6 Boring SEO Habits That Actually Grow Your Traffic — Transcript

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1. 0:00What's one SEO habit that has made the
2. 0:02biggest difference for you? This is a
3. 0:04post on the SEO growth subreddit that
4. 0:07was popping off. SEO habits. So, I'm
5. 0:10going to share the top ones, the top
6. 0:11comments, and how to go deeper on the
7. 0:14habits that people share. Top one is
8. 0:17from Fresh Squeezed Code who says, "Mine
9. 0:20is boring. One Google Search Console
10. 0:23exports a month grouped by query, read
11. 0:26before anything new gets written. Most
12. 0:28of what I would improve is already free
13. 0:30in there. Which queries show a page at
14. 0:33what position, and which pages get the
15. 0:35clicks." So, something that this person
16. 0:37learned by doing this is that on this
17. 0:40person's own site, the impressions that
18. 0:42the person gets are for the queries that
19. 0:44this person was targeting, the keywords
20. 0:46the person was targeting. The person is
21. 0:48getting clicks on branded terms, and the
22. 0:51informational pages are getting zero
23. 0:54click-through rate. The person said,
24. 0:55"That told me where to work far better
25. 0:58than any tool score." So, branded terms
26. 1:00are keywords that have the brand name in
27. 1:03them. Informational pages like how,
28. 1:05what, where, when, why. People aren't
29. 1:07clicking because people are getting
30. 1:08their answer from AI. But, the keywords
31. 1:11the person had planned pages for were
32. 1:13getting impressions. And so, the second
33. 1:15habit that this person has is labeling
34. 1:17every keyword covered or uncovered
35. 1:20against what the site actually has, and
36. 1:22clustering the two pools separately. The
37. 1:25covered pool tells you what to update.
38. 1:27The uncovered pool tells you what to
39. 1:29write, and the two lists stop competing
40. 1:32for the same evening, which I guess
41. 1:35means by doing this, you are less likely
42. 1:37to have keyword cannibalization where
43. 1:39pages are competing for the same
44. 1:42keywords, which makes each page do
45. 1:44worse. Content refreshes. Person is
46. 1:46recommending content refreshes as a
47. 1:48habit. Here are some easy ways to
48. 1:50refresh and update your content. Number
49. 1:52one is just look for date-related
50. 1:55information. Is there more recent
51. 1:57information that you could include on
52. 1:59your page or update your page to be more
53. 2:02up-to-date with the current times.
54. 2:04Number two is relevance. Double-check,
55. 2:05make sure you have your keyword in your
56. 2:07page title, URL slug, H1, beginning of
57. 2:09the first sentence. Number three is
58. 2:11quality. What does quality mean? It
59. 2:13means make sure that search intent is
60. 2:16addressed above the fold. Then below the
61. 2:18fold, try to predict what people would
62. 2:20want next. When you come to a piece of
63. 2:22content that you wrote a couple months
64. 2:24ago and you look through it with fresh
65. 2:26eyes because you haven't read that piece
66. 2:28of content in a while, you'll be like,
67. 2:29"Wow, when I created this, I thought it
68. 2:31was great. Now looking at it 4 months
69. 2:33later, oh my god, I'm just rambling. The
70. 2:36above the page is packed with fluff. I
71. 2:38don't give the answer right away. I
72. 2:40could address search intent way faster.
73. 2:42Below the fold, I'm not predicting what
74. 2:44searchers want." Sometimes you need to
75. 2:46step away to really improve the content.
76. 2:49And the fourth really easy way to update
77. 2:51your content, it's just for keywords
78. 2:53that are being hit but that you aren't
79. 2:55using exactly. So, you can just go to
80. 2:57Google Search Console, see which
81. 2:59keywords a page is ranking for, take the
82. 3:01keywords you're not using, use them high
83. 3:03on your page, or create new sections for
84. 3:05them. And if you want to go deeper on
85. 3:07that, episode 787 of this podcast, the
86. 3:10number one SEO hack, why content
87. 3:13refreshes beat new content. And really
88. 3:15content refreshes, when you do them
89. 3:17properly, it's one of the easiest things
90. 3:19you can do to get more qualified clicks.
