The SEO Playbook That Got Us Here Won’t Get Us There

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I was planning on writing a blog about "enterprise SEO tools" for today's newsletter, but I had a sudden change of heart and for all the right reasons!

We keep talking about how SEO has changed, and we need to update our playbooks, but it can sound like a vague advice, pretty much like when Google says "just create helpful content" 😄

But I recently stumbled upon an example that could not make it any clear, that our old playbooks need an update... a big one! Actually scratch that, our playbooks need an earth quake 😄

Old SEO thinking

I was reviewing a URL that contained only user comments on a blog post.
No main article. Just comments.

My first instinct as an SEO?
Noindex it. Immediately.

After all, the golden rule we’ve lived by for years is:
only index pages for things people are actually searching for.

And a page that’s nothing but comments?
No keywords. No structure. No “SEO value.”
Who would ever search for that… right?

Boy I was wrong....

New SEO thinking

Here's a different thought, if those pages are "well optimized"... they can be incredibly valuable for SEO.

Yes pumping out tons of new URLs that are just comments can be very harmful to your website, since this is just a creation of deadweight pages, something we're pretty allegric to in SEO 😸

BUT.... if those pages are optimized to signal to Google "forum" like user-generated-content that Google loves these days... maybe that is our ticket to fighting against reddit!!!

Instead of reddit, this can be your website:

Of course there are many SEO considerations to be taken into account.

Note: This insight is based on an interaction with a group of SEO peers I regularly collaborate with.

Leveraging UGC for SEO

Almost every SEO complained about reddit taking out space in search... THIS IS OUR CHANCE to change that!

In fact, it is a direction Google wants us to follow. Just last year, Google announced that there's reporting available for "discussion forum rich results" and you will be able to filter the performance of your content that falls under this category directly in GSC (we know Google does not give away data easily 😄)

Obviously there are some guidelines to follow to be eligible for that type of results in search, and these include adding "structured data".... ya schema still matters for SEO.

It's time we focus on UGC on our website, it's good for engagement and building a community around your brand, it's good for user behavior signals for rankings, and it's also good to get additional real estate in search!!!

We have a 3 birds with one stone kinda situation here.

And That’s a Wrap (Almost 😄)

You've heard this before so many times, but today is a clear example.... our old play books need revision... SEO is not dead, it's being deprecated/changed/evolving... name it what you want... but things are not the same as they used to be 3-4 years ago...

That's that for today folks and see you next newsletter!

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Disclaimer: LLMs were used to assist in wording and phrasing this blog.