3 SEO tasks to start 2018 2025 off with a bang? A Hamsterdam History lesson

Welcome to a new week of Hamsterdam History! 🐹

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, so glad to be back at it.

This week, we’ll take a trip back to 2018 and review “3 SEO tasks to start 2018 off with a bang” on Search Engine Land via Wayback Machine.

I chose this article because there’s been a lot of 2025 speculative content published lately, so I thought it’d be fun to look at what SEOs were speculating about in 2018 and how it holds up.

The article was originally published on January 22nd, 2018 by Jeremy Knauff.

Jeremy starts off writing, “We’re just about three weeks into the new year, and the momentum you establish now can easily set the pace for the rest of your year.”

Sounds pertinent so far.

His first tip is to:

1) Improve page speed to improve ranking

Now, many of us these days know not to fuss over Core Web Vitals, at least for ranking purposes, but we acknowledge that user experience is a vital component of sending positive engagement signals.

Jeremy touches on this in his recommendation:

“Google just recently announced that beginning in July 2018, mobile page speed will be a ranking factor for its mobile search results. Page speed also has a significant impact on user experience, and several aspects of user experience are direct ranking factors, too.”

Jeremy doesn’t mention Core Web Vitals, probably because Google didn’t mention them until May 2020, two years later. 😉

But he does provide actionable advice regarding mobile page speed enhancements that still holds up today:

“Some ways you can improve page speed include:

• investing in high-performance web hosting.
• reducing http calls by merging CSS and JavaScript files, eliminating WordPress plugins and using sprites.
• properly scaling and compressing images.
• implementing server caching, browser caching and Gzip compression.
• minifying CSS and JavaScript files.”

So far, Jeremy’s advice in 2018 aligns with 2025 expectations. Of course, we also know content quality can trump site performance, but it all feeds into user experience.

Let’s keep going to see his next two recommendations.

2. Leverage a personal brand for link building

Off the bat, we know that links aren’t as emphasized in 2025 as they have been in the past. Google uses sophisticated AI models in its ranking systems that can rerank pages according to more nuanced metrics, or ranking factors, if you’d like.

That said, there’s probably never been more emphasis on building a brand than in our current age of AI Overviews and other GEO tasks for ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, etc.

Let’s delve into Jeremy’s advice on brands and links:

“Cold link outreach is challenging, and you generally don’t earn very many links in relation to the number of emails you send out. This is because you’re asking for something from a stranger before you’ve built any rapport, which is an almost certain recipe for disaster. Effective link building depends on relationships, not brute force and volume.

Rather than cold link outreach, a more effective strategy is to develop a personal brand that others want to connect with. This is easier said than done because it will require a tremendous amount of work, performed consistently over a relatively long period of time.”

This advice still holds up, as well.

We generally recognize today that having a brand fuels your SEO efforts, and what’s said about you in the offline world resonates in terms of online credibility. Links and even unlinked brand mentions are a big part of that equation.

Jeremy’s last tip for 2018 was:

3. Incorporate video into your SEO efforts

We’ve seen the prominence that YouTube videos enjoy within AIOs, not to mention the multimodal capabilities of today’s generative AI chatbots. Video feels like a huge part of the equation for 2025.

Jeremy cites two benefits of video SEO in 2018:

“The first is that video often helps to keep interested visitors on your website longer. Google sees this as a sign of a positive user experience, which has a beneficial impact on your organic ranking. A side benefit here is that you’re also giving visitors more of a chance to truly connect with your brand.

The second is that by publishing your videos on YouTube, you have the potential to put your brand in front of a larger audience through YouTube’s search results. (YouTube is often referred to as the “second-largest search engine in the world” due to its position as the second-most-visited website globally after Google, according to Alexa rankings.)”

Again, engagement matters as contributing positive ranking signals, so that’s a go.

The other advice about YouTube’s search rankings still applies, but I think the larger implication is how video is integrated today into search results, not only traditional results with video carousels but AI-driven results that feed on video content just as easily as text.

So in conclusion, I think we can say that Jeremy’s advice for SEO in 2018 is still valid in 2025. Of course, the landscape is far different due to generative AI, but the fundamentals of ensuring mobile site speed, having a quotable (and linkable) brand, and creating multimodal content still apply.

Thanks for reading. Happy optimizing! 🤗

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