Advice Needed For My SEO Strategy

[Andreas]

Not sure where to post this, but here is a bit of an overview of my situation. I got my own website and listed some print on demand products, did my keyword research and decided to start 'boosting' my website with Youtube videos. I created and uploaded 11 Youtube videos back in January and let them sit for months until I started posting more videos during this month. [The reason I did that has nothing to do with SEO. It was just overcoming psychological hurdles].

I now have 15 videos and I will upload at least another 15 videos during the coming weeks.

My current strategy is:
1) Create a short video featuring the product with the keyword in the thumbnail, video, title, description, youtube tags, comment and the tags inside the video file.
2) I embed the video link to another 10 social media websites. I have not been doing that back in January. I started backlinking about two weeks ago and I am now ranking for 18 new keywords. With these nofollow backlinks I managed to rank my online store between page 2 to 8 in the SERP.
3) I link my Youtube videos together after a week of publishing or when I remember. Example: If I have 5 mug videos, I will insert the links of mug video 2-5 in the first mug video and then apply this to the rest of the videos.

Here is where I am kind of lost. I have almost no direct backlinks to the product pages on my store except Youtube and Vimeo (videos uploaded on vimeo are not getting backlinks). Would it be a good idea to also link the product page directly on the social media backlinks that I link my Youtube videos or will this get me penalized by Google or get my social media accounts booted for spamming even if it's just pictures?

If I link some of my products internally on my website will this trigger a penalty from Google? I am talking about just one link in the description of one product saying for instance, 'You may want to check product X to match your T-shirt'.

If the above methods are valid does the timing also matter? If I just link 10 products manually in the social media backlinks, that's 100 backlinks in a day. Is it too much for a website that gets almost zero traffic?

At some point I do plan on doing e-mail outreach to get stronger links, but for now I just want to master the basics of link building.

I am sorry if this sounds confusing to anyone. It's a bit difficult to explain this clearly.

 

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[BizyDad]

I am sorry if this sounds confusing to anyone. It's a bit difficult to explain this clearly.

Made sense to me.

Would it be a good idea to also link the product page directly on the social media backlinks that I link my Youtube videos or will this get me penalized by Google

I don't think it's a bad idea. It doesn't really move the needle, but I don't believe it hurts anything SEO wise either.

or get my social media accounts booted for spamming even if it's just pictures?

I don't know the answer to this. Obviously if it's going to get you banned, don't do it. I'm guessing it won't, but that's just guessing.

If I link some of my products internally on my website will this trigger a penalty from Google? I am talking about just one link in the description of one product saying for instance, 'You may want to check product X to match your T-shirt'.

No. Not a penalty.

But Google does look for internal links to be relevant. So if you really want these to help, link similar products to similar products.

If the above methods are valid does the timing also matter? If I just link 10 products manually in the social media backlinks, that's 100 backlinks in a day. Is it too much for a website that gets almost zero traffic?

These are super easy links to get. I don't believe they will trigger any Google penalty for you. I also don't believe they move the needle.

I'd be really interested to hear if I am wrong.

Just make sure you're tracking your results in Google search console and you'll be fine.

I once built some links that Google considered spammy (footer links from websites we built), so I took them down, and my site was back to its normal rankings within 3 weeks. I would expect that's your worst case scenario here.

At some point I do plan on doing e-mail outreach to get stronger links

This would be the kind of stuff that will move the needle more.

Hope that helps.

 

[Andreas]

Made sense to me.

I don't think it's a bad idea. It doesn't really move the needle, but I don't believe it hurts anything SEO wise either.

I don't know the answer to this. Obviously if it's going to get you banned, don't do it. I'm guessing it won't, but that's just guessing.


No. Not a penalty.

But Google does look for internal links to be relevant. So if you really want these to help, link similar products to similar products.


These are super easy links to get. I don't believe they will trigger any Google penalty for you. I also don't believe they move the needle.

I'd be really interested to hear if I am wrong.

Just make sure you're tracking your results in Google search console and you'll be fine.

I once built some links that Google considered spammy (footer links from websites we built), so I took them down, and my site was back to its normal rankings within 3 weeks. I would expect that's your worst case scenario here.


This would be the kind of stuff that will move the needle more.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the reply.

