More from @noelcetaSEO

Nov 6

Clients always ask: “How much should we spend on SEO?”

The answer isn’t a number. It’s a formula.

Here’s the budget calculator framework: 🧵

1/ The wrong way to budget:

Most companies pick arbitrary numbers:

❌ “Let’s spend $2K/month” (based on what?) ❌ “Whatever competitors spend” (different goals) ❌ “What we have left over” (recipe for failure) ❌ “10% of marketing budget” (no logic)

Budget should be based on goals and market reality.

2/ The SEO budget formula:

Monthly SEO Budget = (Goal Revenue ÷ Conversion Value) × Cost Per Acquisition ÷ 12

Variables you need:

• Annual revenue goal from SEO
• Average customer value
• Target conversion rate
• Competitive difficulty score
• Current domain authority

Let’s break this down:

Read 14 tweets

Nov 5

301 vs 302. 410 vs 404. 503 vs 500.

Most developers think these are interchangeable.

They’re not.

Wrong status code cost a client 40% of their link equity. Another client’s 503 errors during maintenance = 8-week ranking recovery.

The HTTP status codes that actually matter for SEO: 🧵👇

1/ The redirect mistake: 301 vs 302

301 = Permanent redirect

• Passes 90-95% of link equity
• Tells Google: old page is gone forever
• New page inherits rankings

302 = Temporary redirect

• Passes minimal link equity
• Google keeps indexing old page
• Rankings don’t transfer

Client used 302 for redesign. Lost all rankings. Took 6 months to recover.

Always use 301 unless truly temporary.

2/ The deletion decision: 404 vs 410

404 = Not Found

• Page doesn’t exist (maybe temporarily)
• Google recrawls periodically
• Keeps in index for weeks

410 = Gone

• Page deleted permanently
• Google drops from index immediately
• Faster cleanup

Use 410 for:

• Discontinued products
• Expired promotions
• Removed content

Use 404 for:

• Typo URLs (never existed)
• Temporarily unavailable

Read 9 tweets

Nov 4

Client spent $15K on content. $10K on link building. $5K on technical optimization.

Traffic still sucked.

The problem? $5/month shared hosting.

Server response time: 3.2 seconds. Google crawled 80% less than competitors.

Switched hosting → traffic increased 210% in 5 weeks: 🧵👇

1/ Server response time kills rankings

TTFB (Time to First Byte) matters:

Under 200ms: Excellent 200-500ms: Good 500ms-1s: Problematic Over 1s: Rankings killer

Client’s cheap hosting:

• TTFB: 3,200ms
• Google crawled slowly
• Crawl budget wasted
• Pages took weeks to index

Competitor on good hosting:

• TTFB: 180ms
• Google crawled aggressively
• Fast indexing

2/ The shared hosting disaster

Shared hosting problems:

• Share server with 100+ sites
• One site gets traffic spike → your site slows
• Limited resources (CPU, RAM)
• Slow database queries
• No server-level caching

Client on GoDaddy shared:

• 500 sites on same server
• Neighbor site got DDoS attack
• Client’s site went down
• Google couldn’t crawl for 3 days
• Rankings tanked

Read 9 tweets

Nov 4

I analyzed link acquisition patterns across 1,000 websites over 18 months.

Found the “Goldilocks zone” for link velocity that maximizes rankings without triggering penalties.

Here’s what the data revealed: 🧵

1/ The study parameters:

Sample size breakdown:

• 1,000 websites tracked (B2B SaaS and ecommerce)
• 200 new sites (0-12 months old)
• 400 established sites (1-3 years)
• 400 mature sites (3+ years)
• Tracked monthly for 18 months
• Measured: link velocity, rankings, penalties
• Total links tracked: 487,000+

2/ Link velocity by site age (optimal ranges):

New sites (0-12 months):

• Safe zone: 5-10 links/month
• Growth zone: 10-15 links/month
• Risk zone: 15+ links/month
• Penalty rate >30 links/month: 23%

Established sites (1-3 years):

• Safe zone: 5-15 links/month
• Growth zone: 10-20 links/month
• Risk zone: 25+ links/month
• Penalty rate >50 links/month: 18%

Mature sites (3+ years):

• Safe zone: 15-30 links/month
• Growth zone: 20-40 links/month
• Risk zone: 50+ links/month
• Penalty rate >70 links/month: 12%

Read 10 tweets

Nov 3

A local HVAC company was getting 30 leads per month from their website.

18 months later: 200+ qualified leads monthly.

Here’s the complete local SEO transformation: 🧵

1/ Starting point (Month 0):

Business: HVAC services in Phoenix metro

Website metrics:

• 840 monthly organic sessions
• 30 leads/month (3.5% conversion rate)
• Ranking for 23 local keywords
• Google Business Profile: 4.2 stars, 87 reviews
• 3 service pages, 12 blog posts
• Zero local citations

Revenue from website: ~$45K/month

2/ The transformation strategy (7 pillars):

1. Google Business Profile optimization 2. Local citation building 3. Service area page expansion 4. Content strategy (local-focused) 5. Review generation system 6. Local link acquisition 7. Technical local SEO

Each pillar built on the previous foundation.

Read 13 tweets

Nov 3

The $500/month SEO agency destroyed a client’s 10-year-old domain in 4 months.

The $8K/month agency grew their traffic 340% in the same timeframe.

Here’s why quality SEO can’t be cheap: 🧵

1/ The math doesn’t lie:

Quality SEO requires real labor hours:

Minimum monthly deliverables:

• Technical audit & fixes: 12 hours
• Keyword research & strategy: 8 hours
• Content creation (4 articles): 40 hours
• Link building (15-20 links): 30 hours
• Reporting & analysis: 6 hours
• Client communication: 4 hours

Total: 100 hours/month minimum

2/ Breaking down the real costs:

At 100 hours monthly with qualified team:

SEO Strategist ($100-150/hr): 20 hrs = $2,000-3,000 Content Writer ($50-80/hr): 40 hrs = $2,000-3,200 Link Builder ($60-90/hr): 30 hrs = $1,800-2,700 Technical SEO ($80-120/hr): 10 hrs = $800-1,200

Labor alone: $6,600-10,100/month

Before tools, overhead, or profit margin.

Read 11 tweets