How to Rank Like a Top 1% SEO

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Hey hey, Connor here.

If you’re like most SEOs, you open Semrush, type one keyword, and glance at the volume. That’s it.

That’s paying for a Ferrari to check the mail.

So I mapped out the route I run every week like a subway line. 9 stops, 3 legs. Here’s the graphic, then the breakdown underneath it.

Leg 1: Research (Stops 1 to 3)

1. Keyword Gap

Their keywords. Your content plan.

Compare your domain against 3 to 4 real competitors. Every keyword they rank for that you don’t becomes your next content batch.

2. Keyword Magic

Filter by intent, not volume.

Sort BOFU first, then MOFU. Don’t chase high volume with zero buying intent.

Also, this is where most people get off the line. They type a keyword and leave. The top 1% keep riding.

3. Topic Research

Cluster it. Hub and spoke. Stop chasing one keyword per article.

When we built out clusters this way for EcomBalance, a bookkeeping brand I co-founded, we went from zero to 1.4M Google impressions and 3,700+ ranking keywords.

Depth around a topic will always beat scattering one-off posts.

Leg 2: Diagnose + Build (Stops 4 to 6)

The line splits here into two branches: technical and content. Run both.

4. Site Audit 

This flags 140 issues. For most sites, only 5 actually matter. Ignore the warnings for all 140. Fix the criticals.

5. Organic Research

Pages ranking 5 to 20 are free traffic. Filter for pages sitting in these positions. They’re one update away from page one.

6. SEO Content Template

Reverse engineer the top 10. Drop in your target keyword and let it show you what’s already working.

Now, your content brief will practically write itself.

Leg 3: Compound (Stops 7 to 9)

The branches merge back into one line.

7. Backlink Gap.

Steal their links. Run it against your top 3 competitors, and find the sites linking to them instead of you.

8. Position Tracking

Watch movement, not vanity rankings. Set it once, then check weekly. The trend line tells you where to spend your time next.

9. AI Visibility

Are you being cited in ChatGPT?

Track where you and your competitors get named in AI search. Google isn’t the only place people look anymore.

Then you run the line again. Monthly.

The data was never the advantage.

Everyone has access to the same tool.

The edge is knowing which stop to get off at and in what order. That’s how you get real results.

Which stop do you actually get off at first?

Cheers,

Connor

Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

1. My SEO Course: “The SEO System” teaches the exact daily, weekly, and monthly SEO processes I’ve used to scale multiple companies to 6, 7, & 8 figures in sales. Available for pre-sale now!

2. TrioSEO: Hire me & my team to create SEO content for your business. We’ll create a comprehensive SEO plan, execute, & keep you updated so your business gains more traffic, leads, & sales. Get a Free SEO Audit.

3. Promote yourself to 100,000+ SEOs, marketers, & entrepreneurs by sponsoring this newsletter and my social channels. (Booked out 1 month). Email me for info.

Connor Gillivan has been building six, seven, and eight-figure businesses for the past 10 years with SEO. It’s my personal mission to create a community and services that help you grow your business by finding more people who would benefit from what you. When I started out, I wanted to make the community an inclusive, welcoming table where everyone can come to get help using high-end SEO strategies to take their businesses to the next level. After several years, and over 3000 combined followers across Facebook and LinkedIn, I will always aim to get better at what I do every single day. In addition, my primary focus is on my relationship with you. This way every time you interact with me, you end up getting ideas that take your project to the next level. I particularly appreciate when my following provides feedback via testimonials, reviews, and comments left on my site or social media accounts. Because with that feedback, I can use it to make your next experience even better than the last. Since I put so much effort into my relationship with you, I hope that any investment in me is exactly the way you hoped it would be. Because by choosing to utilize my services, it’s my promise that I will provide an experience that you will love over and over again. Now, as much as I care about making the world a better and more efficient place for businesses like yours, I also care about your privacy. I’m committed to the right to your privacy and strive to provide a safe and secure user experience. My Privacy Policy, to which you can find a link at the bottom of my website homepage, explains how I collect, store and use personal information, provided by you on my website. It also explains important information that ensures I won’t abuse the information that you provide to me in good faith. By accessing and using my website, you can trust that what you want to be kept private, will be kept private. If at any time you would like to read the Privacy Policy and get a better understanding of your rights and liabilities under the law, feel free to visit my site, find the privacy policy in the footer, and read it. If there is something you are concerned about or wish to get more clarity on, please let me know by replying to this email. The Privacy Policy also informs you of how to notify me to stop using your personal information. If you wish to view my official policies, please visit my official website.

When you visit my website you may provide me with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website. For example, you may need to provide the following information: your name, website URL information, email address, and home and business phone number.

In addition to providing the foregoing information, if you choose to correspond further with me through email, I may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone. It also explains important information that ensures we won’t abuse the information that you provide to us in good faith. By accessing and using my website, you can trust that what you want to be kept private, will be kept private. If at any time, if you would like, you can read my Privacy Policy and get a better understanding of your rights and liabilities under the law. Feel free to visit the site, find the Privacy Policy in the footer and read it. If there is something you are concerned about or wish to get more clarity on, please let me know by contacting me by replying to this email. The Privacy Policy also informs you of how to notify me to stop using your personal information. If you wish to view my official policies, please visit my website.