What is the most surprising thing you learned about SEO while working on your website? We posed this question to 22 SEO experts, and here’s what they revealed.
- Align Content With User Intent
- Focus On Comprehensive Posts
- Hyper-Local Focus Yields Better Results
- User Behavior Impacts Rankings
- Answer Real User Questions
- Niche Relevance Is Crucial For Backlinks
- Adapt Content To Global User Intent
- Site Speed Impacts Rankings
- Craft High-Quality, Helpful Content
- Transparency In SEO Practices
- Significance Of Internal Linking
- Value Over Length In Content
- Patience Is Key In SEO
- Make Content Discoverable And Crawlable
- Power Of Long-Tail Keywords
- High-Quality Content And Backlinks Matter
- SEO Is Multidimensional
- Target One Keyword Per Page
- Understand User Intent
- UX Is Crucial For SEO
- Lack Of Clearly Defined Rules
- Technical SEO For Larger Sites
Surprising SEO Discoveries That Changed Website Strategies
Align Content With User Intent
When working with a client in the education niche, I discovered the value of user intent mapping for SEO. Initially, their blog focused on high-volume keywords but struggled with engagement and conversions. After analyzing search intent, I categorized their keywords into informational, navigational, and transactional. Then, I created tailored content for each intent—beginner guides for informational queries, course comparisons for navigational searches, and detailed landing pages for transactional queries.
This approach not only boosted their rankings but also doubled their click-through rates and conversions within three months. The key takeaway was realizing that aligning content with user intent is more impactful than chasing high-volume keywords alone. It’s a strategic shift that improves user experience while driving measurable results.
Deepak Ranjan
Founder, Crunchwiser
Focus On Comprehensive Posts
The most surprising thing I learned about SEO was how a well-optimized, comprehensive post could outperform content from much larger, high-authority websites. When I started my home crafts website, my domain rating was barely above zero, yet one of my articles outranked a similar piece on Martha Stewart’s site! By focusing on related keywords and creating content that thoroughly addressed the topic, my post drew significant organic traffic. This experience showed me that search engines like Google value relevance and quality over brand recognition alone. It completely changed my approach, making me prioritize deeply researched, user-focused content over shortcuts or reliance on backlinks alone.
Barbara Sturm
Agency Owner, Epic SEO Content
Hyper-Local Focus Yields Better Results
The most surprising insight from our SEO journey was discovering that hyper-local focus yields better results than broad expansion. When we concentrated our SEO efforts solely on Los Angeles rather than multiple cities, our inbound leads increased significantly. This strategy now generates 90% of our business, allowing us to secure contracts with luxury brands like Ferrari and Louis Vuitton.
Our experience shows that growing by 5% in an established market creates more impact than 50% growth in new territories. This insight transformed our expansion approach, leading us to fully optimize our presence in one market before considering others.
Daniel Meursing
Founder/CEO/CFO, Premier Staff
User Behavior Impacts Rankings
The most surprising thing I learned about SEO while working on my website was how much user behavior impacts rankings. It’s not just about using the right keywords; it’s about keeping visitors engaged with clear messaging, easy navigation, and content that speaks directly to their needs.
This changed my approach by making me focus on creating a better user experience, not just technical SEO. For example, I simplified my website structure, optimized my service pages for both search engines and readers, and ensured my blogs kept visitors clicking through with interlinking. These changes helped my site rank higher and convert visitors into leads more effectively.
Sonia Urquilla
SEO Coach, SEO by Sonia
Answer Real User Questions
The most surprising thing I learned is that technical SEO and backlinks matter far less than most people think. After years of obsessing over site speed, schema markup, and link building, I discovered that simply answering real user questions well consistently outperforms everything else.
I now focus almost entirely on mining Google Search Console data to find queries where my pages get impressions but few clicks. When I spot these gaps, I update the content to better answer what people are actually searching for: no keyword stuffing, just clear, detailed answers based on experience. This approach has doubled organic traffic to several of my sites because I’m giving searchers exactly what they want instead of chasing theoretical SEO points.
The big lesson: stop overthinking SEO. Watch what real users are searching for, answer their questions better than anyone else, and most of the “SEO work” takes care of itself.
