten
As always great content Brian.

The snippet bait is very interesting, are you not using any type of
markup for the snippet to work?
And, besides being up to date and “firstmover” – do you have any

tips or tools to finding new keywords before anyone else?
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hey Morten, that’s right: no markup. Just normal HTML.
To your second question, at the moment I just read about SEO

and digital marketing to keep on top of things. Then, I use a
keyword tool to see how people search for that topic. It’s
honestly not the greatest system. I definitely wish there was a
better way.
REPLY
Anand Kumar Jha
Great post with proven SEO 2019 strategies. Brian, you are my
favorite in SEO and link building.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thank you 👍👍👍
REPLY
Jacky
Hi Brian,
Great content!
I try a lot of way to get “featured snippets”, now I will try yours.
Thanks.
REPLY
Brian Dean
You’re welcome, Jacky.
REPLY
Suraj Pokrel
Hello Brian,
Love your post.
But I have one question in mind. You put so many high-quality
images on your blog post which makes the site load slower. Doesn’t
it affect ranking? If not how is it possible? Because I have seen some
of your post which loads slower ranking on top 10?
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Suraj, it’s a balance. I bet I’d get slightly higher rankings by

removing images. But that would make our content much worse.
My #1 priority is putting out the best stuff that I can. If that slows
things down a little, so be it.
REPLY
Freddy
Thank you for all these great tipps! I took notes while reading them
and will start with Snippet Baits. QuestionDB was new to me and I’ll
work on some concept visuals.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Sounds good, Freddy. Keep me posted on how things go.
REPLY
Subh
I liked the “Ghost Post” technique, but I did not understand one
thing. You mentioned that you’ve published the post on page 4 of
your blog, how did you do that? Or I’m missing something?
REPLY
Brian Dean
That requires a little WordPress tweaking. But it depends on your

theme.
REPLY
Lisa
Thank you for this great content.

You are right, embedding videos actually helps to improve the
bounce rate. I did an A/B test and it actually showed an 7% better
bounce rate than the page without the video. Thank you so much.
REPLY
Brian Dean
Hi Lisa, you’re welcome. 7%? That’s interesting. Very similar to

what we found (11%). Good to see that it also worked for you!
REPLY
Matt Cupper
So much powerful article 🙂
REPLY
Brian Dean
Thanks Matt
REPLY
Imran Shafi
Hi Brain,
You post is so great. I have a question over here. Can I use multiple
anchors for a single url on a single page. let me explain, for example,
I wrote an article for backlinking. I have a single domin name but
want to use different keyowrds linking in my aritlce. Like
Keyword #1 link to http://www.example.com
different keywords phrases but single domian name on single

blog/article page?
hope you understood.
REPLY
Brian Dean
You can do that. But Google probably only looks at the first
anchor: https://backlinko.com/seo-techniques#firstlink
REPLY
Cody
As always, a very informative post, lots of actionable tips.
REPLY
Brian Dean
👍👍👍
REPLY
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7/31/2019 17 Ways to Improve Your SEO in 2019

17 Ways to Improve Your SEO in

In fact, these 17 techniques helped grow my site’s organic traffic by

The best part?

Everything here is working GREAT right now.

1. Get More Organic Traffic With “Snippet Bait”

14. Target Brand New Keywords

1. Get More Organic Traffic With

A new strategy called “Snippet Bait”.

Here’s how it works:

First, find a keyword that you already rank for.

Why is this important?

According to Ahrefs, 99.58% of Featured Snippets come from the first

So if you’re on page 2, you have pretty much zero chance of getting in

Next, look at the Featured Snippet at the top of the SERPs:

And identify what TYPE of Featured Snippet you’re looking at:

Definition Snippet (“What is content marketing?”)

Finally, add a snippet of content to your page that’s designed to fit

(This is the “Snippet Bait”)

So I wrote a little section that would fit PERFECTLY inside of a

2. Improve Dwell Time With This Simple

And they’ll quickly downrank it:

The question is:

How do you prevent people from bouncing?

Embed videos on your page.

For example, I recently compared my bounce rate for a sample of pages

Sometimes I make the video an entire step or tip:

Or as a way for people to learn more about a specific topic:

Which leads us to…

3. Find Low-Competition Keywords With

Here’s the truth:

Most “Keyword Competition” scores are WAY off.

That’s because most of them focus 100% on one metric: backlinks.

Are backlinks important?

That’s why I now ignore most keyword competition scores.

Instead, I use “Ghost Posts”.

According to Ahrefs, this keyword is “Super Hard” to rank for:

Instead of giving up, I decided to test this keyword’s difficulty with a

Specifically, I whipped up a quick post and published it on the 4th page

To my surprise, I cracked the first page for long tail versions of my

That’s when I decided to promote the post on social media:

And give the content a much-needed upgrade.

In fact, I now rank #1 for that keyword:

With that, it’s time for…

4. Use Sitelinks to Boost Your Organic

Last year I decided to make Organic CTR a top priority.

But I quickly ran into a problem:

And these sitelinks can make a BIG dent in your click-through-rate.

How do you get sitelinks?

For example, when I published this post, I added a table of contents

And once my page cracked the top 5, Google hooked me up with

5. Want More Links? Be The Source

People don’t link to “great content”.

They link to sources.

And I’m not afraid to say that it qualifies as “great content”.

The post is full of actionable tips:

It even has a custom design:

Most people would also call this post “great content”.