How to Get More Traffic in 2020 (Without Any Backlinks)

– Hey in this video, I'm going to show you how to get more organic search traffic without any new backlinks.

Let's jump right in.

(happy electronic music) So before we get started, make sure you subscribe to this channel, because you'll get notifiedwhen I publish new videos, just like this one.

So the SEO industry isobsessed with backlinks and link building.

Just go to any popular SEOblog, forum, or community where SEOs geek out.

It's almost always thetopic of discussion.

And that's becausebacklinks are fundamental for ranking well on Google, because of the originalpage rank algorithm.

And backlinks are literally the basis for Google's algorithm.

But let's imagine we're living in a world where backlinks don't matter at all.

(funky electronic music) How would you do SEO? You would need to tap intothe lost art of optimization.

Now let's not forget what SEO stands for, search engine optimization, SEO is optimizing a website for search engines, notoptimizing for backlinks.

Backlinks only matter because Google is thebiggest search engine, and because they matterto their algorithm.

Don't forget that.

Now before we go any further, let's define what optimize actually means.

According to Merriam Webster's dictionary, the definition of optimizeis to make as perfect, effective, or functional as possible.

But for me, I think theright definition of optimize, for an SEO should be tomake as perfect as possible.

Perfection is the standard that we should be trying to reach when it comes to optimizing website for organic search performance.

And that's exactly whatI'm going to show you in this video.

I'm going to pretendthat links don't matter, and I'm going to show you some methods for optimizing your websitebetter than your competitors.

(energetic electronic music) So let's jump right in.

So there are five categories you need to optimize your website for.

Number one, keywords.

Number two, site architecture.

Number three, content.

Number four, UI/UX.

And number five, technical.

In this particular video, I'm going to focus on sitearchitecture and content.

(dramatic music) Let's start with site architecture.

Now, say architecture is a leaddomino for SEO performance, because it impacts so manyother facets of the process.

For example, a welldesigned site architecture can help search engine crawlers navigate through your site better, which leads to better indexation.

Also, an effective sitearchitecture can drive link equity to your most important pages, which'll help them performbetter in organic search.

So how you attack structuringyour site architecture will depend on the typeof website you have.

I'm also going to assume you already have a large list of keywords you wanna tackle.

And if you don't, watchmy video on this channel about keyword research.

So for this example, I'm going to pretend that I have an E-commercewebsite that sells coffee.

So the first thing you need to do is map out the site architecture.

So now let me show you howI go about actually mapping these pages on the website, and for the site architecture.

Okay, so I'm on my computer, and now what I wanna do is I wanna show you how I would map out the site architecturefor a coffee business.

So I know this mightlook super overwhelming, but just bear with me andit will all make sense.

So, this of course is not a real business, this is just a mock business, because I wanted to show you how I would go about, and my thought process when mapping out aparticular site architecture.

So I would probably target the home page with the keywords buy coffeeor coffee subscription.

And these are like real keywords that I actually went and found.

So then what we wannado from the home page is we wanna link to the products page, and this is basically going to be the hub for driving all the linkequity and authority to our most important pages.

So this would likely be in the navigation, and what you would do is a products page would then link to your category pages.

So these are light roastcoffees, medium roast coffees, and dark roast coffees.

And so in this case, you probably have different coffee blends in each category, but in this case I justdid one blend per category.

So now what you need to think about is what are the objective of these pages.

So in this case, it's probably unlikelythat this product page is going to be something that you're gonna actually try to rank, but it's still a really important page for the overall architecture, because it's going to be the hub for driving link equity andusers to these important pages.

So the products page willlink to your category pages, which will of coursehave the products listed, and what you're trying to do is you're basically justtrying to build authority to each of these pages, without having to put them superdeep into the architecture.

So you'll see, from the homepage, the category pages are only one click from the home page, which is really, really good.

And typically you don't wanna go beyond three to four clicks.

But I'll talk about that in a second, when we get into best practices.

But really we are trying to do is keep this architectureas lean and not super deep.

Now there is some nuancehere that's pretty important, so it's a good idea to cross-link as well, so you may wanna link from your light roast coffee category page to your medium roast, and to your dark roast, and have these all linking together, because then you're gonna continue to flow users to these pages.

And most importantly, crawlers.

(dramatic music) Google's crawlers will be ableto get to these pages easier, so just making them asaccessible as possible is really important.

And then one thing that Ilove to do with E-com websites like this is to focus ona reverse silo method.

So I don't have this set upin a traditional reverse silo, but this is still the same concept, and so really what it is is we're building outcontent assets on the blog, and what we're doing is we're gonna be linkingto the category page, we're gonna be linkingto the product pages.

I didn't link here, but welink into the category pages, and we'll be linking tothese more important pages, where we can actually drive sales.

But really the big partof the reverse silo that makes it so powerful isthat you're using your blog to build your site's authority.

And really the goal with E-com is to just build massive, massive site authority, 'cause that'll make rankingfor your category pages and your product pages much easier.

And really, the fastest way and the most natural way to do that is through your blog content, because it's much easier to acquire links to content rich assetsthan it is to acquire links to a boring category pageabout medium roast coffee.

So this is a much better strategy.

But as you'll see here, I have backlinks hitting the home page, I have backlinks hitting the product page.

I have backlinks hittingthe category page, backlinks hitting the product page, and most importantly, backlinkshitting the blog posts.

But I would say that themajority of your links, I'd say probably around 80% of your links should be going to these contentrich assets on your blog.

And this will help you build authority in a totally natural way.

And most importantly, it's gonnahelp you do it really fast, because people are just much more likely to link to valuable content assets.

So this is how you mapout a site architecture for an E-com business, but this really applies to any business.

