Show notes
E1132: Somebody asked on Reddit: "What are some of the craziest, most interesting SEO stories and tactics you've come across?" The answers were incredible. I go through the best stories from the SEO Growth subreddit, including a Danish telco that outranked Apple for the keyword "iPhone" within an hour of a keynote. We also look at: - How an article about a random PS5 rumor reached #1 in Google and won the featured snippet - Why answering controversial or highly debated questions directly can create SEO opportunities - How to find strange rumors and unanswered questions people are already searching for in your niche - Why giving a clear answer beats huge publishers, Reddit threads, competitors, and even the manufacturer itself - How marketplace websites have used vendor badges to generate backlinks from businesses across an entire industry - Why badge-based link building has worked so well for directories, marketplaces, awards sites, and other businesses - How some affiliate SEOs have used expired domains and 301 redirects to rapidly increase rankings - Why expired-domain strategies can produce fast results but also carry serious risk - Why you don't necessarily need a powerful domain or thousands of backlinks to rank for valuable keywords - How under-targeted, high-intent keywords can give smaller sites opportunities to compete - Why pages that directly satisfy search intent can naturally earn backlinks over time - How deleting thousands of weak, outdated, cannibalizing pages can actually improve a site's SEO performance - Why content pruning can help sites that have expanded too far beyond their real topical authority One of my favorite lessons from these stories is the PS5 example. During the peak of the PS5 hype, an SEO noticed people debating whether the console should be positioned vertically or horizontally. Major media sites, Reddit threads, competitors, and Sony itself were discussing the subject, but nobody was giving searchers a simple, definitive answer. So he wrote an article targeting the question directly. Within days, it ranked #1 and captured the featured snippet. The lesson is simple: pay attention to the questions, rumors, disagreements, and problems people in your market are already discussing. Then look at the search results. If everyone ranking is dancing around the question instead of answering it clearly, there may be an opportunity to create the page that actually gives searchers what they came for. ⭐️ Reddit: What are some of the craziest, most interesting SEO stories and tactics you've come across? - https://www.reddit.com/r/seogrowth/comments/1vhv8si/what_are_some_of_the_craziest_most_interesting/ ⭐️ Ep 1120 - You Don't Need 1,000 Backlinks to Rank on Google (Here's What Actually Works) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dwPZu9rjt8 ⭐️ Ep 976 - The AI Clickbait King: How One SEO Built 9,000 Websites - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8w4-MOG_0M ⭐️ Ep 1030 - Keyword Cannibalization: Why Your SEO Pages Compete (And How to Fix It) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3jrXrau6kE ⭐️ Ep 989 - Google's Helpful Content Update DESTROYED the Internet (What Actually Happened) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YLUFjYrIEA 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Reddit SEO Stories Intro 00:16 Outranking Apple Fast 01:54 PS5 Rumor Snippet Win 03:18 Turn Rumors Into Pages 04:40 Earn Links Naturally 05:15 Badge Backlink Strategy 06:21 Expired Domains and 301s 07:17 High Intent SEO 08:41 Delete Content to Grow 10:08 Wrap Up and Thanks The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #growthhacking