A Six-Figure Marketer Shares 3 SEO Tips That Actually Work

Tommy McDonald is not your usual SEO expert. He's known as the guy, who offers no-bullshit, straight-to-the point advice and gives brutally honest opinions to companies struggling to make their search marketing strategies.

Though being a self-starter, McDonald has quickly grown into an opinion leader and power user at one of the popular niche forums. In fact, his fist SEO service launched back in 2012 on this forum went massively viral and netted him seven-figures in revenue during the first year.

He has later founded another service-based business to successfully sell it for 6 figures in November last year. McDonald is now running a new venture – Serp Logic – a popular SEO hub with loads of practical advice and services for business struggling to understand and implement the right type of SEO strategy.

Today, McDonald shares his top 3 SEO tips on how to play the online marketing game in 2016 if you want to reach scalable results.

Do Your Due Diligence Basics When It Comes to Choosing an Agency

The world wide web is full of self-proclaimed SEO gurus, promising you to achieve first page rankings in Google within as little as  seven days.

"That's the first red flag you should watch out for", says McDonald.  "Some of my other biggest pet peeves include the following phrases 'Google approved SEO', 'Get You Page Rank', 'Hummingbird, panda, and penguin proof SEO' and '500 words, native-written content'."

All of the similar wording indicates that a company has little to no idea what the search marketing landscape really is in 2016. They are unqualified and are still stuck in the early 00s era, when all you had to do is publish keyword-optimized content, add a few shady links in tow and get those rankings.

However, things change fast in the world of search marketing with Google rolling algorithm updates at least a few times per year, thus changing the rule set for marketers.

"When looking for a decent SEO agency, take your time to do some digging. Look into their blog and read the content they publish – the quality of articles and advice given can say a ton about their services. Read the reviews and testimonials, and ask if they feel comfortable providing any case studies from previous clients. Don't chase after the cheapest and fastest solutions. Those are likely to bring more harm, than value to your website," advises McDonald.

Learn to Find Untapped Link-Building Opportunities

"What most SEO companies do these days is just offering the very same link building package and scheme for all the clients they have without doing any proper niche or link profile analysis. Unfortunately, things don't work exactly the same for everyone. Do you want to get your website mentioned in lines with some shady payday loan service? Highly unlikely!"

Links are still one of the key ranking elements these days. Yet it's not the quantity, but the quality that matters. Rather than choosing to buy a package, look for companies offering custom outreach services, detailed niche research and a variety of link building options that come in tow.

In fact, according to McDonald you can create a good chunk of quality, natural links in 24 hours or less. The options include: creating local business listing pages and getting listed in business directories (Yelp, BBB etc); sponsoring an event or getting listed as a donor; press releases and more.  The opportunities are out there. You just need to know how to find them.

You Don't Need Links to Get Massive Traffic

Another bold statement that you won't hear from an average SEO expert. Yet, Tommy McDonald proves that you don't need to build thousands of links in order to register a massive traffic spike at your website.

"All you need to do is to have a blog at your website and learn to write the right type of content. And obviously promote it well-enough!"

McDonald highlights infographics, long-form expert roundup list posts and interviews with influencers as the best performing types of content. In each case the blueprint boils down to:

finding an attractive subject that is trendy, yet not covered well enough;

crafting a valuable, well-researched piece of content

promoting the heck out of it with strategic outreach campaign and social media marketing.

If talking about infographics, a single placement on a popular niche blog can land you at least 50 unique daily visitors, an evergreen revenue stream, plus some good branding on top.

Source: A Six-Figure Marketer Shares 3 SEO Tips That Actually Work