Give me 8 Minutes and You'll Win at SEO in 2025

In the next 8 minutes, I'm going to show you timeless AI proof tactics that actually work along with real examples how I've used them to rank number one in Google. And it all starts with knowing exactly what searchers need. Google gives you all the clues in the people also ask box, related searches, and now even an AI overviews. You just need to know how to use them. Take the query best running shoes for flat feet as an example. Right away, we see that people are specifically curious about brands like Hoka, Brooks, and OnCloud. Scroll down and the related searches show us people are looking for options for both men and women for running and walking. And some are worried about common issues like over pronation. And the AI overview highlights key features people care about, things like stability, arch support, and cushioning. And guess what? The top ranking page for this query covers every single one of these points. That's not a coincidence. Someone took those clues, wrote them down, and obsessed over what a searcher looking for running shoes for flat feet actually wants and delivered on it. And one of the smartest ways to put this into action. And the fastest way to rank number one on Google is by updating what I call sleeper content. Sleeper content means pages that used to rank but slipped over time. They've kind of been neglected and are just sitting there waiting to be woken up. But here's the thing, not every page that used to rank and doesn't today is sleeper content. True sleepers have three specific attributes. So attribute number one is that your page has enough links to compete with the top results. And you can check this using any SER overview in HFS. Just look at how many links the top pages have compared to your page. Then click the domain number to see the actual websites that are linking to them. Stanford clearly has more links than philosophy now and there's a lot of legit sites linking to them. Check attribute number two. The page must have ranked high before and definitively lost positions over time. So I'll take Stanford's URL and put it in HF site explorer. And right away there's a very clear loss in traffic. But you need to dig one layer deeper. So let's head over to the organic keywords report and look at the ranking history for their main keyword. You can see Stanford held top three positions for a while, but has clearly lost ground over the past year and a half. Check. And on to attribute number three. There has to be a clear content issue. And that could mean the content isn't matching search intent, which I already showed you how to master, or the content is outdated, which matters a lot for freshness based queries, or there's a poor user experience. In Stanford's case, the page hasn't been updated in over four years. And honestly, it reads like an academic paper, just a giant wall of text. So, if I were Stanford, I'd be looking at a rewrite. I've done this hundreds of times, getting tons of number one rankings in as little as 24 hours. I've even documented it twice in videos on this channel. This works, so do it now. And once you've got a page ranking and it's getting regular traffic, you have to do this next tactic because it's one of the easiest ways to attract backlinks naturally. And the best way to do that is to frontload your content with linkable points. Linkable points are things like stats, quotes, key takeaways, or basically anything people find so useful or interesting they feel compelled to share or reference it. Take our SEO stats post as an example. Once that page ranked, it earned thousands of referring domains without us having to send a single outreach email. And just look at the anchor text. People linked to us because of stats like 68% of online experiences, 60% of marketers, 1,000% more traffic. Now, look at our post. We frontloaded the most interesting stats right at the top of the page, making it easy for people to find something they'd find interesting enough to link to. And you can do the same. Drop your URL into HF site explorer. Check the anchor report and look for any text containing the percent symbol or any other linkable point footprint. Now take that stat and either frontload them higher on the page or use them inside other relevant posts where it makes sense. The truth is people link to content that makes their content look more credible. And if it's your page they're citing, every one of those links is going to help you stay ranking higher in Google. Now, if you really want to maximize the links you're getting from those linkable points, you need to take it up a notch because the next tactic is one of the sneakiest ways to earn back links naturally, and that's to turn data into sharable images. Take our study on how AI overviews have reduced clicks to websites as an example. In that post, we use just three simple charts to visualize the findings. And those charts have driven a bunch of backlinks from authoritative sites that used our visuals and linked back to us as a source. Images draw the eye and they stick with people more than text. They make people want to share. So look through your content. If you've got an interesting fact, stat, or insight that's earning links, turn it into an image that people will want to steal because every time they do, there's a chance they'll link back to you. Now, this next tactic is about futureproofing your SEO because let's be real, informational content is already getting eaten alive by AI. But you know what? AI hasn't replaced free tools. Free tools solve real problems and because they're inherently useful, they often have huge search demand and attract backlinks naturally. Take our top 10 free SEO tools. They generated over 13,000 referring domains and drive 1.5 million monthly organic visits. Even small sites using this strategy, like this random picker wheel site, has pulled in over 3,000 referring domains and gets over 2 million visits a month from Google alone. And the best part, AI makes building basic tools like this insanely easy. Whether it's a calculator, a quiz, a generator, or a randomizer. Just open your favorite AI tool, ask it to generate the code, and within seconds, you've got a working tool you can tweak and style however you want. Then you just need to build some back links which we cover in our free SEO course. And once your tool is ranking, it can keep earning links and traffic passively month after month. One good tool can outperform 50 generic blog posts in both traffic and back links. So don't sleep on this. Now, everything I've shared so far works for Google SEO, but here's the truth. Optimizing only for Google isn't enough anymore. You need to diversify your traffic sources. Platforms like Reddit and YouTube now rank for nearly every niche query. In fact, Reddit alone has 10x their search traffic to nearly a billion visits per month from Google search alone. Here's the good news. Your SEO skills are perfectly transferable, which actually positions you to dominate on these platforms. Here's how you can put your SEO skills to work beyond Google. Start by answering niche questions on Reddit and forums. But not just any questions. Use Google search ranking data to guarantee yourself exposure. Start by looking through Reddit's keyword rankings in HF Site Explorer. Filter for a word related to your niche and click on relevant Reddit threads that are getting a good amount of traffic. Then answer those threads and if your comments rank high there, your answer will get exposure from all that Google traffic. You can also go and rank organically on other platforms like YouTube, which is like doing Google SEO on easy mode. Just follow the steps in our YouTube SEO tutorial. That's all we've done. And last year, we got 1.5 million views from just YouTube search. Basically, if you can rank in Google, you can be successful on other platforms, too, because no one has invested more time or money into search than Google. Use the foundations you have in search to win on other platforms. Now, if you want to learn directly from the world's leading digital marketers who are in the trenches testing and shaping the future of SEO, join us at HFS Evolve, our annual conference which is happening in October. Get all the details at hrsvolve.com and I'll see you