Vincent Schmalbach
Web Developer, AI Engineer & SEO Expert, Vincent Schmalbach
Niche Relevance Is Crucial For Backlinks
I used to think that any backlink was good for SEO, but I quickly learned that niche relevance is crucial. In the early days of working on my website, I focused on quantity, securing backlinks wherever I could, whether from directory listings, forums, or general blogs. However, my rankings remained stagnant despite the effort. After diving deeper into SEO best practices, I discovered that Google values backlinks not just for their presence but for their relevance to your site’s content. A single backlink from a small, authoritative site within my niche had a noticeably larger impact than several links from unrelated or generic sources.
Once I understood this, I shifted my focus to building relationships within my industry. I started guest posting on niche-specific blogs, collaborating with thought leaders, and participating in relevant online communities. Not only did this improve the quality and relevance of my backlinks, but it also helped establish my website as a credible source of information in my field. Over time, this targeted approach increased my organic rankings and brought in more qualified traffic, proving that relevance beats quantity every time.
Al Aminour Rashid
Software Developer, Gulf State Software
Adapt Content To Global User Intent
The most surprising discovery wasn’t about keywords or backlinks—it was how significantly user intent shifts across different global markets, even when they’re searching for the exact same terms. This insight completely transformed our international SEO strategy.
The revelation came when expanding our enterprise communications platform into new markets. We noticed that while “video conferencing software” drove significant traffic in North America with clear purchase intent, the same term in emerging markets often indicated educational intent—users wanting to understand the technology rather than buy it. For example, our high-converting product pages were underperforming in Asia-Pacific regions where users were actually seeking detailed guides and comparisons first.
By adapting our content strategy to this insight, creating market-specific educational content before pushing product pages, we saw a 60% increase in qualified leads from these regions. It taught us that effective SEO isn’t just about ranking—it’s about meeting users where they are in their understanding and decision-making process, which can vary dramatically by market.
Jay Natividad
SEO Exec – Partnership Outreach & Growth, Dialpad
Site Speed Impacts Rankings
Modern life has become incredibly fast, requiring constant updating of information and absorption of content. So the biggest surprise for me was how much the speed of the site has a clear impact on our rankings and positive user feedback. It doesn’t matter how high quality content you have on your site—if it’s poorly optimized and takes a long time to load, you’re going to lose a lot of potential customers. People have become very impatient, so as an SEO expert, you need to make your site as fast as possible and minimize the time it takes to load.
We focused on reducing load time by optimizing images, using the browser cache and minifying CSS and JavaScript. This not only improved our search rankings, but also significantly increased user engagement and conversion rates. Now, potential customers are able to move quickly between pages to find the information they need.
This made me realize that the often overlooked technical aspects of SEO can be just as important as content strategies. The biggest mistake any beginner makes is focusing solely on keywords and backlinks. This is a proven losing strategy.
I approach SEO with a balanced focus on technical and content optimization. We make sure that our site is not just filled with blog posts or case studies, but is also well optimized. This holistic approach has proven to be much more effective in maintaining high rankings and ensuring user satisfaction.
Rather than focusing solely on immediate traffic, I recommend taking a long-term view. Your website is the digital representation of your product to a new user and a large part of your success depends on how optimized, useful and where it ranks in search.
Igor Shulezhko
Growth Hacker, SEO and E-Commerce Analyst, HireDevelopersBiz
Craft High-Quality, Helpful Content
I’ve learned many surprising lessons about SEO while building our website. The most impactful realization was this:
SEO isn’t just about keywords and technical optimization. The secret to SEO success lies in crafting high-quality, genuinely helpful content that provides value to your target audience.
When we first launched, we focused heavily on keyword research and implementation. While this helped with initial visibility, we quickly plateaued. It wasn’t until we shifted our mindset to prioritizing the needs of our customers that we saw a dramatic uptick in organic traffic and conversions.
Some key changes we made based on this insight:
- Developed in-depth guides on sensory processing issues and how compression clothing can help.
- Created a “Real Stories” section featuring touching customer testimonials.
- Added detailed FAQs addressing common concerns like sizing, care instructions, and international shipping.
By producing content aimed at educating and assisting our audience, rather than just selling to them, we boosted our SEO performance and built deeper trust with potential customers. This led to increased sales, lower return rates, and an influx of glowing reviews.
The lesson was clear: When you put your customer’s needs first and strive to be genuinely helpful, the SEO results will follow naturally. It’s not about gaming the system, but about using your expertise to make a real difference in people’s lives. That’s what drives meaningful, lasting success.
