The SEO Battlefield

Chapter 2. The SEO Mindset

SEO and growth hacking share a common root—the mutual desire to grow a site’s traffic—and both disciplines fall under the umbrella of search marketing. In this chapter we’re setting the stage for how to get creatively motivated to increase traffic and learn how to kite trends. Kiting internet trends is one of the most exciting things search marketers do. Simply having an awareness of opportunities allows a search marketer to expand his or her audience. Getting screen time from visitors to a site depends on how well you know who you’re trying to target and how much you can tickle them. Competition is cutthroat and new platforms are constantly emerging.

Getting into the Growth Zone

So you want to be a growth hacker. You’ve come to the right place. How does one step into this mercurial, money-making mindset? The answer lies in the right combination of experimentation, data analysis, persistence, and moxie. If another site is dominating your search landscape, the right research can help you understand why. Much can be learned from studying what is already out there on the web. I learned how to grow my traffic strategies by learning to dissect those that were in front of me.

Accept from day one that nothing will ever be handed to you; the engines do nobody any favors. The results will always favor the user—and they should. My point is that the arsenal of traffic strategies you secure are yours to build.

As Warren Buffet put it so succinctly: “Never invest ...