34 SEO Hacks Proven To Work

I’m a full-time SEO.

I’ve been doing SEO since 2002 – yes – that long; and in this resource, I list out some of the most useful SEO Hacks that I have used over the years. Most of them have worked great; so I’m pleased to be able to share them with you. It’s by no means complete and I will be adding to this resource over the year.

SEO Hacks 1: Create Round-Up Posts Featuring Influencers

This SEO hack one is as old as the hills but I still use it often.

It works, and that’s why I continue to use it and mention it in this resource.

Get into the habit of reaching out to influencers or professionals within your community that can contribute content to your marketing efforts.

One way to action the above is to create regular “Expert Roundups”.

The concept is that you contact between five to fifteen professionals that have decent exposure in your niche and ask them three or four questions relating to how they solved a particular problem (for example).

You’ll soon realize that everyone has an ego and when you start contacting people they’ll positively reply and create a bunch of keyword-rich replies to your questions.

Roundup posts like this are a great way of providing quality content, whilst also leveraging the interviewee’s network to help promote the content.

It’s important to let the participants know when the content has been published and ask them to promote it as well.

When I was promoting Cyber Security Hacking Courses I used this technique to ask professionals who had taken specific courses “how difficult” they were, and I ended up with hundreds of replies with some excellent advice.

Needless to say, that content was well-received because it offered excellent advice to those that needed it.

There’s a nice review at Search Engine Watch that explains this process if you’re seeking more information.

SEO Hacks 2: iWriter Is Your (New) Content Creation Friend

Stop spending time writing content and focus on your business.

Here’s a fantastic service I recommend: www.iwriter.com.

I recommend it because it’s cheap to buy articles on iWriter; for example, if you want you can buy a 1000-word article for less than USD$ 10.

You can even buy a 300-word article for less than a couple of dollars, and in the world of content marketing, you can’t get much cheaper than that.

What’s critical when using this service is that you accurately communicate what it is that you want.

The vaguer you are, the less willing writers will be to pick up your article.

You’re able to reject the writer’s work if you don’t like the quality and it will go back into the writer’s pool to be picked up by someone else. This means that you never have to take an article you are not satisfied with.

After you find some writers you like on iWriter, you can select them as your ‘favorite writers’ so that you get the same quality each and every time instead of wondering who is going to write your article and whether it will be any good; this is a great feature and will save you a bunch of time.

Elite writers are generally really excellent writers, and they are worth the extra few dollars that you have to spend.

How do you find content to publish and send to iWriter?

Head over to BuzzSumo and see what is trending in your niche, i.e. find out what content does well.

Once you’ve discovered a title and content of interest, send it over to iWriter and publish it on your site.

Do the above twice a week and you’ll be looking good with SEO and your content marketing efforts.

As an additional twist to this hack, you could also create content using AI and then farm that out to iWriter for Quality Control.

The tools I’ve also used to spin content include:

• Quillbot
• Conversion.ai
• Copy.ai
• and a popular WordPress plugin called Spin Rewriter

SEO Hacks 3: Email Alerts For Wikipedia Page Updates

We’re all in agreement that Wikipedia is huge.

The site dominates the top three rankings for literally every major keyword, subject, or topic. Period.

This hack is all about getting a link from an article within your niche to your site.

Whilst all Wikipedia links are “no-follow” it’s a must to try and get a link from a leading piece of content from your niche within Wikipedia.

Before we go further let’s confirm what we mean by “no-follow” and “do-follow”. The verbose nature of these terms indicates what they do. If the site linking to yours wants to pass their SEO “juice” or authority to yours then they’d omit the “no-follow” attribute.

All Wikipedia links to citations and sources are “no-follow” but you’ll get a ton of human clicks from a citation link purely on the basis of the amount of traffic that Wikipedia receives.

From a Google Point-of-View, it’s good to have a mix of “do-follow” and “no-follow” links because it shows natural growth occurrences.

So, how do we find Wikipedia Link Rot and suggest our own? The answer is by using this tool: WikiGrabber, and here’s the URL: www.webfx.com/seo-tools/wikigrabber

Once you’ve typed in your desired keywords the tool will show you Wikipedia pages that have “dead links”.

A “deadlink” is precisely that.

So, what you can do is suggest your own link.

To replicate the value of the last link head over to archive.org to see what the content looked like; replicate it on your site, and try to get your link published.

SEO Hacks 4: Steal Incredible Email Copy

Writing effective email copy is a challenge.

Why reinvent the wheel when dozens of successful companies have done the work for us.

The site, www.goodemailcopy.com has real examples of dozens of tech and web 2.0 companies we all know and use, for example, Slack, Dropbox, Eventbrite, mention, etc.

The tags you can search for include, “welcome emails” or “feedback”, “pricing updates”, “new features”, “nurture” and a ton more other ideas.

This email copy tool can save you a bunch of time.

