Ask HN: Does SEO Work?

In concept it works, but there are a lot of snake oil salesmen in the business that will sell you things that either don't work or will end up causing your site to be down-ranked. Really anything thats a 'get rich quick' type of deal will probably end up being a waste of money.

The best and only accredited solution imo is to grind and get real backlinks from reputable sites. There are a number of ways to do that, but all of them require work and time by either creating interesting content or creating relationships / good PR.

Also when it comes to your website having a good structure (schema tags, internal linking, a site map) it's helpful, but once it's done you still need to do the link building.

There are many people in the SEO industry that provide genuinely good advice e.g. Rand Fishkin. I've been following some for years and it has helped with our rankings...