And in fact, I use the reverse silo method for any type of business, doesn't matter whetherit's an E-com business selling physical products, or a local business that'strying to sell services.

I always use this strategy, 'cause it's so incredibly powerful.

And most importantly, it's natural.

And truly do believethat it's the best way to build your site authority.

So once you've mapped outyour site architecture, you need to go through theprocess of optimizing it.

So here are some general rules of thumb about building an effectivesite architecture.

First thing you need tounderstand are votes.

So just like external links, you should think of your internallinks as votes for a page.

The second thing you needto understand is coverage.

Every page on your site shouldbe accessible for crawlers, unless intended otherwise.

Number three is prioritization.

Understand that allinternal links on your site are valued differently.

For example, internallinks on your homepage, and your site wide menu are valued more than links in your footer or sidebar, or even within a blog post.

Next think you need tounderstand is depth.

So all of your pages should be no more than three to four clicks deep.

And this will ensure that your pages are getting crawled and indexed well.

In general, the deeper apage is on your website, the less valuable it is to Google.

Just remember, less clicks more value, more clicks less value.

The next thing you need tounderstand is anchor text.

So you should always useexact match anchor text with your internal links.

Just be careful with sitewide navigational links, because they can cause issues.

And it's better to create a category page, and then link to the other pages, than to jam it into the menu.

And so the main reason is because of anchortexts over-optimization.

So if you have 1000 internallinks for dark roast coffee, and then you acquire 100 external links with that same anchor text, it could lead to over-optimization.

The next thing you need tounderstand are breadcrumbs.

So if you have a large website, you may wanna considerusing breadcrumbs schema, because this will ensure proper coverage.

The next thing you need to understand is a mega menu, so you can use a mega menu if you have a large website.

And lastly, you need to makesure you have a site map.

So now let me show you acouple different websites that have excellent site architectures, and you can model them.

So the first site architectureI wanna show you is yelp.

com.

So if you ever wanna learn how to build a really great site architecture, just study this website.

It is one of the best sitearchitectures you'll find.

And you can spend really all day analyzing their architecture, but you'll see a few things right away that the way that theystructure their home page is very deliberate, it's very smart, and they are trying to drive link equity and authority to theirmost important pages.

You'll see that they'rereally always trying to be as deliberate as possible about what goes on in this home page.

And typically, what's gonna happen is they really wanna isolate their most importantpages on this home page.

So what I highly recommendyou do is just go through their homepage and thengo through their site, and just act like you're a user, but also look at itfrom an SEO perspective.

So we'll go up here, and we'll start withthe restaurant section.

And then of course Yelpis going to show you geo-targeted results, soyou're gonna see restaurants that are near you basedon your IP address.

And that part's not as important, but what's important is the way that they structure these pages, so that their most important pages are not super deepwithin the architecture, and so they can keep them veryhigh up in the architecture, and have very little clicks to get to the most important pages.

So you can start to go through these, and start to see that theyreally have structured this in a very intelligent way.

And more importantly, when Google's crawlers go through this site, they'reable to crawl these pages, they're able to index them, they're able to rank them appropriately, because it is able to crawltheir website so efficiently.

So I highly recommend youmodel Yelp site architecture, and just take an hour or two, if you can, and just go through their site, and really analyzeeverything they're doing, 'cause you will really learn a lot.

So the next big factorthat you have to master if you wanna rank withoutbacklinks is content.

So now you know how tostructure your website, so let's tackle the contentoptimization component.

First, let's define what content is.

So content refers to any page that has words, images, videosor et cetera on your website.

And it includes yourhomepage, category pages, products pages, and blog posts.

And the reason I need toclarify this is because most people think of blogpost when I say content, but it really applies toevery page on your website.

So the first action you need to take before changing orcreating any new content is to perform a content audit.

And I do have an in depthvideo on my channel, showing you how to conduct acontent audit, step by step.

And I'll have the link below this video.

But there are a few objectivesyou're trying to achieve with the content audit.

So you wanna identify duplicatecontent, thin content, keyword dilution, which issimilar to thin content, but is essentially whenyou're targeting long tails.

that could've been targeted on a more comprehensive rich page.

You also wanna identifykeyword cannibalization, which is when two pages are competing for the same keyword phrase.

You also wanna identify justgenerally low quality content, which is going to be contentthat doesn't any unique value.

It's full of grammaticaland spelling errors, has poor user experience, or all of the above.

And you also wanna identifypoor on-page optimization, by examining URLs, titles, meta descriptions, headings, and the content itself.

So one question you might have is how you find these issues? well the best way is to useScreaming Frog SEO Spider.

So now you might bewondering how you go about actually fixing thesecontent related issues.

Well the solutions are simplewith most of these issues.

For duplicate content, you'll need to go through and create unique content for each page.

For thin content or low quality content, you can either improve the page by adding more unique quality content or consolidate it with another page, or simple just let it 404, and let Google remove it from the index.

For keyword cannibalization, consolidating the content is usually the best strategy.

And then for pages withpoor on-page optimization, you need to optimize the pages better.

Now there is some nuancethat you need to consider, if you decide to makeany of these changes.

If you consolidate pages, or change URLs, make sure you have proper301 redirects in place.

So that is how you optimizeyour site architecture and content for SEO performance.

These are the two most important facets of effective on-site SEOs, so make sure you reviewthis video multiple times, and most importantly, act onwhat you've learned today.

Even taking a small stepforward is progress.

So if you enjoyed thisvideo, please like it and subscribe to my channel, because you'll get first accesswhen I publish a new video, just like this one.

And also if you have anyquestions whatsoever, please leave it below, and I will respond.

So thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.

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