For example, I manage an MRR Subscription site and I need some well-written professional copy to encourage users to transition from free to paid.

www.goodemailcopy.com was able to show me some great ideas from KISSMetrics which I cribbed and now use.

I’ve seen a higher conversion rate of 8% since cribbing and editing their email copy this year.

SEO Hacks 5: Google My Business Citations!

Google My Business (GMB) is an excellent way to get more business.

In case you don’t know, GMB is a Google Map with a list of businesses (with reviews) that appear in the search results that match your search query.

If you rank high then the chances are you’ll get more clicks resulting in more traffic and conversions.

So, how do we rank on GMB?

Firstly you need to create an account. It takes five minutes. But here comes the hack which is really more of a “fact” and a “method” to help you rank high on GMB.

The hack is being able to get “citations”.

Citations are what rank businesses on GMB; and to get those simply head over to Fiverr and search for “Google My Business Citations”.

Make sure you have your GMB account set up correctly and pay someone on Fiverr who has at least 4.8 100+ review status and enjoys the benefits.

Another alternative place to get citations is “Legiit” – a service like Fiverr but for SEO/Growth Marketers.

SEO Hacks 6: Unique SEO Content For $10

Stuck for SEO content?

Then this hack will propel your content ideas and copy generation and will likely generate you a ton of SEO and ranking.

The first thing you have to do is go to YouTube and search for a channel within your niche that you respect, has huge numbers of followers, and that you know has a ton of great content.

Let’s say for example that you are in the Pet niche and you’ve done some keyword research and you think that you can rank with regards to “Dog Training.”

Go to YouTube and search for “Dog Training” and you’ll likely see that “Zak George’s Dog Training Revolution” comes high up the rankings with shy of 3 million subscribers.

Then, click on the “Videos” tab and sort by “Most Popular” and you’ll see what videos are the most popular and important the titles that are associated with them.

Top of the list is “3 Easy Things To Teach Your New Puppy” with nearly 10 million views.

The video we selected above is eight minutes long.

So far, we’ve convinced ourselves that the above video is evidently popular on YouTube, but how can we use that content, improve it, make it our own, and add it to our site for SEO? Easy. Download the audio of the video using this tool: YTMP3, www.ytmp3.cc, and save it on your machine.

Next, we open an account with Rev www.rev.com and place an order for transcription which costs about USD$ 1.25 per minute. So, the 8 minutes will cost USD$ 10 for approximately 700-800 unique words.

Now, we could simply copy and paste the content we’ve acquired into our blog post but that would be copyright, and – more to the point, it would be ridiculous because it would likely contain references to the YouTube Channel it came from.

Instead, what we do is use that content as the foundation to structure more content around it.

Head over to iWriter at www.iwriter.com and submit the text you obtained from Rev and include links to other articles that you’d like to include in the content.

Set this up, outsource the process and you’ll have a constant supply of content for your site that you know should be popular content.

SEO Hacks 7: How To Use Expired Domains effectively

Why would we even bother buying and rebuilding an expired domain?

The reason is simple: if the domain has a decent reputation, traffic, and is in the same niche as us then it makes perfect sense to acquire it and point the traffic to our main domain or “money-domain” as some marketers refer to their main domain.

There are multiple ways to validate the authority of your domain but that’s out of the scope of this hack, instead, let’s assume that the expired domain you are planning to use is clean.

There are some questions we need to ask, such as:

• How does Google view a domain that has previously expired?
• Does Google credit it’s previous backlinks and authority to the domain?

The answer to the above is (from my experience) that for the most part, Google will treat a new registration with new (basically “zero” trust).

However, if you push enough traffic to a page that links to the expired site then you might be able to resurrect that link equity and trust flow.

However, as creative growth hackers, we need to think of a way around this!

The trick here is to fool Google into thinking that this newly registered domain is the old domain again, and thus crediting it with authority and its backlinks.

1. In the process is searching for the domain in www.archive.org and satisfying yourself that the domain is indeed worthwhile with decent backlinks (perhaps you can use a tool such as SEO SpyGlass, AHrefs or SEMRush mentioned in this resource).
   
2. Head over to www.waybackmachinedownloader.com and download the old site (that will recreate the old site’s exact structure with content). It might be wise to pay someone to do all of this for you (either via UpWork or Fiverr).
   
3. Then the next step is to submit the site to Google via Google Web Console and set up analytics on the site. This may take time so you need to be patient.

Is the above guaranteed?

No, it’s not, but if you get it right then you’ll be boosting your SEO pretty much overnight.

Also, it is worth stating that whilst you might not find a site specifically in your exact niche, you can get hold of expired domains that you can move over to your niche, assuming that the domain is in the same category.

SEO Hacks 8: Testimonial Backlink Hack

This is more of an SEO digital growth hack than anything else.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) remains a vital channel to explore because getting ranked high on Google, preferably page one helps you in two clear ways.