91. 3:22Second top comment is from strong
92. 3:25teaching who said, "For me, I keep
93. 3:27backlink outreach active every week. I'm
94. 3:30using a tool, Mention Hunt, that finds
95. 3:33the opportunities and contacts the
96. 3:35websites for me. Then I just use their
97. 3:37MCP to negotiate the backlinks of
98. 3:40prospects that reply. I've got three to
99. 3:42five backlinks each week since I started
100. 3:45doing this." Somebody asked, "Are those
101. 3:47paid backlinks?" And this commenter
102. 3:49answered, "Most of them are free. I just
103. 3:51pay under certain conditions and always
104. 3:53negotiate the price. Build back links
105. 3:56every week. This is something I deeply
106. 3:58believe in. A little bit every day or
107. 4:01every other day will take you a long
108. 4:03way. What you could do is you could just
109. 4:05try submitting to one journalist today
110. 4:07on help reporter out or on connectively
111. 4:10or on source of sources and sending a
112. 4:12few really thoughtful journalist pitches
113. 4:15a week. Most people's journalist pitches
114. 4:17are super lazy. If you take the time to
115. 4:20make them thoughtful and concise, you
116. 4:22will be surprised the above average
117. 4:25success that you can get. A lot of
118. 4:27people are liking this episode of the
119. 4:28show, episode 1160,
120. 4:30how to get free back links in 2026
121. 4:33methods that actually work. If you want
122. 4:36to go deeper on some link building
123. 4:37tactics, you can incorporate as habits.
124. 4:40Third comment from Square Nebula who
125. 4:43said, this is the third habit. I just
126. 4:46look at the actual search queries people
127. 4:48use to find my site and tweak the
128. 4:50content to match it better. Sometimes
129. 4:53you rank for a keyword on page two that
130. 4:55you did not even intentionally target.
131. 4:57Adding a single paragraph that directly
132. 5:00answers that specific query usually
133. 5:02bumps it to page one within a few weeks.
134. 5:04This is what we were talking about
135. 5:05earlier and I have an entire episode on
136. 5:08exactly how to do this, episode 1104,
137. 5:11the one hour SEO update that makes your
138. 5:13best pages rank for more keywords. You
139. 5:16know, funny enough, I've done this show
140. 5:17so many times now that I literally have
141. 5:20episodes on everything. I have episodes
142. 5:22on everything and so if there's
143. 5:23something you want to go deeper on, I
144. 5:25probably have an episode for it. The
145. 5:27fourth habit from this thread on the SEO
146. 5:30growth subreddit. Oh, this one's funny.
147. 5:32This person Max Mayor said, haha, I have
148. 5:35one funny stuff. That's what it says. I
149. 5:37have one funny stuff. Every time I visit
150. 5:39the website for my personal needs,
151. 5:41tickets, e-com store to buy something, I
152. 5:44check its traffic, both total and
153. 5:47organic. I checked the keywords. One
154. 5:49time I was going to buy shoes and check
155. 5:51the website. I found the keyword their
156. 5:54top five with no backlinks leading to
157. 5:56that page, so I wrote to support and
158. 5:59show them this keyword. I recommended to
159. 6:01get two to three backlinks just for this
160. 6:03page to get into the top three. I also
161. 6:06bought the shoes I came for. Three
162. 6:08months later their marketing lead wrote
163. 6:10to my email thanking for the advice.
164. 6:12They've got top one and got 300%
165. 6:16plus traffic from that keyword. Two
166. 6:19things here, this is a good way to get a
167. 6:21job. If you're trying to get an SEO job,
168. 6:23just give people free recommendations.
169. 6:25Some people will listen and then they'll
170. 6:27ask, "Hey, you want to do stuff for us?"
171. 6:29But also, when I was starting in search
172. 6:31engine optimization, I constantly, as I
173. 6:34was just doing searches or going about
174. 6:37my daily needs, I was trying to
175. 6:39understand why are these pages ranking
176. 6:42above these other pages? Or now with
177. 6:44LLMs, why are these the pages that are
178. 6:47getting cited and not these other pages?