I got 18 new rankings with just these social media backlinks so they do move the needle. Before that when it was the Youtube videos with no backlinks pointing to them, it took months to rank for keywords. After just adding the new links, I got more keywords in two weeks than in the last 6 months.

I don't doubt that this method will boost my rankings even more. It's more about not getting caught up with Google's penguin update or any of the rules they set in motion to prevent spam.

 

[BizyDad]

For me, I only truly care if phrases end up on the first page of Google, but technically "getting rankings" can be the first 10ish pages of Google. When I say move the needle, I mean get you to at least the 2nd page and ultimately the first.

So we both might be right. Hypothetically these links could push you from 80 to 40, which is higher, and I still wouldn't call that moving the needle.

I got 18 new rankings

In light of what I said, what does this mean?

 

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[Andreas]

For me, I only truly care if phrases end up on the first page of Google, but technically "getting rankings" can be the first 10ish pages of Google. When I say move the needle, I mean get you to at least the 2nd page and ultimately the first.

So we both might be right. Hypothetically these links could push you from 80 to 40, which is higher, and I still wouldn't call that moving the needle.


In light of what I said, what does this mean?

It looks like I misunderstood what you meant by moving the needle. Yeah, I know full well that you have to be on the first page, top 3 results to see any meaningful traffic, but if I'm putting myself anywhere from page 2 to 8 (that's what I meant new rankings) with just some low effort social media links, imagine what will happen if I boost further, assuming it's no spam.

And yes I know that guest posting is much better in terms of boosting the rankings and getting traffic, but that is a topic for another thread.

 

[BizyDad]

It looks like I misunderstood what you meant by moving the needle. Yeah, I know full well that you have to be on the first page, top 3 results to see any meaningful traffic, but if I'm putting myself anywhere from page 2 to 8 (that's what I meant new rankings) with just some low effort social media links, imagine what will happen if I boost further, assuming it's no spam.

And yes I know that guest posting is much better in terms of boosting the rankings and getting traffic, but that is a topic for another thread.

That's better results than I was expecting to hear. Sounds like you've got a good handle on this.

Let us know if those 2nd page ones get to the 1st page.

 

[Pat D. Rick]

Okay, I've just come across this thread and would like to point a few things out:

1. Massive nofollow links from social media pages are pretty worthless when it comes to SEO. Unless some influencer links to you in a post and brings a lot of relevant traffic and revenue (which has nothing to do with SEO) I wouldn't bother building those links over the long run.
   
   
2. Nobody likes to link to product pages because people are getting sold there. But everybody loves linking to useful educational content which is why Wikipedia is overflowing with backlinks. Of course you can also fill your product pages with information so people want to link to it, but a lot of times its a good idea to separate these two things.
   
   
3. Therefore I recommend building more useful and educational (or entertaining) content around the topics in your niche, targeting relevant keywords and promote this content to your audience. This increases the probability of getting high quality backlinks to your website.
   
   
4. From this educating sites link internally to your product pages so they get some link juice. Higher rankings for the product pages will follow.

This strategy is called the "middleman method".

Hope this helps.

 

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[BigRomeDawg]

I will mention my favorite piece of SEO advice from my friend @GoodluckChuck.

Google is the best search engine. Why? Because it serves the best search results.

How do you rank high in search results? If Google's goal is to serve the best search results, simply BE the best search result for that term.

There will be SEO gimmicks that work here and there but they're all temporary.

I wouldn't waste my time with all this linking magic, I would focus entirely on making the most amazing content.

 

[bpbrewer]

I will mention my favorite piece of SEO advice from my friend @GoodluckChuck.

Google is the best search engine. Why? Because it serves the best search results.

How do you rank high in search results? If Google's goal is to serve the best search results, simply BE the best search result for that term.

There will be SEO gimmicks that work here and there but they're all temporary.

I wouldn't waste my time with all this linking magic, I would focus entirely on making the most amazing content.

This 100%.

Too many people obsess about google but not enough about the reader. They treat the reader as an afterthought at best. The result is page after page filled with the most shallow content that lacks any usefulness to any human being. Just a bunch of vague, re-spun articles that lack an ounce of critical thinking. This, unfortunately, represents the bulk of the internet today.

When creating web pages, I've always taken care of two things:
1) Made sure that the webpage is technically valid (good coding practices) for google bots to crawl and index the page.
2) Made the best damn page for my readers that I could put together.