Firstly, it instantly adds credibility to your brand, after all, you’re at the top of a highly competitive search engine so surely you’re doing something right!

But secondly, and more importantly, it allows you to convert the leads that hit your site.

An organic search result will always convert better than a paid advert.

The reason for this is self-explanatory in the sense that the searcher feels that your organically high-ranked website is being presented to them impartially by Google, i.e. you haven’t paid for the favor.

Getting high rankings on Google (and all other search engines) is a labor of love and the algorithm is being constantly tweaked, but there will always be two core principles in my opinion on how to get ranked. These are inbound links (links from another website to yours), and high-quality content.

We have discussed multiple content generation growth hacks in this resource, but for this particular method, we will focus on getting high-quality links.

Incoming links from another website to yours are how Google and search engines can gauge your popularity. If you’re the popular kid in your niche then Google wants to know why and they’ll likely send you more content checks and index what they find.

Getting these much-valued links can be a challenge, but here’s a way: offer to write a testimonial in exchange for a backlink.

Think about it.

The best deals are when both parties benefit from an exchange. The business that you’re seeking a backlink from will likely be happy to have testimonials (since as we’ve seen these are vital to endorsing your product or service) so why not offer to write one for them?

Sure, some SEO specialists amongst us reading this hack might jump in and question the “usefulness” of such a link, but I would argue that it can’t do any harm (not least if it is a highly reputable domain) and “a link is still a link”.

As an extension to this growth hack, and if you use Gmail then you can easily create a “template” with a nicely written “testimonial-for-backlink” message.

Another potential positive aspect of this hack is that it might trigger a conversation that leads to even greater collaboration.

SEO Hacks 9: “Thank You Page” Testimonial LinkBack

As long as you have a website then this growth hack is easy to apply and you’ll likely see benefits right away.

I’m sure we’re all agreed on the power of testimonials and referrals.

Why?

Because they give positive endorsement to your brand and service and help to eliminate doubt and uncertainty.

We can all tell the difference between a fake testimonial and a real one, and later on, I’ll share some inside tips on how to achieve that.

Here’s the hack: add a testimonial or an “opinion” box” on the “thank you page” of your website’s contact form.

Here’s why it works: the user has invested time in entering data into your contact form (or landing page) by entering their name and email address onto a web form. You should be capturing this “positive flow” by asking them for some content that you can use to your benefit.

Here’s my example. I created a Cybersecurity Conference Directory at infosec-conferences.com which has become the industry-leading niche event listing directory. I’m pretty much on top of Google for all the keywords that I wish to rank for and the content is mostly user-generated and submitted by conference organizers. So, what I do is on the “thank you page” I ask them for a testimonial in exchange for a “priority” listing.

The response was excellent with a conversion rate of 70%.

Being able to generate real testimonials is an excellent idea and certainly adds credibility.

Here are all the testimonials I’ve been able to generate using this hack: www.infosec-conferences.com/about/

Now, sure, some people, especially visitors to your site may not be customers, but you can still encourage them for positive action.

It doesn’t have to be a “testimonial” per se, it can be a tweet or a little gift for a backlink to your site.

For example, you could place an image of a cool laptop sticker that relates to your niche and offer to send it to the person that just completed your form as long as they take some action that positively impacts your business.

In summary, this growth hack lends itself to taking advantage of the “yes ladder”. In other words, you’ve caught a lead or customer in a cooperative mood so capitalize on that and try to gain an action that will positively assist your business.

SEO Hacks 10: Use The Power Of Google Autoprompt

Stop spending huge sums on paid keyword tools when all you really need is Google Autocomplete.

Google wants you to stay on their search engine because they make money from advertising.

One method they deploy to make your experience more worthwhile is to suggest keywords when you start typing your search.

We might not exactly know, or think of the word, we’re looking for and that’s where Google helps out with their auto-prompt.

Just to clarify: Google Autocomplete shows users useful queries while they are typing, but it also shows the most popular keywords that are being requested.

This basic but effective recommendation has been referred to as the “Alphabet Soup Search”.

Let’s imagine for example that you live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and you have a popular local blog that publishes content on local events and services. You’re running out of ideas but you want to write content that is of interest and has appeal.

Rather than go purely with your instinct, fire open Google and simply run through the alphabet for ideas with the prefix of “Pittsburgh” to your search, then type the letter “a” and you’ll see a bunch of actual and popular searches with the letter “a”.

In this particular example, the search showed that common searches were for “Pittsburgh Aviary” and “Pittsburgh Aquarium”, so why not publish a piece on both of those attractions? The title could be “Perfect Day Out, Visit The Pittsburgh Aviary and Aquarium” (or something to that effect.)

At the very least, this five-minute hack can act like an idea-generation machine.

If you don’t see Google Autocomplete within your browser then, from the control panel, click “Search features” from the menu on the left and then click the Autocomplete tab. Click on the slider to set Enable to autocomplete to “On”.

