In the tumultuous world of SEO, it’s hard to imagine “evergreen” SEO techniques – techniques that have always worked and will in all likelihood continue to work.

But such techniques do exist, and if you understand these techniques, you’ll have a strong SEO foundation regardless of what Google’s doing at any given moment. And what is Google doing you ask, well according to Moz, Google changes its algorithms 500-600 times per year. So, that is an ever changing platform that you have to master, but the good news is…it’s not as hard as it sounds!

So let’s get started!

Exchanging Value

Ahh, the value exchange! A technique that’s existed since humans were doing business. The idea is simple: you give me value, and I’ll give you value back.

Now, when we look at this from an SEO perspective, the obvious idea is “link swaps”. A link swap is when you link to someone and they link back to you.

This was a very popular strategy a few years ago. There were also variations on the link swap, such as three-way link swapping. This was when three people worked together to link to their sites, so Google wouldn’t count out reciprocal links.

It got a bit complicated, but it did work. Now, I’m not suggesting we go back to using this type of strategy – not even close. Google frowned on it heavily (hence the need for three-way swaps), and if you use it now, you’re putting yourself at risk of a Google slap.

But the idea of the link swap is still working completely. If you offer someone else value, they’ll offer it back to you. And this can definitely be in the form of SEO authority!

For example, let’s say I own an online store selling digital products. You buy one and I blow you away with the fulfillment process. Everything is instantly available, I have GREAT customer service that will go out of their way to help you, everything is as good as it could possibly be.

Now, after you purchased, what if I shot you an email that said the following:

Thanks for shopping at Mike’s Digital Store! If you’ve enjoyed your experience with us, please share this link on your Facebook page.

Since I already delivered massive value, odds are you’d be happy to share my website on Facebook.

This is value-for-value – it’s always worked and barring the end of society as we know it, will always continue to work.

It goes back to the old adage “It’s better to give than receive.” Why does this work? It works because you build a rapport with people when you give them something they want, something they can use. Once you do this, they are likely to give others what they received from you…this is where spreading the word is essential. So, don’t say “Like this”, or “Retweet this”, just give your readers something valuable, and they will share it with others they feel would find it useful as well.

Smart Keyword Research

Keyword research is definitely still alive and kicking. Great keyword research coupled with great content remains the most reliable way to rank for keywords. It’s not always that easy, but when you do the right keyword research, you can send traffic your way in a hurry.

And this hasn’t changed since the early days of SEO. What has changed is the way we go about presenting keywords. In the past, it was all about volume – stuffing as many keywords into articles as possible.

Using that strategy now will get you slapped in a hurry. It’s best to do your keyword research, and then write a top-quality article that only mentions those keywords a handful of times. Don’t write the article around the keywords – write the article and use a keyword only when it’s natural.

The Google spiders are seriously advanced, and they’ll know what your content’s about even if you only mention the keywords a few times. So, instead of strategizing to work in keywords to your content, just write it, and let the content explain itself.

Evergreen Content

Now, this helps us learn how to create evergreen content. That is content that stays fresh for a long time, preferably forever. There are a variety of types of content that are considered evergreen, such as:

  • How-To Articles or Instructional Tutorials
  • Product Reviews
  • Encyclopedia-Type Entries
  • Videos
  • Tips
  • Lists

There are also plenty of articles that are considered NOT evergreen, these include:

  • Statistics or Reports That Will Change or Go Out Of Date
  • Holiday or Seasonal Material
  • News Articles or Reports
  • Articles on Trends or Fads

When you are writing evergreen content, make sure you write to your readers, not the experts. Think about who your audience is before you write. If you are writing a piece on how to build a dog house, chances are an expert in the field would not be searching for your information, but a beginner carpenter would be, so write to them. SO, this means you should avoid overly technical language.

Make sure you stay on topic and avoid talking about everything in one piece. You want your readers to be interested in your content from the beginning to the end, not lose them somewhere in the middle.

Rethinking the Numbers Game

A few years ago, we thought of SEO just as a numbers game. It was all about more, more, more. More keywords, more backlinks, more content, etc. 

Now, more is still generally better. It’s no secret that if you’re getting more high-quality backlinks, social shares, and fresh, top-quality content produced, you’re going to do well in the search engine rankings.

So to some extent, we can still consider SEO a numbers game. But we need to change the approach – it’s no longer more for the sake of more. It’s more as a result of producing value.

The more value you produce, the more backlinks you’ll naturally get. The more people will feel the urge to share your value on Facebook and other social media sites.

Therefore, take the stance of winning the numbers game through the production of value, not through artificially building the numbers yourself!

Minimize Your Code

The simpler your code is, the better. Of course, you want your site to be professional, attractive, and easy to navigate for your visitors, so think of it as making it pleasing to the search engines when you’re coding. When you complete a design on your page, always go back and look for unnecessary code that can be cleaned up before you make it live. The simpler your code, the faster your page loads. We have talked about how people are easily distracted – SQUIRREL, so if you don’t get your message across quickly, chances are they will move on to your competitor's page, never to see your awesome top-quality, probably the best information on the Internet, blah, blah, blah, you get it? Just half a second can lose serious revenue for your business….so clean up your code!

Conclusion

Ok, so what have you learned?

  • Give good value to get the word of mouth value you deserve
  • Write quality content that is fresh, unique, and does not go out of date
  • Minimize your code
  • Keep things simple
  • Always strive for the best quality possible

These SEO techniques will never go out of style. People will always look for valuable information online, and when they find it, they will share it. People are only going to become more impatient as technology increases, so keeping your page simple so it loads as quickly as possible will always be important. And quality, there is never going to come a time when people decide they would rather read poor quality content over quality content.

Yes, convenience is always a dangling carrot that causes people to flock to fads, but that’s just it, their fads, and what do fads do….they fade away, sometimes very quickly. Think about BETA VCRs, they were a fad that died out quickly when the VHS proved to be of higher quality in the recording device world. Remember those ridiculous tapes that went into our cassette deck in the car, yeah, the ones that attached to a portable CD player, so every time you hit a bump in the road it skipped your CD? It didn’t take people long to realize the cost for a CD player was worth the quality. Maybe you’re too young to remember those days, if you are, ask your parents about them, chances are you will make them chuckle at the memory. 

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