When I was about to launch my first blog in 2010, I felt GREAT.
And to prepare for the big launch, I read dozens of SEO blog posts and forum threads.
So when my blog finally went live, I was super excited.
I thought to myself: “It’s only a matter of time before you hit Google’s first page.”
There Was Only One Problem:
It never happened.
In fact, I struggled to get ANY traction with that site…
…despite the fact that I followed all of the SEO advice that I read to a “T”.
Flash forward to today and Backlinko brings in over 100k unique visitors per month:
And all of this high-quality organic traffic fuels my growing online business that’s nearly doubling in gross revenue every year:
Now I’ll show you how I did it in a minute.
But First, I Want to Tell You Something Important:
You can totally do this!
- Even if you’ve struggled in the past
- Even if you’re a “one man show”
- Even if you run an ecommerce site
- Even if you have clients in boring industries
After all, I’m not the only one that’s growing their online business using a unique approach to white hat SEO:
*Aaron Johnson created a hiking guide that outranks Wikipedia and Trip Advisor
*Darren Dematas boosted his ecommerce site’s traffic by 259%
*David Peralta recently hit Google’s first page for the keyword: “sales advice”
Here’s The Framework Aaron, Darren and David Used Used To Achieve These Impressive Results
The simple fact about succeeding with white hat SEO is this:
You simply can’t do what everyone else is doing and expect to get results.
(That’s the “Do The Opposite Framework” I told you about earlier this week)
As a refresher, that framework is:
Do The Opposite Framework
If you follow the same SEO advice as everybody else, there’s no way you can win. That’s because you’re playing the game by the same rules as everyone else (including big brands).
But with the Do The Opposite Framework, you do the opposite of everyone else. That’s the secret to beating your competitors in Google.
How about an example?
With my first blog I launched in 2010, I blindly followed the SEO advice that I read online.
And every blog post I laid eyes on said the same thing:
“The key to ranking in Google is to keep your site updated with fresh, quality content.”
So that’s exactly what I did.
I updated my site like a madman. Sometimes I’d even publish two quality articles a day.
And I made sure to share my content on Facebook.
Unfortunately, despite all that hard work, my traffic was as flat as a pancake:
Today, I Understand EXACTLY Why I Struggled…
It’s because I was doing the exact same thing as everyone else!
My competitors were pumping out tons of content. So was I.
My competitors published new post at least once a week. So did I.
My competitors didn’t do any outreach or strategic content promotion. Neither did I.
Do you see what’s happening here?
As long as I played by the same rules my competitors did, I had no chance (especially because I was competing against big brands).
Today, I Use the “Do The Opposite Framework” with Backlinko’s SEO…
As you may know, most marketing blogs publish a new post every day or week.
But I do the opposite.
I publish a new blog post every 4-6 weeks. In fact, I’ve only published 32 total posts at Backlinko so far:
Despite that (actually, BECAUSE of that), Backlinko has brought in over 1 million unique visitors over the last year:
Now you might say to yourself, “But Brian…you’re different!” But I promise you I’m not.
In fact, I’ve had many of the same problems you may have right now, like:
#1: “I’m already doing well with SEO. Now I want to scale up. The thing is, I’m a one man show going with big brands. Can I really scale if I’m doing it all myself?”
#2: “I know how to write great content. But need to get better at promoting it.”
#3: “I run an ecommerce site. Will white hat SEO really work for me?”
#4: “I have a client in boring a boring niche. Can I really create something people will actually share?”
If any of these sound familiar to you, you’re not alone.
While these problems are real, they CAN be fixed.
And today I want to help you overcome these common SEO hurdles.
Let’s start off with challenge #1:
#1: “I’m already doing well with SEO and I want to scale up. But I’m a one man show competing with big brands. Can I really scale if I’m doing it all myself?”
Short answer: YES.
Just look at Aaron Johnson…
Aaron runs the hiking site, DayHikesNearDenver.com.
Even though Aaron’s site generated an impressive 630k visitors in 2014, he knew that he could do better.
That was the good news.
Here’s the bad news:
Google’s first page was littered with mega brand travel sites, like Tripadvisor and The Denver Post.
And Aaron would have to outrank these authority travel sites if he was going to scale his success.
And to do THAT, he couldn’t publish brief overviews of 100 different hiking trails.
Why?
Because that’s exactly what his competitors were doing.
For example, here’s the type of content Aaron’s competitors were putting out about one of the most popular hiking trails in Denver (called Hanging Lake):
(This article is a superficial overview of the trail)
(Here’s a boring black and white PDF from the USDA)
These big sites could get away with this mediocre content because they had massive authority and social media followings.
But Aaron didn’t have a huge following.
So he did the opposite.
Instead of 100 trail guides, he wrote ONE. And he made it amazing.
In fact, Aaron’s guide is so insanely thorough that it needs a table of contents:
But his guide isn’t just 3000 words of fluff. Aaron packed his guide with meaty value.
For example, Aaron included directions to the trailhead…
…and tips for taking photos of the trail:
To go “the extra mile”, Aaron even took his family to Hanging Lake so he could personally record info and take pictures:
Because Aaron did the opposite of his entrenched competitors, he now ranks in the top 5 for several of his target keywords, including “hanging lake Colorado”:
But for Aaron to get those rankings, he didn’t just “publish and pray”.
He actively promoted his new guide. Which leads us to common SEO roadblock #2…
#2: “I know how to write great content. But need to get better at promoting it.”
Yes you do
source http://backlinko.com/3-seo-case-studies
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