I run a business that sells shoes, and I’m trying to figure out how to rank higher in my local area.
My website has different sections for hiking boots, running shoes, athletic shoes, and so on.
The goal is to rank for ‘shoes’ in my area to drive both online and in-store sales.
By ‘old school’ SEO, I mean things like:
Pages with links to local hiking clubs.
Blog posts about hiking trails around town with links to our hiking boots page.
YouTube videos hiking local trails, with our store name, city, and product info in the description, linking back to the site.
Posts announcing new brands or products we carry with links to relevant sales pages.
Guides like ‘How to choose the best hiking boot’ that lead people to our products.
General posts about local events or info, mentioning our store and town name.
I’d repeat the process for running shoes, local trails, and athletic gear.
The idea is to create content that tells Google (and local customers) who we are, what we sell, and that we’re active in the area. Hopefully, this helps us show up for more searches even if the topic isn’t directly about shoes.
This can still work, but don’t forget the basics. Make sure your site loads fast, works well on phones, has good internal linking, and that you build some solid backlinks.
Honestly, I wouldn’t even call this old school. What you’re doing sounds like solid, practical SEO. You’re showing Google that you’re a real business, in a real location, with helpful content. That’s exactly what works.
The part about linking to local clubs or groups is a nice touch – local links help more than people think. I did something similar for a site in Los Angeles. Wrote a guide on local stuff, linked to things like Craigslist and local directories, and it performed great because it answered a local question specifically for that city. It wasn’t some generic post that could apply to anywhere.
So yeah, if this is what you call ‘old school SEO’, it’s still working and might even work better now. A lot of SEO hasn’t changed as much as people say – it’s just harder to trick the system. Focus on useful content, structure your site well, and keep building real links that are relevant to your area and niche.