SEO Hacks 11: Clever Google Dorks

Google dorks are amazing and I’m sure you’ll love this hack. Once you start you can’t stop.

I refer to a lot of Google dorks throughout my site.

I have a background in Cybersecurity (I’m a Certified Ethical Hacker and CompTIA Security+ Certified) and this is one of those growth hacks that crosses over with hacking in the tech sense of the word.

So, what’s the hack?

When a criminal hacker tries to gain unauthorized access to data, the majority of their work will be reconnaissance-related. In other words, the hacker will extensively research their target to find weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

One technique a hacker would deploy would be to research their target’s vulnerabilities, and very often they have unwillingly or accidentally left sensitive data on the Internet.

In summary, if we’re looking for “sensitive” data on the Internet using Google then clever search parameters will do the dirty work for us.

If you’ve never heard of a “Google Dork” then try this and you’ll be amazed.

Copy and paste this without the apostrophes: “email filetype:xls” or “exported email addresses” or “inurl:email filetype:mdb”.

You’ll notice that the search results will pull up a bunch of random email lists on spreadsheets.

Now, of course, to spice up your search you should also include your niche-industry keywords.

Another Google dork I often use is searching for lists that someone else might have created.

Say I am working with a pet store client, I’ll just fire into Google a Dork like this: “influencer list pets” OR “influencer list pet store in New York filetype:xls” and sometimes you’ll pull up someone else’s work that may just help you out.

Try it and see!

SEO Hacks 12: Create A Medium Story, Send To WordPress

Medium is a trusted ecosystem.

Content published on Medium can rank really well – mostly because Google likes the fact that it is universally styled, virus-free, and has a high readership base.

My point being that publishing content on Medium is a great idea and something that you can do by simply repurposing content that you’ve already written on your blog.

This growth hack is to encourage you to share your posts on Medium and therefore allow you to get an extra set of eyes on your content and drive traffic back to your site.

You don’t have to copy and paste the same content over to Medium, instead, you can use IFTTT to create a recipe that will automatically post your new articles to Medium in real-time.

You can also do the same for Facebook, Twitter, and a bunch of other Social Media channels. WordPress and Medium play nicely together and that’s why I included this particular growth hack.

SEO Hacks 13: Slightly Weird-Out Your Visitors (Geo-IP)

This is a classic hack in some industries and it’s used by a bunch of top-tier media companies too.

What I’m referring to here is being able to mention, within the sales copy, the city (or country) the visitor is currently located in.

In other words: display different content to different people.

For example, the Guardian Newspaper (online) has a donation form that reads as follows: “More people in Hong Kong, like you, are reading and supporting The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism [and it continues to ask for a donation]”.

I am indeed in Hong Kong.

Another example is native advertising placed at the footer of CNN’s main website: “Hong Kong: Incredible Device to Melt Away Neck Pain”.

An example of an industry that does this very effectively is VPN companies.

The copywriting usually reads something like this: “More and more people in Hong Kong are now able to watch TV from their home country” etc.

The hack here is simple, neat, and effective.

The meta-data that a visitor gives when hitting a server provides this data which can very nicely be used to your benefit. Weave it into copy, or the sales offer or whatever.

For example, I use it for my Cybersecurity Speaking Bureau.

I find speaking opportunities for Cybersecurity Professionals around the world. When someone from, let’s say, New York, hits my site, then it will trigger an ad that reads: “Speak at New York Cyber Events and Get Noticed!” or words to that effect.

This is a great little growth hack because it is achievable, affordable, and takes five minutes to implement.

How can you do this if you’re on WordPress? Simple, use this plugin, If-So. The site is located here: www.if-so.com

Examples of the triggers that would display different content using this plugin include:

• Geolocation
• Google Ads
• UTM parameters
• Pages visited
• Browser language
• Dynamic links
• Referrer
• Advertising platforms
• Device type

SEO Hacks 14: Use Customer Quotes to Back Up Each Product Feature

Here’s a thought: why not add a customer testimonial under each feature that your service or platform offers?

This way, your testimonials are less generic and more believable.

As every good copywriter knows, specifics sell, and this approach will structure your content in a much more believable manner and honest manner.

Associating testimonials to your product or service features is a great way of enhancing credibility.

SEO Hacks 15: Skyscraper Technique

SEO is a tough game but it is still a lucrative channel if you get it right.

OK, so what is this hack?

The short answer is this, beat your competition by making your list longer than theirs.

There is a global race to build ever taller skyscrapers.

There is no more potent marker of economic might than tall skyscrapers, and the same psychology can be said for online content.

What I am referring to are lists; for example “Top Ten” lists or titles like “112 Free Tools To Generate Growth”.

If you want to compete on a particularly popular blog post or resource, simply make yours larger, taller, and bigger.

Remember, your competition has done the research and has executed the idea! So, let’s say that you are a growth marketer selling a digital marketing widget. Your competitor has published a post titled “The Best 20 Free Growth Tools”.

