Don’t overthink SEO

There is a tendency to think that ranking well in Google is a big, mysterious, complex thing. It’s really not. I said years ago that Google doesn’t change the rules for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and that still holds true. Things change frequently, for sure, but most of those are just Google getting better at understanding content and clearing out spam.

At the end of the day, there are just three things you need to do to get 90% of the benefits of Google:

1. Product great content.
2. Don’t do anything stupid with your site (slow load times, get hacked, etc).
3. Get others to reference your content, ideally with links.

That’s it. Those aren’t necessarily easy to do, but if you conquer those you’re all set.

Now here is a partial list of what you need to worry about to get the last 10%:

1. Have great alt text on your images
2. Use H1 tags for your titles
3. Customize your meta descriptions
4. Set up Google Search Console
5. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools
6. Submit your sitemap to Google
7. Install an SEO plugin
8. Create a robots.txt file
9. Check canonical tags