The SEO Playbook Nobody Will Sell You

If you paid for SEO advice, you probably got scammed. Not because the advice was wrong, but because it was incomplete. The SEO industry survives by parceling out information slowly, wrapping basic concepts in proprietary frameworks, and convincing you that you need ongoing "expertise" to navigate the ever-changing landscape.

Here is everything I know about SEO after doing it for 20+ years. This is the playbook. Not a teaser. Not a lead magnet. The actual playbook.

The Brutal Truth About What Matters

SEO has three levers. Only three. Everything else is noise.

Lever 1: Can Google find and understand your content? This is technical SEO. It is a prerequisite, not a strategy. If your site is broken, nothing else matters. If your site works, technical SEO is done. There is no ongoing "technical SEO work" for a functioning website.

Lever 2: Does your content deserve to rank? This is the hard part. Your content needs to be the best answer to the query. Not good. Not comprehensive. The best. If it is not the best, it will not rank. Full stop.

Lever 3: Does Google trust your site? This is authority. It comes from other sites linking to you because your content is genuinely valuable. Not because you paid for links or did "outreach." Because you made something worth referencing.

That is it. Those are the three levers. Every SEO tactic either pulls one of these levers or it is theater.

The Technical Checklist (Do This Once)

Here is every technical SEO task that matters. Do these once. Check them quarterly. Stop obsessing.

Indexation: Go to Google Search Console. Look at the Pages report. Are your important pages indexed? If yes, you are done. If no, figure out why: noindex tags, robots.txt blocks, canonical issues, or server errors. Fix them. Move on.

Site speed: Run PageSpeed Insights on your key pages. If you score above 50 on mobile, you are fine. Truly. Google has said Core Web Vitals are a tiebreaker, not a primary ranking factor. A fast site that says nothing will lose to a slow site with the best content. Bikeshedding over milliseconds while your content is mediocre is a special kind of self-sabotage. Optimize if you want, but do not let speed theater delay your actual work.

Mobile usability: Does your site work on a phone? Can people read it, tap buttons, fill out forms? Yes? Done.

HTTPS: Is your site on HTTPS? Yes? Done.

Crawlability: Can Google reach all your important pages through internal links? Is your sitemap submitted and accurate? Yes? Done.

That is the entire technical checklist. If someone is billing you monthly for "technical SEO," ask them what they are actually doing. The answer is usually "monitoring," which means "checking things that rarely change and sending you reports about it."

How to Create Content That Actually Ranks

Forget everything you have heard about keyword research, content calendars, and posting frequency. Here is what actually matters.

Step 1: Find queries where you can win.

Open Google Search Console. Go to Performance. Look at queries where you get impressions but rank positions 4-20. These are queries where Google already thinks you are relevant but does not think you are the best answer. This is your opportunity list. Not keyword tools. Not competitor analysis. Your actual data showing actual opportunities.

Step 2: Study the winners.

For each target query, search it on Google. Open the top three results. Study them. Not skim. Study. Ask yourself:

• What questions do they answer that I do not?
• What depth do they provide that I lack?
• What format do they use (lists, tables, step-by-step)?
• What unique information do they have?

The goal is not to copy them. The goal is to understand why Google considers them the best answer, then make something better.

Step 3: Create the definitive answer.

Make something that is so obviously the best resource on this topic that linking to anything else would be negligent. This means:

• Answering every reasonable question someone might have
• Including original data, insights, or perspectives
• Being more current than the competition
• Being more practical and actionable
• Being easier to understand and navigate

If you cannot make the best answer, do not make anything. Mediocre content actively hurts your site. Google evaluates your site as a whole. A thousand thin pages dilute your authority. Ten exceptional pages concentrate it.

Step 4: Refresh relentlessly.

Content decays. Entropy applies to search rankings. What was comprehensive in 2023 is outdated in 2025. Your competitors are improving their content. You need to improve yours. Set a quarterly reminder for every important page. Check the SERP. See who is winning. Update your content to reclaim the lead. This is not "content marketing." This is maintenance of your competitive position.

The Link Building Reality

Here is what nobody will tell you about backlinks: you cannot scale them ethically, and unethical link building will eventually burn you.

The links that matter are earned, not built. They come from journalists, bloggers, researchers, and professionals who reference your content because it genuinely informed their work. These links are rare. They are valuable precisely because they are rare.

Tactics that work:

Create reference-worthy content. Original research, unique data, comprehensive guides, useful tools. Things that people cite because they have to.

Be the primary source. If you have data nobody else has, you become the citation. Commission surveys. Analyze your own customer data (anonymized). Run experiments and publish results. Primary sources get linked.

Build real relationships. Know the writers and editors in your space. Not through automated outreach. Through actually engaging with their work, providing value, being helpful. When they need a source, they think of you.

Get PR coverage. Legitimate press coverage generates legitimate links. Do newsworthy things. Have opinions worth quoting. Make announcements worth covering.