What you’d do is strive to beat that by making a longer and more impactful headline such as, “127 Unbelievably Effective & Free Tools Which Will Explode Your Business Growth”.

Just find content that you admire and make it much, much better.

Think of ways to make the content even more engaging.

Perhaps add a poll, offer more feedback, offer a download section to get hold of all the content. Once you’re happy with the new ideas go ahead and outsource it to some “platinum level” copywriters such as on iWriter.

For a top tip, remember to always use odd numbers rather than even numbers.

For some reason 11 does better than 10 and 37 will do better than 30.

SEO Hacks 16: SerpRobot Is Your Best SEO Friend

This is one of those truly useful SEO-free tools that you can use to get a real-life snapshot of your Search Engine Ranking Position quickly and accurately.

The team behind this tool has done a great job of being able to present accurate reporting on how a site ranks on Google for different keywords.

The neat thing about this tool is that it also tells you, in an instant, what the competitive landscape is for a given keyword or keyphrase.

You should keep this tool bookmarked in your browser to quickly validate any keywords or key phrases before thinking of publishing content.

SerpRobot is a quickfire way to get results of what’s ranking.

For a more detailed examination, you’d need to head towards SEMRush, AHref, or the more affordable Wincher.

SEO Hacks 17: Table Of Contents For SEO Long Form

Google loves well-written, informative and helpful content and this is one of my “must-do” and “easy to understand” hacks that will help with your SEO efforts.

You ought to be publishing an authoritative piece of keyword-rich, useful content of 1,500 words per week; that would be ideal.

As discussed in another growth hack, this can be outsourced for about USD $25 per article using a service like iwriter (www.iwriter.com) – also mentioned in other SEO Hacks in this resource.

This five-minute growth hack is designed to help Google understand, and therefore, index your content.

If you’re using WordPress you can use a plugin called “Table of Contents Plus”.

There are a bunch of other plugins you can use but essentially they all work the same, they structure your content in an organized fashion which will help the reader as well as the search engines.

These plugins work by inserting “anchor links” within your content.

“Anchor links” are links to internal content sections of your website, in this example, on the same page.

Google loves this feature because it sets out your content in an organized manner and it makes it easier to understand what your content is about.

SEO Hacks 18: Get CrowdSourced Backlinks

Here’s a growth hack that takes advantage of a huge link-building opportunity most SEOs neglect.

This hack is simple, budget-friendly, and takes no time at all to set up and partially automate.

Not only that, but this hack will also help support other businesses in your industry!

Here’s the hack: link-building using crowdfunding!

It’s one of the most underrated and underused strategies for building backlinks.

The crowdfunding link building process is pretty straightforward:

1. Find opportunities using a Google Dork;
2. Make a donation
3. Have your link placed on the page.

Here’s a list of crowdfunding sites.

• GoFundMe www.gofundme.com
• Kickstarter www.kickstarter.com
• Indiegogo www.indiegogo.com
• Patreon www.patreon.com
• Crowdrise www.crowdrise.com
• Crowdcube www.crowdcube.com
• Ulule www.ulule.com
• RocketHub www.rockethub.com
• Lending Club www.lendingclub.com
• AngelList www.angel.co

The hardest bit of this growth hack is finding the opportunities but to do this you’d simply run this “Google Dork”, or specialized search parameter:

site:[website url] inurl:projects +“link to your”
Site:[website url] inurl:projects +”donor page”

This query tells Google to only show results that are within the above-mentioned crowdsourcing sites and that are exchanging a backlink for a donation.

Remember that some donations can be as low as USD $10 so you’re really buying backlinks on the cheap.

Of course, try to make sure that you are as niche-specific as possible.

SEO Hacks 19: Domain Name Finder

What if you have a list of companies but you don’t have their domains?

This hack will remedy that.

Phantombuster has a neat pre-built scraper that will find domain names from a list of company names.

Let’s say for example, that you have a list of company names that are of interest to you and you’d like to also have their domain names, then this hack will help with that.

To get this working what you have to do is create a spreadsheet on Google Spreadsheet (that’s a must) and fill it with the names of the companies you’re after.

One URL per row, all in column A and let Phantombuster run its magic.

You’ll be amazed at how accurate it is.

SEO Hacks 20: Write Under The AIDA Principles

AIDA is the acronym for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.

These four words ought to be the mantra of every Growth Marketer.

Here’s the principle:

Attention and Interest: these are the first steps to creating genuine interest, so ensure that your first 300 words are genuinely engaging.

Desire: this is the next step that needs to create the desire by showing the benefits of your product or service, how it can change their lives and improve their problems.

Action: this is the final stage that needs to have a clear and obvious call to action.

Whatever you do, write with this in mind. Always!

SEO Hacks 21: Contact 580K Journalists, 200K Podcasters & 300K Influencers

OK, this is a paid hack but definitely worth it.

