If I wanted to learn SEO well & efficiently, what would I do?

The Free For All Lounge
#1

Hi everyone,

As in the title, what I am wondering is if I wanted to learn SEO well (for the purpose of good ranking/exposure of an organisation’s website I’m helping), what would be the things I would want to explore in order to do this well? i.e. the things that are truly effective, and avoiding what’s not.

I am NOT asking people to spoonfeed me all the information and specifics of how to actually do everything (as I know that’s silly when people expect all the answers in one thread), but instead to just refer to things like the best forums, teachers and sites of relevance for me to look at and learn, and perhaps summarise what things are actually worthwhile looking into in terms of being highly effective and what things are worth avoiding as they are simply not as effective.

So some things I’m wondering:

  • What are the best forums, websites or teachers for SEO?
  • What would be the most critical steps for SEO? E.g. does it all start with the basics of doing keyword research really well, and THEN move on with “blackhat” strategies from there?
  • What are the most effective tools and strategies for building backlinks? (Again, don’t need to spoonfeed everything - can just refer to trusted sources)
  • Any other highly effective strategies for SEO to learn?

Thanks for any help. Any pointers towards places to learn about what truly works effectively for SEO is very appreciated :slight_smile:

6 Likes
#2

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Ok you got me to come out of my cave here and I’m looking for any reason not to open Excel at the moment.

I can see that you really want to get a grasp of what the hell is going on and I’ll give you my take on a few of your questions.

(Hey @adnan I don’t think any of the links violate any policies on here but if they do just do your thing or let me know or zap it.)

(Disclaimer) Other’s experiences may vary and this game has more divisiveness and opinions about who sucks/is great than really any other sector that I’ve ever been in.

So you’ve been warned.

But let me address some quick rapid fire things that you asked right off the bat:

    1. Don’t even THINK (I mean bludgeon it out of your head) ‘Black Hat Strategies’ at all at this point. I even thought about adding “at this point” and just leaving it ‘at-all’ but I know people these days are all enraptured by the siren song of the mystical-magical-hidden black hat stuff.

Yes. There are things that work. But NO stay away from it especially since I see the word “organizations website I’m helping” in there.

Remember what happened to Anakin?

At this point you don’t have any idea what you can do to cut off your hand, arm or other important stuff.

Or even worse what you’ll do now and maybe get some results that will completely trash your site in a future algo update (which are rolling out all the time now a days btw.)Nuff said.

    1. At this point were way past the Golden Age of Pirates in SEO/Black Hat there really isn’t any type of spoon-feeding. There are a few guys who sit in their lairs 25 hours a day doing Chaotic Evil spell incantations and figuring out holes in the present algorithms to exploit Google ranking. Testing 100s of permutations to find an edge.

They keep that stuff to themselves or you pay 5k+ for a drunken weekend in Chang Mai to find out all the stuff they no longer use anymore but isn’t out in the public at the moment. Then you get the guys popping up saying “I got this great new tactic”.

You hear that shit it’s almost 100% old news.

    1. Everybody is full of shit (just like the social game). Most people/trolls you’ll read regurgitating shit they read and don’t understand. Giving you Youtube videos or forum posts of high level shit with the key 25% not even mentioned because…they want you to buy the course.

RULES

SEO has the high level fundamental rules that everyone plays by.

But as you get into the weeds and below the surface to the person who ‘nerds’ the best you can find some gold to keep to yourself for awhile.

So I’m just going with it here.

I’ll give you some stuff (in my opinion) to take a look at later in varying degrees of education. But at this point I can see you need to know what the hell is going on.

Your post was basically me when I got drug kicking and screaming into the Social world and got MP back a few years ago. Joining this forum in the beginning and feeling like the George McFly at the school dance.

Hell I even thought that @Wortime really knew what he was talking about back then (how things change…)- I jest of course :crazy_face:

Anyhooo… here is some stuff.

You need to focus on the fundamentals and there are a lot of them and each one is their own discipline.

Sort of like how there are “Magic-Users/Mages” then there are:

  • Wizards
  • Illusionists
  • Coercers
  • Conjurers
  • Necromancers.

There is no rule that says you can’t learn them all.

You SHOULD learn them all and be a GrandMaster. But set your expectations correctly Daniel-san.

OVERVIEW

You want to do your best to reduce random variables into things that you CAN control. Because it is a super-fluid undercurrent of things that you CAN’T control or even know about. Hence the continual testing by the guys who know the “black-hat” stuff.

The areas you’ll read about are:

  • On-Page -> Which is optimizing what is actually on the page to rank. It’s the HTML and actual words that you write and how they are structured along with other things (internal linking etc)

  • Off-Page -> Your incoming links. Social signals. Etc. (PBNS!)

  • Technical -> How well and what you are feeding the spiders when they crawl the site. Speed, Schema, etc.

  • Mobile -> Mobile

  • Local -> There is a whole specific discipline and approach for SEO that targets just for GMB “Google My Business” goals.

  • International -> Not my bag.

Da Learning’ Stuff

Now I’m taking the approach here of giving you straight up no-bs ‘if you want to learn without noise’ stuff to learn from.