Michelle Ebbin
Founder, JettProof
Transparency In SEO Practices
One of the most surprising things I learned about SEO while running my agency is just how many “SEO agencies” don’t actually do SEO. It’s like going to a bakery that doesn’t bake bread! You’d be amazed at how often companies throw around buzzwords like “rankings” and “optimization” without actually doing anything behind the scenes to back it up. Realizing this was equal parts shocking and a bit hilarious (in a facepalm kind of way).
This revelation completely changed my approach—not just for how we run our own site but for how we work with clients. We doubled down on being transparent, breaking down our strategies in simple terms, and actually showing the work we do. When we optimize our own site, we make sure every element—from content to backlinks—is up to the same standard we’d want for our clients.
It’s also made me a bit more suspicious of agencies that overpromise. If someone guarantees you’ll be on page one by next week, run the other way. The best results take time, effort, and consistency—and we make sure our clients know that upfront, with a dash of good humour to keep things real.
Tom Jauncey
Head Nerd, Nautilus Marketing
Significance Of Internal Linking
One of the most surprising things I learned about SEO while working on our company website was the significant impact of internal linking. I always knew internal links were important, but I didn’t fully appreciate just how much they could influence our search rankings and overall site performance.
Early on, our site structure was quite siloed, with minimal connections between related pages and content. We had strong individual page optimization, but our overall domain authority was lagging. It wasn’t until we conducted a thorough internal linking audit that we realized the full potential of this underutilized tactic.
By systematically mapping out relevant connections between our service pages, blog posts, and resource sections, we were able to create a more cohesive site architecture. This not only helped search engines better understand the relationships between our content, but it also resulted in a 27% increase in average time on site and a 15% drop in bounce rates.
The most surprising part was how quickly we saw improvements in rankings for our target keywords after implementing the internal linking strategy. Several of our core service pages jumped up 5-10 positions within just a few months, driving significantly more organic traffic and leads.
Actionable Tip: Take the time to carefully analyze your site’s internal linking structure. Look for opportunities to add contextual links between related pages, guiding users (and search engines) through your content in a logical, intuitive way. This simple optimization can have an outsized impact on your overall SEO performance.
Debbie Chew
Global SEO Manager, Dialpad
Value Over Length In Content
It is said that Google tends to favor in-depth content, not because it’s longer, but because it generally has more utility for the reader. While this may be true, we used to spend too much time and resources writing super long articles, for example a 6,000-word article, when maybe a really concise, high-value, 1800-word article would do the trick. We do look at the depth of top ranking pages, but rather than letting page-depth drive the strategy, we let value to the target audience determine how in-depth the page is. This has served us well, getting many featured snippets and top rankings with pages that may not be longer, but are more valuable to our readers.
Doug Walker
Founder & CEO, iOutrank, Inc.
Patience Is Key In SEO
When we first launched our new site, we were eager to see immediate results from our SEO efforts. We tracked our rankings obsessively, expecting to climb to the top of search results within weeks. However, we soon realized that SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes time for search engines to crawl and index your website, and even longer for your content to gain authority and rank well.
This realization was a bit of an eye-opener. We initially focused on quick wins and short-term tactics, but we shifted our approach to prioritize long-term strategies. We started creating high-quality, in-depth content that provided real value to our audience. We also focused on building relationships with other websites and earning backlinks to our content. This change in perspective required patience and persistence, but it ultimately paid off. Our website gradually gained traction in search results, and we saw a steady increase in organic traffic. It was a valuable lesson in the importance of playing the long game in the world of SEO.
Michael Lazar
CEO, Content Author
Make Content Discoverable And Crawlable
The most surprising thing I learned about SEO was how small technical fixes can have a massive impact on performance—particularly, how important it is to make your content discoverable and crawlable. Otherwise, you will have a website with valuable content that search engines can’t crawl properly, which means it won’t be indexed or ranked.
For example, I discovered that some of my client websites were using infinite scroll or not using proper <a> tags for links (instead, they use onClick event)—both result in links not crawled and old content not discovered.
Fixing these issues seemed minor at first, but the results were rewarding—usually these clients see an immediate increase in terms of organic traffic within a few weeks. Now I make sure to do a technical audit regularly to ensure that every piece of content is accessible to search engines.
Aubrey Yung
SEO Consultant, Aubrey Yung
Power Of Long-Tail Keywords
One of the most unexpected things I learned about SEO was the power of indexed long-tail keywords. Often overlooked, targeting long-tail keywords turned out to be a game-changer, driving high-intent traffic to our site. Too often businesses chase after highly competitive keywords while missing out on low-hanging fruit that long-tail keywords provide. This understanding transformed our SEO strategy, making us prioritize quality content that precisely caters to these specific search queries.
