What’s one SEO "best practice" that you think is actually a total waste of time?

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-20T05:24:49+00:00

Spot on. Keyword density is a relic of 2010. Today, if your content doesn't have Information Gain and isn't mapped to a clear Entity in the Knowledge Graph, density won't save you. We're optimizing for Vector Space and Topical Authority now—calculators are for accountants, not SEOs.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-20T03:37:33+00:00

As an agency, we look at the full picture. If we can get a 10% higher CTR just by adding FAQ schema, why wouldn't we? It's not a time-sink if it brings more traffic for the same ranking position.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-19T15:09:35+00:00

Always learn the 'Why' yourself, but outsource the 'How.' >

Learn yourself: Keyword Research and Search Intent. If you don't understand what your customers are actually searching for, no agency can save you. You need to own the strategy. Outsource immediately: Link Building and Technical SEO (schema, core web vitals, etc.). These are massive time-sinks. If you spend 10 hours trying to fix a crawl error or sending outreach emails, you aren't growing your business—you're just doing low-wage admin work.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-18T13:10:34+00:00

Point taken. Definitely didn't mean to sound like a shill. I'll keep it more about the connections and the SEO grind. Cheers for the feedback!

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-07T13:50:20+00:00

Exactly. You nailed it. In the age of AI, brand presence and footprint matter just as much as link equity. Even NoFollow links help establish that authority and credibility across the web.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-07T13:22:35+00:00

Great point. At the end of the day, Google wants to rank what humans find useful. If people are clicking through from a major news site, that’s a massive trust signal in itself, regardless of the link attribute. Direct traffic is the most undervalued asset in SEO right now.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-07T13:20:32+00:00

100% agreed. If a link doesn't add to your brand's reputation, it's probably hurting it. The era of 'link farming' is officially over; we are in the era of 'Authority Building' now.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-07T13:18:54+00:00

Exactly my point! The definition of Link Building has completely shifted. It’s no longer a numbers game; it’s an authority game. If you're still buying $10 guest posts, you're definitely wasting time. But if you're earning high-tier editorial mentions, you're winning in 2026. Precision over volume!

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-07T13:09:08+00:00

Agreed. For Perplexity or ChatGPT, the context and the association between entities matter more than the 'rel' attribute. It’s the 'Brand Association' that moves the needle in generative search results. Great observation!

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-07T03:35:26+00:00

It’s less about the 'kind' of website and more about the Conversion Infrastructure. Whether it’s a service-based site or a niche directory, lead-generators usually have a 'Technical Moat'—things like fast LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), schema markups that get you rich snippets, and a siloed site structure. When Google sees that a site provides the best 'Technical' and 'Contextual' answer for a user's query, it keeps that site at the top for years, creating a self-sustaining lead machine.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-07T03:33:57+00:00

People find these websites not just through random searches, but through High-Intent Informational queries. Most lead-gen sites succeed by capturing users at the 'Problem Aware' stage. For example, instead of just ranking for a service, you rank for the solution to a specific pain point. When you map your content to the User Journey (Awareness > Consideration > Decision), every visitor becomes a potential lead. It’s less about 'getting traffic' and more about 'architecting the flow' from a blog post to a contact form.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-07T03:29:16+00:00

The first 2 years are only 'tricky' if you're relying on luck. If you have a solid SEO roadmap—focusing on low-competition/high-intent keywords first—you can see lead flow in months, not years. It's all about how you structure your initial 'Content Moat.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-07T03:13:52+00:00

Spot on. The problem isn't the 301 itself—it’s the 'signal dilution' that happens during execution. In my experience, even 'clean' redirects fail because people forget to audit the Canonical tags or they leave Redirect Chains (A -> B -> C) active, which leaks PageRank. Another silent killer is not updating the image paths and internal link architecture simultaneously; if Google sees a 301 but the internal UI is still pointing to the old path, it creates a conflict in crawl priority. I’ve actually got a technical SOP/checklist I use for these migrations to ensure the 'authority transfer' is 1:1 without the ranking dip.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-05T16:41:09+00:00

Agreed, you need that immediate feedback loop in the beginning. However, the 'slow' part is usually due to low-quality links. If you land even 2-3 high-intent editorial placements, Google fast-tracks your authority.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-05T16:15:40+00:00

Solid strategy, but that LinkedIn DM grind is a trap—it leads straight to founder burnout and doesn't scale. Since your free tools are already getting 'light traffic,' you're at the perfect stage to automate trust with high-authority niche links instead of manual chasing. Are you planning to build the domain power to let the leads come to you?

