SEO can be a complicated topic. There’s many ways to approach site structure, keyword targeting, optimization, link building and everything else involved in preparing a website to perform well in search. And for every approach there’s old school methods that don’t work anymore, blackhat methods that can backfire and untested theories that may or may not work depending on any number of factors. Add to this the fact that all SEO instruction you find online is catered to mainstream, and you’re likely to hit a wall in your quest for long-term targeted organic traffic.
At Adult SEO Partners we work with adult webmasters every single day to develop and work strategies that produce long-term results. These strategies don’t rely on any outdated or risky methods, and neither should yours. All of the old loopholes and tricks didn’t work last year and certainly won’t work in 2018.
Avoid putting a wall around your SEO efforts and limiting them to just one area of focus.
Following is a list of proven strategies to help you dominate Google with your keywords. Some may seem simple, time-consuming or counter-intuitive, but all have worked for years and will continue to work for years to come.
Link Build the Right Way
In recent years, Google’s algorithms have learned to distinguish between “natural” backlinks, which occur when one site links to another due to the quality of the linked site, and “unnatural links” which occur due to link building schemes designed to make a site appear to be more popular than it really is. Google has let it be known that backlink quality is one of the main ranking criteria used in compiling its SERPs (search engine results page).
High-quality backlinks are those that come from authority and highly ranked sites that are relevant to the site they are linking to. Irrelevant links will gain your site less credibility with the search engines, even if they come from highly ranked sites. Quality links can also help your site by bringing in direct targeted traffic. Low-quality links, on the other hand, can and often do attract penalties.
The best strategy for getting backlinks is to look into sites that rank highly for your own target keywords and emulate their approach to getting links. Analyze what they are doing to bring in quality backlinks and determine which sites are giving them backlinks. This will take the guess work out of which links will help you grow and which won’t.
Only get links from other adult sites that rank well and have organic traffic of their own, otherwise you face no results at best and penalties at worst.
Don't Focus Only on Target Keywords
The most obvious keywords to target are going to be the hardest to dominate. Your site might offer free porn videos, but if you put all of your time, attention and budget into ranking for that particular keyword you’ll be setting yourself up for failure.
Instead, you want to target two to three similar keywords per page and target several related keywords through your link building. Doing this will help you rank for many less competitive keywords early giving you the trust and authority from Google needed to rank for the more competitive keywords later.
Prioritize Site Speed
People have no patience these days. In a world where the internet can bring instant gratification at the click of a button, having a very fast website is crucial. If your site loads slow your valuable traffic is going to bounce and find what they’re looking for elsewhere (which in adult is extremely easy).
Site speed is also one of Google’s ranking factors, so a fast loading site is important not only for your current traffic but also for potential future traffic.
A number of tools can be used to gauge the loading speed of your website, including GTmetrix. A key component of improving site speed is site architecture, which is determined by the structure of your pages. For SEO purposes, your site’s architecture should be designed so that it prioritizes the most important pages you need to rank well (and then make sure those pages load fast).
Optimize for Mobile
This should be a no brainer, considering Google made mobile usability a major ranking factor a couple of years ago. Most people search Google on their phones so it’s important you can accommodate mobile users.
You can utilize Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to get an idea for how easy to use your site is for web surfers on mobile devices. Make sure your site doesn’t deluge visitors with an excessive number of pops, as this can attract mobile penalties.
Optimize Your On-Page SEO
When writing page titles, heading, subheadings, and meta descriptions, use language and terminology that will jump out to people. Think of these elements like you would advertising material — make sure your writing is designed to stand out and attract attention. Taking this approach can increase your CTR (click-through rate), thereby boosting your SERP results.
Focus on Creating Quality Content
Google’s recent SERP updates have emphasized quality over quantity when it comes to content. Gone are the days when simply spamming short keyword-ridden articles with very little variation from one to the next could secure a high ranking on the search engine rankings pages. Providing content that people want to read helps secure backlinks as well as motivating people to share your content with their networks, leading to increased traffic to your site.
Make your content interactive to spur greater interest and encourage linking and social sharing. If your audience feels that you are interested in hearing their opinions, concerns, and thoughts about a topic they are more likely to become engaged with that content.
Multiple short pieces of content are less likely to be successful than lengthy, in-depth pieces which impart valuable information to your readers. Google has been known to penalize sites which feature an excessive amount of low-quality or duplicative content.
One way to relieve the pressure of having to constantly come up with new content is to revitalize past blog posts. You can take advantage of the fact that web surfers tend to favor more recent posts over older ones by updating these old posts from time to time.
Search engines like Google also prefer newer content, so when you update your old posts, giving them a new publication date, it helps attract more readers and improves your page’s standings with the search engines.
Use HTTPS
The http prefix used in many websites is not as secure as using the https prefix. To increase your website security, and gain the confidence of your visitors and users, migrate from http to https. Doing so helps protect user security, especially during transactions, and also earns a ratings bonus from Google for improving hyperlink transfer security.
Take a Multifaceted Approach to SEO
Avoid putting a wall around your SEO efforts and limiting them to just one area of focus. An SEO campaign has maximum impact when it’s combined with other marketing efforts that can include SEM (search engine marketing), social media outreach, paid marketing via content or social networks and even affiliate marketing.
These other strategies diversify your sources of traffic so that you aren’t totally reliant on search traffic. This results in a genuinely popular website that Google tends to reward with even greater rankings.
Adrian “Yo Adrian” DeGus is a 15-year adult industry veteran and founder of AdultSEOPartners.com, a professional adult SEO agency catering to large established adult sites. DeGus, who has provided advanced consulting services to many leading sites in the adult industry, also operates Adult SEO Training, a popular service that helps webmasters, program operators and affiliate managers to learn in-house SEO.