Tactics that do not work (or eventually backfire):

• Guest posting on sites that exist only for guest posts
• Buying links (any form, including "sponsored posts")
• Link exchanges
• Private blog networks
• Mass outreach for links

Google's spam detection has gotten remarkably good. The links you buy today are the penalty you receive tomorrow. Or worse, they simply stop counting, and you have wasted money on nothing.

The Keyword Strategy That Actually Works

Here is the counterintuitive truth: the best keyword strategy is not having one.

Do not chase keywords. Answer questions. Every piece of content should solve a specific problem for a specific person. If you do that well, you will naturally rank for hundreds of keywords you never explicitly targeted.

When I look at our best-performing pages, they rank for thousands of keyword variations. We did not target those variations. We wrote comprehensive answers to real questions, and Google figured out all the ways people ask those questions.

The process is simple:

1. Talk to your customers. What are they confused about? What do they ask repeatedly?
2. Look at your Search Console data. What queries are people using to find you?
3. Study your competitors. What topics do they cover that you do not?
4. Create the best possible answer to each important question.

Keyword research tools are useful for one thing: estimating search volume. They tell you if a topic is worth covering. They do not tell you how to cover it. The SERP tells you that.

The SEO Tasks Worth Doing Every Week

Most SEO work is wasted work. Here is the actual high-value checklist:

Weekly (30 minutes):

• Check Search Console for errors. Fix anything broken.
• Look at your top 10 pages by traffic. Any significant drops? Investigate.
• Check your position tracking for key terms. Any alarming changes?

Monthly (2 hours):

• Review your striking distance keywords (positions 4-20). Pick one or two to improve.
• Analyze one competitor. What are they doing well? What gaps can you exploit?
• Update one piece of content that has declined in traffic.

Quarterly (half day):

• Full technical audit. Check indexation, site speed, mobile usability.
• Content audit. Which pages drive traffic? Which are dead weight?
• Backlink profile review. Any toxic links? Any new opportunities?
• Strategic review. Are we ranking for the right things? What should we prioritize next?

That is it. If you are spending more time than this on SEO, you are either doing unnecessary work or you are at scale where these timeframes expand proportionally.

What to Do When Rankings Drop

Every site experiences ranking drops. Most people panic. Here is the rational response:

First, determine the scope. Is it one page, a section, or the whole site? Check Search Console. The scope tells you the likely cause.

One page dropped: A competitor probably published something better, or your content became outdated. Study the new SERP. Update your content to reclaim the position.

A section dropped: Google may have re-evaluated your topical authority in that area. Look at what is ranking now. Is it more authoritative sources? More specialized sites? This tells you whether to double down or pivot.

Whole site dropped: Check for manual actions in Search Console first. If none, check the timing against algorithm updates. If it aligns with an update, read about what that update targeted. Usually it is about content quality or link quality. Audit accordingly.

The recovery formula is always the same: Better content, more authority, fewer problems. There is no trick. There is no hack. You improve or you decline.

The Hard Truth About SEO Results

SEO takes time. Real results take 6-12 months for new sites. Improvements to existing sites show up in 2-6 months. Anyone promising faster results is either lying or using tactics that will eventually backfire.

Here is what realistic progress looks like:

Month 1-3: Fix technical issues. Establish content baseline. Start creating or improving content. Rankings may not move at all.

Month 4-6: Early signs of improvement. Some pages start ranking. Traffic begins to grow, but slowly.

Month 7-12: Compounding effects. Content that ranked on page 2 moves to page 1. New content starts ranking faster. Traffic growth accelerates.

Year 2+: Authority compounds. New content ranks quickly. Old content maintains positions with minimal updates. SEO becomes a defensive moat rather than an offensive struggle.

If you are not willing to commit to this timeline, do not do SEO. Spend your money on paid acquisition where results are immediate (and stop the moment you stop paying).

The Questions You Should Be Asking

Before you hire anyone or buy any tool, ask yourself:

Is my technical foundation solid? If not, fix it. This is a one-time project, not an ongoing service.

Do I have content worth ranking? If not, create it. No amount of optimization will make mediocre content rank.

Am I willing to be patient? If not, SEO is not for you. Do paid acquisition instead.

Do I have something genuinely valuable to offer? If not, SEO will not save you. Neither will anything else. Fix your product first.

The Only Sustainable SEO Strategy

Here it is. The entire strategy in four sentences:

Make sure Google can find and understand your site. Create content that is genuinely the best answer to important questions. Build a reputation that earns natural references. Do this consistently for years.

That is it. That is the whole strategy. Everything else is tactics in service of these goals or distractions that waste your time.

The SEO industry wants you to believe it is complicated. It is not complicated. It is just hard. Hard to create great content. Hard to earn real authority. Hard to be patient. (If this resonates, you might also appreciate the deeper version of this argument.)

The companies that win at SEO are not the ones with the best SEO tactics. They are the ones with the best content, the most authority, and the longest time horizon. The Lindy effect applies: the longer you've been ranking, the longer you'll keep ranking. They win because they deserve to win. The best SEO is not needing SEO.

That is the playbook. Now go do the work.