7 Advanced SEO Tips You Probably Haven’t Seen: Cyrus Shepard

Cyrus Shepard is the founder of Zyppy, SEO keynoter, and former director of SEO at Moz–and today’s he sharing some un-be-LIEVE-ably powerful SEO tips. Some of these are fresh trends, some are just expert-level insights from a 9-year SEO veteran. ALL of these are absolute gold for SEO-focused bloggers though. Enjoy! 🙂

Yoast.

Basic Keyword Research.

Spammy backlink outreach emails…

If you’ve been blogging more than a month, you’ve probably read countless articles about this stuff.

That is NOT this blog post 🙂

Below are DYEB-certified-fresh SEO tips geared towards non-beginners (mostly)– some of which I had never heard before Cyrus shared them with me.

Buckle up.

Ok, on to the tips.

What Kind of Content Gets Links in 2018+?

In the blogging world, we’re often trying to decide between two types of content…

1. SEO-optimized blog posts specifically built around KW research
2. Non-optimized “passion” content (i.e. stuff we really want to blog about).

So #1 obviously has benefits for SEO, but what about #2?

Believe it or not, non-optimized content can be HUGE for SEO–for a very specific reason: backlinks.

In 2018 and beyond, it is more difficult than ever to get organic backlinks from anything less than unique, STELLAR content. Non-optimized blog content might actually be your best bet at getting those backlinks).

(they may not always be highly contextual backlinks to posts you’re dying to rank for, but let’s talk about that separately)

When I look at my most linked-to articles, I Believe in Blogging is at the VERY top of the list.

That post is 1,000% unique and interesting.

People linked back to it.

My 2nd most linked-to post is a FinCon takeaway post, also non-optimized.

My 3RD most linked-to post is a massive How to Monetize a Blog guide, which IS optimized…

…I had to fight tooth and nail to get every single backlink to it.

The Biggest Mistake People Make When Doing Backlink Outreach

is to not plan in advance who they’re going to reach out to.

Most of us write, hit publish, then start reaching out to folks we think might link back us. Influencer or reader.

While that can work, it’s also hard as heck in 2018 (in most niches).

Instead, we should write our content with a very specific backlink audience in mind.

This could make the outreach process WAY easier.

• Are you writing something influencers will actually link back to?
• Is it something aimed at less-influential bloggers?
• Media?
• Specifically targeting round-up posts?

The more (and earlier) you can identify the small group of people MOST likely to link back to your content, the better you can shape the content to make that process easier.

SEO Tips for Content Research

So you have some keywords and a topic in mind.

NOW WHAT?

How do you actually craft content on the page that will rank in Google? Cyrus dropped a few SEO research tips in our interview.

1 – Look at the Format of SERP Page One

Step one is Googling the keywords and check the format of the SERP top-1o.

What do you see?

• mega-guides?
• videos?
• short-form content?
• PDFs?
• product pages?

You’re just trying to get a feel for what GOOGLE thinks should be at the top of the results!

Fully satisfying a Google users’ intent is actually the most critical SEO success factor in all of SEO, per Cyrus.

Check out his infographic btw, legendary.

3 – Cyrus’s Single Most Important Question for Crafting Your Content for SEO

After you’ve done a bit of browsing through some SERP results, it’s time to ask a vital question.

How can I make MY content better?

How can I make it stand out (so people find it interesting or intriguing or new enough to link back to?)

How can I make it different?

Important Note: Don’t feel like a newb when you can’t sit down and say “Oh ok! I got it! Here’s baby-steps 1, 2, and 3 to making my blog post the best! IT’S NEVER THAT EASY.

Good news though.

Answering that question is never easy for anybody.

You and your competitors are always on the exact same playing field for any given page.

(Yes, there are several other site factors like authority, page speed, optimized category pages, your backlink profile–but none of these reflect satisfying a user intent on any given blog post).

What can you do differently in your content to make it satisfy user intent better?

Answer and profit.

(Then come on my podcast and tell me how you did it)

😉

A Bloggers Job Is to Answer the Search Question AND the Next 10 Questions

This is a GOLD SEO tip.

So you’re reaching new bloggers and answering the ancient question “how do I optimize a post for SEO?” (lol)

Now what?

Walking through the user experience, what are the NEXT 10 questions a new blogger might ask?

A quick Google search for any question yields a “people also ask” box.

Cyrus said this is an emerging trend in SEO (along with using tools to scrape these automatically).

Try using these questions directly as H2 or H3 tags in your post.

The goal in creating “the best piece of content” for any given keyword is based on being a complete, definitive, one-stop-shop for not only their initial query, but the next 10 queries on the same/similar subject.

Readers will fall in love with your content, therefore Google will fall in love with it.

Conclusion…

Cyrus is a damn-smart?

1. Arm yourself with this post
2. Arm yourself with my interview with fellow SEO guru Grant Sabatier
3. Do a quick blog audit.
4. Publish A++++ content.
5. Publish A++++ content again.

One more note:

Something else Cyrus said struck me as wise.

His own site, Zyppy, is essentially being treated as a new site by Google. His SEO success factors post isn’t currently ranking, but he’s not worried.

Good SEO is a long-term game.

Cyrus stated he plans on continuing to produce content, again and again–and he does his job producing, his current posts WILL rank.

But it takes time.

(Shoutout to my newer bloggers out there.)

The best time to start focusing on SEO was 2001. The 2nd best time is now.

Drop me a comment if you enjoyed this post!