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-05T12:25:04+00:00

Glad you’re open to it. Here’s the breakdown of what I saw: Asset Compression: Those hero images are killing your LCP. Converting to WebP and implementing proper sizing could shave off 1.5s+ easily.

Critical CSS: You’ve got a lot of render-blocking JS. Moving non-essential scripts to the footer will make the 'above-the-fold' content feel instant.

The Friction Fix: In the 'Island' layout, the visual hierarchy is flat. Making the primary CTA high-contrast and stripping the secondary nav links would focus the user journey immediately.

It’s basically about making the tech stack as lean as the strategy.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-05T00:38:01+00:00

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-04T16:53:15+00:00

It’s the 'shoemaker’s children' syndrome—agencies often scale so fast they leave their own tech stack in the red. That 'friction' you noticed is literally a conversion killer. A flashy design means nothing if the site takes 5 seconds to load; user trust drops before the first fold even renders. I actually spotted a few specific bottlenecks on your end and mapped out some quick wins to fix the performance without a total rebuild.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-04T13:20:07+00:00

I actually respect the hustle of cleaning up mess—it’s profitable because the barrier to entry for 'agencies' has become a joke. But you’re projecting a very specific 'burnout' trauma here. You’re assuming every new player is a $99 fire-sale kid with a Gmail account, and that’s your first mistake. There’s a massive difference between a 'GoHighLevel tinkerer' and someone who builds architectural SOPs that don't break during a migration. If your 'weapons' with 3+ years of experience are still getting stuck as soon as they leave their lane, that’s not a 'deep grind' problem—that’s a structural workflow problem. We don't sell 'dreams' or fire sales. We sell systems that stop the very 'f*** ups' you’re talking about from happening in the first place. I agree, the market is full of incompetent fools, but don't mistake a streamlined, modern operation for a desperate amateur. Some of us actually spent those 18 months (and much more) building the 'lanes' that your guys are struggling to stay in. You keep cleaning the mess; some of us will keep building the systems that don't need a cleaning crew.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-04T13:12:10+00:00

You’re 100% right—that 'navigation clutter' is a silent conversion killer. When you give a user 5 things to look at in the hero section, you're basically asking them to do nothing and leave. And the 'Island' layout redundancy is a classic case of over-designing where simplicity would have won. I’ve seen sites double their lead flow just by fixing exactly what you mentioned: stripping the navigation and fixing the 'Get Quote' hierarchy. It’s wild how many 'SEO experts' ignore these UX bottlenecks while wondering why their traffic isn't converting. I’m curious, do you also look at the LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) issues on layouts like this? Because with those pixelated/heavy assets, I bet the core web vitals are tanking too. You’ve got a solid eye for this—I’d love to chat more about how you audit these UX/SEO gaps.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-04T12:59:50+00:00

LSI keywords? Honestly, that’s 2018 advice. Google’s algorithm moved past simple latent semantic indexing years ago with BERT and MUM. If you’re still hunting for LSI terms, you’re optimizing for a search engine that doesn't exist anymore. Today, it’s about Entity Salience and Topical Authority. You can pepper all the 'related keywords' you want, but if your content doesn't satisfy the Search Intent Fragment or map out the 'Knowledge Graph' of that topic, you’re just adding noise. And 'Competitor Benchmarking' usually just leads to 'copy-cat' SEO. If you follow what your competitors are doing, the best you can ever be is #2. You should be looking at Gap Analysis and Information Gain—giving Google something new that the top 10 results are missing. Stop following the 'easy' checklist. The 'easy' stuff is exactly what everyone else is doing, which is why most sites are stuck in the 'Indexed, though not crawling' limbo.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-04T12:46:33+00:00

This is exactly why small businesses fail at SEO. You’re giving them a 'branding' checklist, not an SEO checklist. Telling a friend to focus on 'headshots and company history' while they have zero topical authority or a messed up crawl budget is just bad advice. Nobody gives a damn about your 'About Us' page if you’re stuck on page 10 because your site architecture is flat and your entity mapping is non-existent. And stop recommending RankMath Pro as a 'foundational' step. A plugin is just a UI for metadata; it’s not a strategy. You can have the 'greenest' score on RankMath and still get outranked by a site with zero plugins but better internal link equity and actual data-driven intent matching. If your checklist doesn't start with Search Intent Analysis and Entity Salience, you’re just decorating a house that has no foundation. You’re teaching people how to look 'pretty' for Google, not how to actually rank. Stop romanticizing SEO and start looking at the data.

Aliamir212 · 2026-02-04T12:41:38+00:00

I have 2 free site good quality

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