179. 6:49So what you could do, just very simple
180. 6:50to if you're just starting, get a tool
181. 6:52like the MozBar or the detailed Chrome
182. 6:55extension and just look through SERPs
183. 6:57once a day. See for yourself
184. 6:59commonalities between pages that are
185. 7:01ranking. Learn how to find the query fan
186. 7:04outs that ChatGPT does and that Claude
187. 7:06does. And then figure out why some pages
188. 7:09are getting cited over others. If you're
189. 7:11just starting incorporate that as a
190. 7:13habit into the daily research and
191. 7:16learning and shopping that you do. If
192. 7:18you want to know how to find the query
193. 7:20fan outs that large language models are
194. 7:22doing, just go to edwardstorm.com and in
195. 7:24the top navigation there's a link AI
196. 7:27SEO/GEO/AEO
197. 7:29in 2026. That article will tell you
198. 7:32exactly what to do. Two more
199. 7:34comment/habits
200. 7:36from this thread. This one is from
201. 7:38Svolice who said, I think I'm trying to
202. 7:41pronounce this person's name, Felice,
203. 7:43who said, "Consistency has helped me
204. 7:45more than chasing a new SEO trick every
205. 7:48week. Spend 30 minutes each week
206. 7:50checking pages losing clicks, broken
207. 7:52links." Oh, that's big, too. Repair
208. 7:54broken links. Old content, queries
209. 7:56getting impressions but few clicks. I
210. 7:59once refreshed one fading page and added
211. 8:01a few internal links, which brought back
212. 8:03traffic without building new links. The
213. 8:06work is boring, but the pattern gets
214. 8:08easier to spot over time. Super easy
215. 8:11internal link trick that people can do
216. 8:13in 15 minutes. Episode 1,173
217. 8:17of the podcast, the internal linking
218. 8:18trick that uses topical authority you
219. 8:21already have. And the last comment and
220. 8:24habit from this thread, getting in touch
221. 8:26with other agency owners and doing link
222. 8:29exchanges with other SEOs. "Geez, how
223. 8:32refreshing it was to work with people
224. 8:34who actually understand what a backlink
225. 8:36should do and what it's supposed to look
226. 8:38like instead of getting spammed by link
227. 8:41builders with {quote} {unquote}
228. 8:42high-quality sites." It really is great
229. 8:45when you are working with somebody else
230. 8:47who understands SEO. And try to build
231. 8:50partnership backlinks. Create
232. 8:51partnerships, companies that are
233. 8:53adjacent in your niche. You link to each
234. 8:55other in different ways. Don't make this
235. 8:57the only link type that you have because
236. 8:59Google will see that as manipulative,
237. 9:01but get a few partnership links. The
238. 9:03link for this entire thread will be in
239. 9:05the description for this episode. This
240. 9:08episode 1,181
241. 9:10of the podcast, 1,181
242. 9:14days in a row doing this show. If you're
243. 9:17overwhelmed by the amount of habits to
244. 9:19build and everything to do and you just
245. 9:21want a clear road map, how do I do SEO
246. 9:24that makes my business money? My SEO
247. 9:26course, Compact Keywords, gives you
248. 9:28exactly that. It shows you how to find
249. 9:31the keywords people are using when
250. 9:33they're looking for your business, but
251. 9:34they don't know your business exists. Or
252. 9:36they do, but they don't have it top of
253. 9:38mind. They need what your business
254. 9:39sells, and so they're going to Google,
255. 9:41or they're going to an LLM, doing a
256. 9:43search, or doing a prompt. You find the
257. 9:45searches these people are doing. You
258. 9:47target them with conversion-based SEO
259. 9:50landing pages. These are pages made to
260. 9:53rank and then to convert the people who
261. 9:55arrive on these pages. How to structure
262. 9:57your site for these pages so that
263. 10:00they're getting link juice cuz you're
264. 10:01internally linking to them properly. How
265. 10:03to build backlinks. Everybody should do
266. 10:05a little amount of link building each
267. 10:08week at least. How to do an SEO
268. 10:10technical audit. So, if your site is
269. 10:12really cluttered, you can unclutter it.
270. 10:14It's way easier to do SEO when a ton of
271. 10:17stuff on your site isn't broken.
272. 10:18Examples in every niche, templates,
273. 10:21step-by-step walkthroughs, Google Docs,
274. 10:23Google Sheets. So, so much is in this
275. 10:28course. It is at compactkeywords.com.
276. 10:31You're going to fall in love with it.
277. 10:32And that's everything that I got for you
278. 10:34on this episode of the show. If you
279. 10:36watched this on YouTube, thank you so
280. 10:38much for watching. If you listened on
281. 10:40Spotify or Apple Podcasts, thank you so
282. 10:42much for listening. And I will talk to
283. 10:44you again tomorrow. Bye now.