This is what I’d give to my nephew if he wanted to learn how to do SEO instead of “Crush at Fortnite”

At that point you’ll have a bit of a bs detector when you see other people talking about various things.

Everyone has their own opinions.

At this point in your SEO adventure all the info is the same you’re just looking for the person who presents it the way you find most appealing (and doesn’t leave shit out or has the intent of getting you into his funnel to sell you some shit).

Sometimes to make my life more exciting I will poke around and see if there is anything entertaining in the SEO world as far as vids/etc go.

Excitement!

I had to tell you to start somewhere

If I was just gonna sit there for a bit with a coffee/beer and learn from a dude with a good presentation I’d watch this guy I recently stumbled upon.

SEMrush had him make a course and I dig his presentation and all his tutelage is really top notch for getting a grasp of the concepts.

Greg Gifford
https://youtu.be/FWFdRSvWugM

There is a whole free course on SEMrush.
I don’t know if you have to make a free account to see it (I’ve had an account forever and it just logs me in…and I’m lazy)

Here is a link to the actual free course
https://www.semrush.com/academy/courses/14/lessons/151

If you have ‘access’ /cough to Lynda there are another set of SEO courses on there will expand upon, if you stick to the fundamentals, what you learned from Greg.

Here is the part that EVERYONE fucks up.

That everyone BLASTS PAST and then wonders why the hell nothing is working. (I’m giving a high level view here). Because no one wants to do the time and the thankless set-up work to make sure everything is well researched and congruent.

KEYWORD RESEARCH

It is the foundation of everything.

Everything.

If you don’t tell Google what you’re trying to rank for in a language Google understands…then how they hell are you going to rank for anything?

I’m not going to get into all of the depths and strats and such because we’d be here forever (LSI, TF-IDF, etc).

Here are some resources in order of how far you want to go at this point if you want to learn legit about KW research.

Again. My opinions there are a lot of polarizing guys out there but like I said before, at this level, all the shits the same.

Start here:

TIP: In the US a lot of libraries give FREE LYNDA access if you have a library card.

Now were jumping up a notch here.

Each of these guides are written with the goal of getting them to use their tools.

I use them both. I actually use Powersuite daily (gasp!) and their new keyword area is pretty damn cool for keeping shit together.

You can learn a lot conceptually and how things interrelate at a higher level by reading these even if you don’t use the tools.

They have a free version and in my opinion you should download it (find it by following the next step)

That should be enough to get you some footing to your foundation.

FURTHER LEARNING

I’ll be straight up here I can’t believe I wrote all of this (the coffee kicked in) and I can’t guarantee I’ll add/update it. /Sigh I guess I’ll have to format it and make it pretty…

But this is a no-bs start for you.

I don’t want to overwhelm you with reading material as it can go from 0-200 pretty damn fast and you won’t know what the hell is what and how it interrelates.

So here are some legit resources with little or minimal amounts of bullshit (my response my list people!)

Guys doing the work that I like.

(just google em, fb, etc):
  • Matt Diggity - his blog and FB group ‘TheLab’
  • Nathan Gotch - blog
  • Chase Riener (Youtube - polarizing guy but gives you legit SEO especially skilled in local. A bit salesy)
  • Glen Alsopp - Viperchill

(I know I’m forgetting others)

There are a lot more that get super deep (if you google them you’ll see):

  • Seo by the sea
  • CognitiveSEO

and a host of others

But those few guys up top are good for now

TIP: Get Feedly and subscribe to all of these guys’ feeds.

TOOLS

  • Get Powersuite - Ranktracker there is a free version but the whole toolset comes with it.

  • Google Keyword tool - is a broken husk of what it used to be. But it tells you what people are searching for to a degree. There is a TON of information they don’t share any more. But it’s still the industry go-to.

TIP - Google Autocomplete will show you what PEOPLE are searching for. The suggested at the bottom will tell you what GOOGLE thinks (knows) is connected to your search.

TIP: A lot of other tools are mentioned in one of those first classes of Keyword education at the beginning of this monstrosity.

The big tools in this space are Ahrefs, SEMRush, MajesticSEO, SerpWoo and to a much lesser degree Moz. All paid all with their own pros/cons.

There are a lot of smaller players in the market that are getting better all the time.

TIP: Appsumo from time to time has LTD’s on them that I’d recommend checking out and grabbing when available. Ones I use from time to time: Serpstat, Keywordrevealer, keyword io,

PROTIP - For Chrome go and download the extension “Keywords Everywhere”. You’ll see what it does.

FORUMS

Back in the day there were places you could really learn if you put your head down and did the work (oh Wickedfire/Bluehat…/sigh).

But right now everything has more or less moved to FB except a few I frequent now and then.

BlackHatWorld DEFINITELY has years of good stuff on there (if you know how to separate the crap) with newer nuggets being dropped to the plebes every now and then.

