Skeleton Content for SEO: The Spaghetti Against the Wall Approach

You have to appreciate the ingenuity of SEOs.  I know I do.

If there’s a shortcut to be found, someone will find it no matter the current SEO environment.

One somewhat common approach to SEO these days is targeting really long tail keywords so that link building isn’t so important.  It’s a strategy I love and use extensively.

The big problem with the long tail keyword strategy is twofold:

1. You publish content that ends up requiring backlinks (keyword research, especially ranking difficulty is hit and miss); and
2. It’s difficult to scale up into vast sums of traffic quickly unless you have a piles of cash to invest in content.

Today’s post puts forth a tactic designed to address these two problems.  It’s a very interesting tactic that you may (or may not) want to try.  Here it is.

The “Spaghetti Against the Wall” Approach

The “spaghetti against the wall” concept revolves around testing hundreds or thousands of very long tail keywords with “skeleton content””.

Skeleton content is something that can be generated instantly with software such as automatically embedding YouTube videos into hundreds of posts that target a wide variety of keywords.

It’s important that the skeleton content be something that can be auto-generated and published.  You don’t want to try and manually create content for hundreds or thousands of posts.  You’ll go crazy.

There’s software that can embed YouTube videos so that’s one form of skeleton content (combined with the auto-generated post titles and Yoast meta title).

Cherry Pick the Winners

Once you’ve published hundreds of test posts with auto-generated content, you wait a couple of days to see which posts actually pull in some search traffic.  It doesn’t need to be much search traffic; just something.

The skeleton posts that pull in some traffic are post topics you then beef up with quality unique content.  It’s a proven keyword that will only do better with more content.

The mechanics

This is important, and as you’ll see it’s not as easy as it seems.

First, you need a test site with some authority.  You don’t want to publish hundreds of thin content posts on your money site.   You could end up with a Google thin content penalty.

Second, in order to keep your test site functioning as a test site, you need to clean up the dud posts (i.e. put them in the trash).  If you don’t clean them up eventually the test site will end up penalized and will no longer work as a test site.

Once you spot the winner keywords, you write a full blown article on your money site targeting those winner keywords.  If the theory holds, that new post should rank quickly and start pulling in some traffic quickly.

Should you do this?

I’ve not done it, but am tempted.  It’s an interesting theory.  However, I’m doing well enough choosing long tail keywords that I can skip all this extra effort.

However, if you’re struggling getting any lift-off with your blog, it’s something you could try on a limited basis.  Maybe do it with 25 test posts and see if one or a few work.  If the tactic works for you, scale it up.

Potentially excellent for affiliate content

For me, there are so many long tail keywords for informational content that the skeleton content method isn’t necessary.  However, if you want to quickly rank content that can earn with affiliate links (i.e. long tail buyer intent content) this can be an excellent tactic to try.

Jon Dykstra

Jon Dykstra is a six figure niche site creator with 10+ years of experience. His willingness to openly share his wins and losses in the email newsletter he publishes has made him a go-to source of guidance and motivation for many. His popular “Niche site profits” course has helped thousands follow his footsteps in creating simple niche sites that earn big.