Beyond that, I've never worried about backlinking, cross-posting, social inserts, or whatever flavor of SEO strategy is popular that day.

And in many cases, I'm able to run circles around my "competitors" who use every SEO trick in the book. Why? Because my pages are meant for humans--my customers, while their pages are meant for google crawlers.

Google favors relevant content designed for humans above all strategies. Every update to the algorithm is meant to discourage tricks in favor of good and relevant content for human beings. In fact, every time there's an algorithm update, my pages tend to see an increase in views, not a decrease like my competitors see.

Google does not want to be tricked, they just want to serve the most relevant information to their users. This is how google stays relevant.

Also, think about it this way: google is not your customer. Your customer is your customer. Write to them! Google is just a service that tries to connect its users to the most relevant information it can. So like BigRomeDawg said, be the most relevant source of information to the user. That's it.

 

[monnffffiiiiiii]

I will mention my favorite piece of SEO advice from my friend @GoodluckChuck.

Google is the best search engine. Why? Because it serves the best search results.

How do you rank high in search results? If Google's goal is to serve the best search results, simply BE the best search result for that term.

There will be SEO gimmicks that work here and there but they're all temporary.

I wouldn't waste my time with all this linking magic, I would focus entirely on making the most amazing content.

This 100%.

Too many people obsess about google but not enough about the reader. They treat the reader as an afterthought at best. The result is page after page filled with the most shallow content that lacks any usefulness to any human being. Just a bunch of vague, re-spun articles that lack an ounce of critical thinking. This, unfortunately, represents the bulk of the internet today.

When creating web pages, I've always taken care of two things:
1) Made sure that the webpage is technically valid (good coding practices) for google bots to crawl and index the page.
2) Made the best damn page for my readers that I could put together.

Beyond that, I've never worried about backlinking, cross-posting, social inserts, or whatever flavor of SEO strategy is popular that day.

And in many cases, I'm able to run circles around my "competitors" who use every SEO trick in the book. Why? Because my pages are meant for humans--my customers, while their pages are meant for google crawlers.

Google favors relevant content designed for humans above all strategies. Every update to the algorithm is meant to discourage tricks in favor of good and relevant content for human beings. In fact, every time there's an algorithm update, my pages tend to see an increase in views, not a decrease like my competitors see.

Google does not want to be tricked, they just want to serve the most relevant information to their users. This is how google stays relevant.

Also, think about it this way: google is not your customer. Your customer is your customer. Write to them! Google is just a service that tries to connect its users to the most relevant information it can. So like BigRomeDawg said, be the most relevant source of information to the user. That's it.

100%.

And 99% of people doing SEO don't know that. They obsess over content checkers and as a result, end up writing the exact same article as their competitors. *clown emoji*

 

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[Andreas]

This 100%.

Too many people obsess about google but not enough about the reader. They treat the reader as an afterthought at best. The result is page after page filled with the most shallow content that lacks any usefulness to any human being. Just a bunch of vague, re-spun articles that lack an ounce of critical thinking. This, unfortunately, represents the bulk of the internet today.

When creating web pages, I've always taken care of two things:
1) Made sure that the webpage is technically valid (good coding practices) for google bots to crawl and index the page.
2) Made the best damn page for my readers that I could put together.

Beyond that, I've never worried about backlinking, cross-posting, social inserts, or whatever flavor of SEO strategy is popular that day.

And in many cases, I'm able to run circles around my "competitors" who use every SEO trick in the book. Why? Because my pages are meant for humans--my customers, while their pages are meant for google crawlers.

Google favors relevant content designed for humans above all strategies. Every update to the algorithm is meant to discourage tricks in favor of good and relevant content for human beings. In fact, every time there's an algorithm update, my pages tend to see an increase in views, not a decrease like my competitors see.

Google does not want to be tricked, they just want to serve the most relevant information to their users. This is how google stays relevant.

Also, think about it this way: google is not your customer. Your customer is your customer. Write to them! Google is just a service that tries to connect its users to the most relevant information it can. So like BigRomeDawg said, be the most relevant source of information to the user. That's it.

What would you do for an online store with products that need very little explanation beyond their basic description?

You can't write anything other than gift list when it comes to products like mugs and t-shirts.