The best advice I received on how to get started learning SEO came from Grant Oster…
“Just start by getting something to rank”
Grant’s advice lead me to take a domain with zero content and zero backlinks and go after the search term collierville seo.
In the process of acquiring my first rankings for this domain, I would circle back to Grant with a question about some magic bullet to rank. Most likely something I heard on youtube. Grant would help me correct course by saying… “It’s only content, links, and user signals”.
So there you go. If you are asking me how to do SEO or where to start learning seo, I have the same advice for you that was given to me.
- Pick a search term to rank for
- Publish a URL to rank for the selected search term
- Remember it’s only Content, Links, and User Signals
The first “SEO tool” you need is free and provided by Google. Once your domain has 1 page ready to be in the search results, create and link a Google Search Console account to the domain. It will take a week or two to show some data. This tool is used to submit URLs to Google and watch the URLs and the search terms Google is testing your content for.
Stalling on taking action…
If you really want to learn SEO. You should stop reading this. You should be selecting a search term. Once you select the search term, you should publish a piece of content that satisfies the search. Then get the links needed to rank, if there are any links needed. From there work on your user signals. When Google does send traffic to your URL, do they find what they are looking for? Or do they go back to search?
Still Stalling on taking action…
I know many of you will continue to stall the learning process by continuing to read blogs and watch YouTube videos instead of following Grant’s advice.
For you, here are some resources to consume.
Before I give you my super beginner SEO 101 resources, I have an offer for you. I have better advice for those of you that have taken action. If you can say “Scott, I have a URL published for {insert target search term}, here is the URL, here is what I’ve done to go after the search term, and this is what I’m seeing in Google search results”. Your URL could be ranking #1 or on page 10 of the SERP, I just need to know you have published a URL targeting a specific search term. Send me a message via twitter, linkedIn, whatever. I’m happy to take a quick look and provide my feedback on what I see and where you might need to focus.
For those of you deciding to consume instead of take action…
The ahrefs content is great, you don’t need to pay for the tool to learn from them.
Learn from Google or at least get Google’s side of the story.
Once I publish more content on the topic of SEO, this content will move to /seo/learn/ or a similar address. I started with this, because it is the question I get asked the most. I’d like to point out 90% of the people that ask never start a test URL of their own, they just continue to research. So if you asked me about learning SEO, and I sent you to this URL. You know the steps to get more free advice from me… Take action 🙂
SEO Thoughts…
What is Google Doing
Taken from a project chat: Google is trashing ranking tools – they want you more reliant on Google Search Console position. These recent SERP updates are more for mobile search than desktop(depends on the search, but we know our customer is more mobile) Google is moving conversions/transactions into the SERP – more obvious if you… Continue reading What is Google Doing
Google Search Console
If you have a domain, the first SEO tool I suggest you connect is Google Search Console. Why Search Console… Google Search Console is Google’s direct communication channel to the website owner. Impressions show you what URLs are appearing in the search results. Google shows you what search terms your content is in the running… Continue reading Google Search Console