For USD $69 per month, you can contact over 750K Journalists, 200K Podcasters & 300K Influencers, that’s shy of a million people that could promote your business.

The platform is called “PressHunt” and can be found at PressHunt.io.

Sure, there are other more growth hackey ways to go and find journalists, for example reaching out to them on LinkedIn or using a service like HARO (Help Out A Reporter) but this is a faster way. HARO is a free service, and we also cover that as a Growth Hack in my site, but this approach is faster and easier.

If you combine PressHunt (www.presshunt.co) with Just Reach Out (www.justreachout.io) you’ll have literally created your own PR Agency.

If you need maximum exposure as fast as possible then either using one of these tools or both at the same time would almost certainly generate results.

SEO Hacks 22: How To Benefit From The “WayBack Machine”

Did you know that Facebook used to be called ‘The Facebook’, Twitter was spelled ‘twttr’ and YouTube started life as a dating site?

Or, did you know that if you type “relentless.com” into a browser it redirects to Amazon?

This hack requires the usage of archive.org or the “Way Back Machine” as it is also called.

For those that don’t know, “archive.org”, more correctly known as The Internet Archive, began in 1996 by archiving the Internet itself, a medium that was just beginning to grow in use.

Like newspapers, the content published on the web was ephemeral – but unlike newspapers, no one was saving it. Said simply, if the site was detected by their bot then it would periodically take a screenshot of the homepage. Their archive contains over 330 billion web pages!

So, what’s the hack?

If you’re interested in a competitor, go and see what worked for them and what didn’t.

For example, what services did they try to launch? If they aren’t still offering that same service then clearly it didn’t work for them. Conversely, see what products or services remain prominently on the homepage. If they stay consistent then that tells you that that particular feature has always been popular.

Homepage split-testing can be a costly exercise and requires a lot of variations and tweaks to find the right tone and message. With a hack like this, you can pull up monthly or quarterly screenshots of your main competitor(s) and see how they evolved over time.

All in all, I’d highly recommend you use this tool, known as the “Wayback Machine” on archive.org when researching your competitors.

SEO Hacks 23: Basic Google Analytics Hack

Use Google Search Console for two easy hacks to grow your traffic.

The first hack is to determine your top referrers, then double down on syncing up that traffic that comes from that resource.

For example, if a site with significantly higher authority links to you then make sure you visit their page and try to get a sense of the tone of the copywriting and messaging and then improve on it on the page that they are being directed to.

The point here is to decrease any bounce and to get the referred visitor to take any action on your site.

The second hack is to see which keywords you are ranking for at positions #3 or #4 or slightly further down because those are keywords that Google is telling you that with some work you’d be able to get those higher.

Simple stuff but as ever, it is often the smallest and most simple changes that can have the greatest effects

SEO Hacks 24: Steal Backlinks The Easy Way

Google does not disclose its real search data so at best these tools are guesstimates.

The two industry-standard SEO tools are SEMRush and AHrefs, and for the most part, they are excellent tools that help you easily find broken links.

Why do we want to find backlinks?

We want to replace the broken link with an asset we own. You can either ask the webmaster to switch out the broken link for ours, or we can buy the domain if it has expired and redirect it to another of our assets.

Whilst SEMRush and AHrefs can help us with this quest, access to their tools is costly.

So, let’s turn to SEO SpyGlass and Moz’s Open Site Explorer.

These tools do the same thing: they tell you exactly who’s linking to your competitors (so you can reach out to those companies as well) to get your link on their site as well, or, as mentioned, in being able to find broken links.

Do this once a week for five minutes and you’ll get some amazing link opportunities open up.

Between the two I prefer the free SEO SpyGlass community edition.

If you’re a solopreneur or you’ve been tasked with your organization’s SEO then I’d strongly suggest you execute this task once a week to see who links to your competitors and reverse engineer their linking strategies.

SEO Hacks 25: Minion SEO Is A Must-Have Chrome Extension

When you install the SEO Minion extension, you’ll be able to access some very useful SEO features that will speed up some activities to help with digital marketing.

This chrome extension will give you some very useful “OnPage SEO” data for pages that are being rewarded and ranking high.

There are five features that make this extension useful: being able to analyze the HTML of a site or page that you are interested in, highlighting all links, checking for broken links, and a bunch of other features.

In summary, why do I recommend Minion for your OnPage SEO efforts? Because it works well and you’ll get a snapshot of areas that might need improvement.

Think of this Chrome SEO AddOn as being a Swiss Army knife of fixes for OnPage SEO.

SEO Hacks 26: Broken Links

I’ve been doing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for many years and the single most consistent driver with SEO has been the necessity of acquiring decent high-authority backlinks sending SEO-Juice to your site.

Getting free organic traffic is obviously a huge advantage to your business.

You should always bake in SEO into your marketing campaigns but executing successful strategies can be time-consuming and may not generate the results you’re seeking.