Another eye-opener was the impact of user experience (UX) on SEO. Google’s algorithm has evolved, and now UX elements like load speed, mobile optimization, and ease of navigation play a crucial role in rankings. We took significant steps to improve our UX which subsequently led to better SEO performance. These surprising lessons taught me that effective SEO demands a holistic, adaptable approach rather than a focus on merely individual components.
Gianluca Ferruggia
General Manager, DesignRush
High-Quality Content And Backlinks Matter
The most surprising thing I learned about SEO while working on my website is that high-quality/niche-relevant content and backlinks are the only things that really matter—everything else is secondary. This realization has shifted my focus entirely, prompting me to double down on creating exceptional, targeted content and leveraging tools like Featured for streamlined outreach and link-building efforts. While I understand that these efforts will take a year or two to yield their full potential, I’m confident that the long-term payoff will be well worth the time investment. Slow and steady wins the race.
Mark Howser
Enterprise SEO Consultant, Digital Snowstorm
SEO Is Multidimensional
To me, the best part of SEO is how surprising it is for its very multidimensional nature—everything is interconnected. At that time, I first thought of it as a separate task with only keywords and backlinks in mind. But as I searched deeper, it became apparent that it is way more intricately linked to each and every observable part of my website.
Consider, for instance, the appearance and operation of your website. If the UX and UI are not up to par, even good SEO won’t keep people engaged—resulting in a high bounce rate. The other way around is if your website has awesome UX and UI, then SEO can even amplify your efforts by converting them into traffic. It got me thinking and more focused on the overall quality of my website to make sure it provides a seamless and enjoyable experience for visitors. I began working closer to the designers and developers, using a holistic methodology that has led to a stronger digital footprint.
David Rubie-Todd
Co-Founder & Marketing Head, Sticker It
Target One Keyword Per Page
The most surprising thing I learned about SEO while working on my websites has been that it’s better to target one keyword with a page than several unrelated keywords.
Generally speaking (SEO is a game of nuances and best practices), if you target your specific keyword in your Page Title, Meta Description, URL, H1, and beginning of your first sentence, you have a very good chance of ranking well for it.
The most important thing for Google is matching search intent. It’s making the searcher happy the moment they land on your page.
If you target your keyword in these five pages, there’s a high probability that your page will also satisfy search intent.
Content isn’t king like all the SEOs say. What’s king is thoughtfully matching search intent.
Edward Sturm
SEO and Marketing Expert, Edwardsturm.com
Understand User Intent
One of the most surprising experiences I had about SEO was the role of understanding user intent. When I first began my search engine optimization journey, I was solely working on ranking for high-traffic and relevant keywords. However, I quickly learned the hard way that without understanding what users are truly searching for, my efforts to generate business from SEO were not very successful. This shift in the mindset made me create content that addresses the specific needs and questions of my audience. That’s what today’s search engines are built around-to show the most relevant result in the search engine.
Sumit Pandey
SEO Consultant, SERP Bloom
UX Is Crucial For SEO
The most surprising thing I learned about SEO is how important UX is. We all talk about technical SEO, content optimization, keyword research, etc., but none of it works if your UX does not allow the reader to find what they’re looking for easily. That means no ads above the fold, ensure the font size is large enough, and especially spend some time testing your mobile version. You want to avoid too much scrolling; otherwise, people are off to your competitor.
All these factors are ranking factors as well. If one website gives a better experience than another, then that website wins in the SERPs.
Phillip Stemann
SEO Consultant, Phillip Stemann
Lack Of Clearly Defined Rules
For me, it was the lack of clearly defined rules by Search Engines, specifically Google. Estimates range from about 500 to 700 algorithm changes per year, approximately twice a day on average. This can see popular sites dramatically drop off in the SERPs and therefore the all-important clicks. SEO is not a game for amateurs, especially if you’ve got “bet the business” money involved. Absolutely no black-hat SEO ever. Stick with trusted SEO consultants and experts.
Pete Mac
Founder, SEO Consultants London
Technical SEO For Larger Sites
One of the most important things that I learned while doing SEO for my ecommerce website is that website size and technical SEO are directly proportional to each other. The larger the site, the more SEO depends on the technical part and relies less on backlinks.
fahar ps
SEO Practitioner, syed fahar
