How SEO Works – Advice from real SEOs

Want to know how I did this with a client in literally 3.5 months?

There is a lot of noise in the SEO world about how SEO actually works. You’re given tactics and told to specific things, but how do you know those will move the needle for your business?

We put together a group of 9 case studies from 8 different agencies and consultants to show you what they did to move the needle on traffic through SEO.

The goal is to show you that effective SEO tactics vary depending on the site and its lifecycle stage, though some things remain the same:

• Often basic SEO has been overlooked and doing basic onpage SEO and keyword targeting will grow your traffic to begin;
• Fixing a website’s internal link architecture (which is also better for users) will often show more growth;
• Building new links will often help increase traffic, but fixing onsite errors first will both show movement and help new links be more effective;
• Sometimes you just need a fresh site of eyes on your site to see what you or your SEO has been overlooking because you’re too close to the site;
• Hire an SEO when you do a platform migration to make sure it’s done correctly!

This is a living document and thus will be updated over time with new case studies.

This page last updated on December 15, 2021 by John Doherty

About the author

John Doherty

I am the founder of Credo. With 14 years of SEO and digital experience across agencies and in-house, I've worked with some of the largest websites on the internet to drive growth. Since 2015 I've helped over 6,000 companies and 250 agencies grow via better hiring and marketing practices. I live in Denver Colorado with my wife, daughter, and dog. I am an entrepreneur, speaker, writer, skier, and traveler having visited 47 US states and planning to visit every continent on Earth. You can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.