Getting inbound high-quality links is golden, but getting them can be hard work.

Sure, there are a dime a dozen SEO Inbound Link Hacks we could discuss here but here’s the easiest, neatest, and most efficient way to get inbound links without really making an effort.

Simply install one of these Chrome AddOns, “Broken Link Checker”, “Link Miner” or “SEO Minion”

Now the cool thing about this SEO growth hack is that every time you visit a niche-related website on your own, simply hit the AddOn button and the script will seek and inform you of broken links.

When you find one you can reach out to the webmaster or editor and let them know your discovery by also suggesting that they replace their dud 404 links (broken link) with your link.

Now, of course, you need to be able to replace the content or at least have content worthy to replace the one that the dud link pointed to, but you get the point, this Chrome AddOn is a free and fast way to find a really good reason to reach out for a prospective inbound link.

“Link Miner” is particularly good because it has the additional benefit of letting you know the “strength” of the broken link by verifying how many links point to it.

In summary, I’m suggesting that if you stumble across a page you’d love to be linked from, then this five-second broken link hack might be a solid reason to get in touch with the publisher.

Ask, you have nothing to lose. I’d suggest creating a template message in your email client prepared for such eventualities.

SEO Hacks 27: The Great GMB Hack

Registering a Google My Business (GMB) can be huge for your business.

A GMB for those that don’t know is when you Google a product or service and you see local listings of providers relating to your keywords.

When these listings rank high then you can get a ton of leads either to your phone or your website.

To get a “verified” account Google will send you a postcard to your address with a six-digit pin. After you’ve created your GMB you enter the six-digit pin to verify your ownership and away you go!

Now, if you are staying in an Airbnb or similar, then why not apply for a GMB account and have the postcard arrive there during your stay?

You will have to order the GMB postcard at least two weeks in advance.

Is this against Airbnb’s terms and conditions to receive mail? Yes, I believe it is – so whilst I have shared this hack with you, I’d advise against doing this if you want to keep your Airbnb account alive and active.

SEO Hack 28: Backlink Offer For Service Bartering

I’ve had some great results with this hack in Miami when I used to live there.

This growth hack relates to getting backlinks from high-level DA (Domain Authority) websites.

We all know that high-ranking backlinks help, and this hack has a method to automate it to get you to rank higher.

This hack is simple and it works on the oldest human form of commercial exchange: bartering.

This hack relates to a concept digital marketers refer to as “WIIFM” or “What’s In It For Me?”

You’re wasting your time asking for something without giving something in exchange.

Rather than “asking for a link”, I am suggesting you offer a service, for free, in exchange for a backlink.

Find actionable and useful things that you can reciprocate for free.

For example, I went to Fiverr.com and found affordable and helpful Digital Marketing gigs. For example:

• Creating a keyword plan for them;
• Run a full SEO audit;
• Local SEO planning for your keywords;

There are hundreds of Digital Marketing services that you could offer that all cost between USD$ 5 and USD $10 to procure.

Offer your link prospects one of these useful services and in exchange ask for a backlink.

If they say “no” then keep moving, but I guarantee that some will say “yes”.

So, what’s the value of that backlink?

If the Fiverr gig costs you USD $10 and you get a high-value backlink out of it, then that’s a fantastic ROI.

Try it, scale it, and use a Virtual Assistant.

SEO Hacks 29: Multi-Language = Multi Markets

This hack is to encourage you to increase your audience by making your website multilingual.

If you’re using WordPress then you have no excuse since there are dozens of language plugins available that you can start using right away.

Here are two additional points worth reinforcing.

Firstly, let’s remember this: owing to low overheads and costs, it is becoming more and more competitive for SEO, Internet Marketing and generally doing anything online. This is especially the case with the English language.

The English language is spoken by over 984 million people, Chinese is first with 1.1 billion but what about Arabic with 423 million, or the 90–95 million people that speak German, or French, Spanish, Norwegian, etc?

Getting traffic and traction from these localities will help for a plethora of reasons, heck, you might even dominate the local space!

In summary, I can almost guarantee that the competition will be less in countries that do not speak English.

The second point to note with regards to this growth idea is that there are plenty of tools you can use to get going once you’ve installed a multi-language plugin.

Just go ahead and use an online translator and publish the blog!

If you don’t use a WordPress Plugin then make sure to tell your developer about the necessity of using Hreflang tags, (these tell Google which page to load for the appropriate language).

How do you know which languages to translate?

Easy! Look at your Google Analytics; all the answers you could possibly need will be there.

If India is your second most visited nation (for example) then why not translate your site into Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, and Tamil?

SEO Hacks 30: Use A Headline Tester Before Publishing

Does your headline suck?

The chances are that it might.

Try running it through a headline tester to see how it can be improved.

On average, I’d say that 5x as many people read the headline as read the body copy.

I’ve also seen it said that when you’ve written your headline, you’ve spent eighty cents out of your dollar.

