Syed Nihal Shah

SEO Specialist sharing practical insights on Technical SEO, Google Search, On-Page SEO, Link Building, Schema Markup, and modern SEO strategies. No fluff—just practical lessons, experiments, and actionable tips to help websites grow.

[syednihalshah]

You launched your website.

Now what?

A lot of website owners think the next step is:

"Let's get some traffic."

But traffic doesn't start with backlinks or ads.

First, you need to know:

→ Can Google find your important pages?

→ Can Google understand what each page is about?

→ Are you targeting the right searches?

→ Does the page actually help the person searching?

A website can look perfect and still be almost invisible in Google.

Before trying to get more traffic, make sure your website is ready to earn it.

[syednihalshah]

Your Website Can Be Indexed And Still Get Almost No Traffic.

This is something many website owners misunderstand.

They check Google and see their pages are indexed.

So they assume:

"Google knows my website. SEO must be working."

Not necessarily.

Indexing only means Google has stored the page.

It doesn't mean the page is ranking well.

It doesn't mean you're targeting the right keywords.

And it definitely doesn't mean people will click.

If your website gets little organic traffic, don't just ask:

"Is my page indexed?"

Ask:

"Why isn't Google choosing my page for the searches that matter?"

That's where SEO actually begins.

[syednihalshah]

Spider-Man doesn't swing from every building.

He chooses the one that will actually move him forward.

Backlinks work the same way.

A hundred random links won't take your website very far.

A few relevant, trustworthy links can.

So before building your next backlink, ask yourself:

Would this website still be worth getting a mention from if Google didn't exist?

If the answer is yes, you're probably building the right kind of link.

What's more important to you: 100 random backlinks or 10 highly relevant ones?

[syednihalshah]

What makes a backlink valuable?

[syednihalshah]

Spider-Man Doesn't Need 1,000 Webs.

He Just Needs the Right One.

Imagine Spider-Man is trying to reach the other side of the city.

He could shoot 1,000 webs at random buildings.

But if none of them are strong enough to hold him...

They're useless.

SEO backlinks work the same way.

You don't need thousands of random links.

You need links from the right places:

→ Relevant websites → Real websites with real audiences → Helpful, contextual content → Natural link placement → Websites that people actually trust

One strong, relevant backlink can be more valuable than dozens of random links.

So don't ask:

"How many backlinks did I build?"

Ask:

"How many of these links actually make sense?"

Build links that help people first.

SEO value comes after.

[syednihalshah]

Backlinks Are Not Dead.

Bad Backlinks Are.

I still see people treating link building like a numbers game.

"How many backlinks did you build this month?"

But 100 random links don't automatically beat 5 relevant, trusted links.

Before building a backlink, I look at:

→ Is the website relevant to the niche? → Does it have real organic traffic? → Is the content actually useful? → Does the site look like a real publication? → Is the link placed naturally? → Would the link make sense even without SEO?

A backlink should make sense for the reader first.

If the only reason a link exists is to manipulate rankings, you're probably building the wrong kind of link.

Don't chase more backlinks.

Chase better ones.

[syednihalshah]

Spider-Man Has One Job.

Protect the city.

But imagine if Spider-Man spent all his time fixing broken streetlights instead of stopping criminals.

The city might look better.

But the real problems would still be there.

SEO is similar.

I've seen websites with hundreds of "SEO issues" reported by tools.

But the biggest problem is sometimes something else:

→ The wrong pages are being indexed. → The content doesn't match search intent. → Important pages aren't internally linked. → The website has no clear topical authority. → The page doesn't deserve to rank.

SEO tools are useful.

But they're not your strategy.

Don't spend all your time fixing small warnings while the biggest SEO problems are waiting for you.

Find the real problem first.

Then fix it.

[syednihalshah]

Most SEO Audits Are Not Actually Useful.

A website can have hundreds of warnings in an SEO tool.

Missing alt text. Broken links. Long meta descriptions. Duplicate H1s.

But not every warning is a real SEO problem.

A good SEO audit doesn't just collect errors.

It asks:

→ Does this affect crawling? → Does this affect indexing? → Does this affect rankings? → Does this affect user experience? → Does this need to be fixed now?

SEO is not about fixing everything an audit tool finds.

It's about fixing the things that actually matter.