Here are three excellent tools you need to bookmark that can be used to create a highly effective headline.

The first tool will help in generating inspiration.

Called UpWorthy Generator (www.upworthygenerator.com) this tool will evaluate whether your headlines have the potential to be “high-converting”.

The second tool is called Headlime (www.headlime.io) which allows you to access high converting headlines. Headlimes generates hundreds of headlines for you, generated on your behalf by answering a few questions.

Finally, once you feel like you may have a winner, head over to CoSchedule (www.coschedule.com/headline-analyzer) and you can further check to see how effective your headline is.

SEO Hacks 31: Speech To Text (Unique Content for SEO)

If you’re blogging manually, you’re going to reach a level of fatigue quickly.

The reason for this is because most people type at around 30 words per minute so in an hour, without interruption, you can consider churning out 1800 words per hour.

Once you factor in editing and proofreading you’ll be lucky to get 500 to 1200 words per hour.

Clearly, this can’t be scaled for our purposes as Growth Marketers.

The proven solution is to dictate, have your words converted into text, and have that text edited via iWriter.com that I’ve mentioned previously in my book.

The hack is this: most people speak at the rate of 100 to 150 words per minute (about 6500 words to 12000 words per day) so with editing, you can create about 4500 words to 7500 words per hour!

To do this we need two things, a tool to convert speech to words and an editing tool.

The first solution is to head over to Google Docs, hit Tools > Voice-Typing and “click to speak”, start speaking and Google will convert your speech to text. Simple. Once done you can send that to an editor over at iWriter.com.

The other solution is to send your content to www.rev.com and you’ll pay just over USD$ 1 for one minute of transcribed speech-to-text. That’s a lot of text.

They claim 99% accuracy. Speak clearly and you’ll push it to 100%!

This is a no-brainer and will propel your content marketing and therefore your SEO.

There are also other AI Copywriting tools (you should Google GTP-3 if you’re interested in that) but I find that the current quality of the output is a bit questionable.

SEO Hacks 32: No Brainer Way To Scale Backlinks

This is one of the most basic and effective ways of getting backlinks.

Yes, we all know that “dofollow” backlinks from reputable sites help with SEO, so here’s a way to outsource and ramp that up.

Make a note of the top ten URL’s that rank for your preferred keywords, (mix them up a little) and then either enter those URLs into either:

• Ahrefs (paid), or;
• SEOSpyGlass (free)

Then all you need to do is see who links to them, download the list in a spreadsheet, sort by the highest DA (Domain Authority), and outsource the task of contacting the publishers using an automation tool like Lemlist or Mailshake.

Sure, it is time-intensive but if you outsource this and perfect the process then you will have a constant flow of inbound links.

Your outreach needs to be well-written and explain exactly why they should link to you.

SEO Hacks 33: Image Copywriting Trick (Very Sneaky)

Any serious or authoritative website adheres to squeaky-clean white hat SEO strategies, and you should too for your money site.

(By “money site” I am referring to your primary domain, which is the location where you actually take payment for your product or services).

Any serious website (news or other) will follow legal copyright legislation, for example, images can only be used depending on their associated licensing status.

Sometimes a reputable and authoritative website will show an image that they do not know the status of the copyright and typically write “Copyright Unknown”.

What you do in this instance is, using a Google Dork, find images without credit and claim ownership.

Contact the publication and ask that they credit you, and if they do then you’ve just snagged a backlink!

SEO Hacks 34: Repurpose (Vast Amounts) of Expired Content

I’ve covered www.archive.org a few times in my book.

To recap, www.archive.org and the “Wayback Machine” began in 1996 by archiving the Internet itself, a medium that was just beginning to grow in use.

For example, go ahead and take a look at one of the first-ever facebook.com homepages.

Online ventures, just like any other business can end and cease activities for a multitude of reasons. More often than not, a website, along with its related assets such as its domains and content, are not being pursued anymore by the original owner.

Their negligence or decision to quit can be a goldmine for growth marketers and SEO gurus like us.

Let’s discuss this SEO hack in a practical sense.

Imagine that a competitor suddenly goes bust and the website goes offline.

You can access all that stored content and repurpose it for your own website.

A good way to find an expired site is to create an account with www.expireddomains.net and search for domains with your keyword. Next, go to www.archive.org and search for saved versions of the site (domain) that you just identified.

The next step is to head over to www.copyscape.com (which can validate whether the content has been indexed on the web), and if it hasn’t, then you’ve just hit a potential treasure chest of content!

The previous creator of the content might have spent considerable time researching the keywords to create the content, and if it fits into your niche, then fantastic! Use it!

The final step is to hit this tool called, appropriately, “Website Downloader” that you can find here: www.websitedownloader.io/wayback-machine-downloader/

This tool will download the archived website for you to repurpose! It’s as simple as that.

I should also add that there are also plenty of good domain drop catchers, www.expireddomains.net is the “go-to” default service.