One of the best forums for legit SEO knowledge out there from some of the undercover top guys around (especially CCarter - dude is a legend)

  • Buildersociety - just Google it. A few years ago the top guys got together and put the most comprehensive, no bullshit, Digital Strategy Course I’ve ever seen… FOR FREE. Check CCarters chapters especially the Day 8 Keyword one.

Other than that with forums I really don’t go anywhere else in the SEO realm other than the occasional Reddit/FB/Skype.

TIP: Learn your adversary - They leave TONs out. John Mueller actively misleads about just about everything. But that is what the raters/algo use when they inspect your shit.

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Jesus Christ look at this wall of text! WTF.

Well there ya go.

That should get you on your way.

DOUBLE PROTIP:Don’t fuck with the Black Hat shit with client sites.

If you want to screw up (and you will mightily) and learn do it on your own. If you learn you’ll start to see possibilities with a little “Grey Magic” - I’m just lookin’ out fam.

I can’t guarantee if/when I’ll add/update or whatever.

But for now…

These are the ramblings of a crazy old man…

triple blah

45 Likes
#3

Hi @Fonzie,

First of all, thanks for taking the time to write this detailed coffee-inspired overview of your thoughts on SEO. This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for, with it just laid out simple so I could see what things are important and what to look into to start learning about those things. So thank you very much. And I’ll just write a few little responses then:

Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

No worries. Happy to focus on getting the basics and safe, effective things right.

Yeah, I definitely don’t want to jeopardise the main organisation’s website.

So to summarise from what you’re saying about Black Hat stuff being hidden and also potentially dangerous, I should just stick to the known standard practices of SEO which are tested and proven as safe and effective?

Thanks for summing it up very nicely :slight_smile: I have to learn about all those things properly. One thing I’d like to clarify your thoughts on, particularly since you mentioned it is what are your thoughts on PBNs? Do you consider this as one of those things you were speaking of about Blackhat which is not worth looking into, or is it more like a greyhat thing which is actually fine (later on) to actually consider doing? I remember reading a bit of a detailed thread on how to do PBNs and there was like a big list of things with lots of details which had to apply to all your sites, where if you stuffed something up it could just completely screw up your PBN and also the main site. So even if it’s really effective, it sounds pretty risky for an amateur.

I appreciate that :slight_smile:

Thanks, I’ll check him out.

Thanks. I’ll have to look into /cough getting access. :slight_smile:

Thanks for emphasising and confirming this.

Makes sense!

I’ll check it all out :slight_smile:

Good to know, thank you. I think I have an acquired version of Powersuite from the past :slight_smile: Do you feel that something like that is all you need, or are there benefits to the ones like Moz, Ahrefs, etc. (not trying to be an SEO professional in the field, but still want high quality tools to effectively do the job for this one application)?

Thank you! Do you know with this method if you need to do it using a fresh browser which doesn’t have your personal searches saved or anything (in case it influences what it shows and warps results)?

And I’ll check out the other tips!

Maybe I’ll have a look for Facebook groups then :slight_smile: Any particularly good ones (and ones which you would avoid)?

Yeah, that was definitely the reason for this thread. I can see there would be solid stuff on BHW, but I also know there’s a lot of garbage, so I just want some clear perspectives before I just waste days reading random articles on BHW, not knowing which direction to actually go.

Thank you, Gandalf!!

Thanks so much. I’ll have a good look through it all as I get the chance :slight_smile: Best wishes!!

4 Likes
#4

Well shit @Fonzie. I never said I still do SEO. I’ve never said I do it for anyone either. I did for myself and my own sites/ blogs.

That was about 4 years ago, but I still do much of what you’ve posted, plus some BHW shit for better results.

But the majority of real SEO takes time, patience and research. Not many people here will do that.

4 Likes
#5

My approach to these point is a bit different than the usual. Not better or whatever but more analytical than the usual.

Not that it’s dangerous per-se. If you really wanna go digging through the old scrolls of this game you’ll see that the algo always catches up.

Look at what’s happening here with IG from what was different 12 months ago. Hell 6 months ago was a lifetime. All the changes and throttles. They know all of that by simply watching what we are doing.

Whereas we have a goal an end goal for what were doing with their platform. THEY have a goal as well. We are in a way useful lab rats for IG/FB to tell their developing Algos/AI what to look for by watching what were doing to game the system.

Now Google does the same thing but on an exponentially grander scale.

Here’s an example: There used to be a thing called “keyword stuffing” and other things like where you could change the size and color of a font for it to blend in to the background of a webpage, site to game the ranking system.

And it worked.

Until it didn’t and every one of those sites crashed to the ground.

One more: People used to use the service Squidoo to create an online property called a “Squidoo Lens” which more or less focused ‘do-follow’ links towards a property you wanted to rank.

There were good times to be had by all. Until one day all of the links went to “no-follow”. Crash and burn.

There are things that will always work even though Google says they’re goal is to depreciate them(links). . Liars The ranking results don’t lie. Those guys learn all of this by testing all kinds of crazy shit we couldn’t even think of.

So what I’m blathering about is…Yes there are things that work and have worked because that is the way the page/authority ranking system inherently is structured.

When a site with authority that is in your niche and nice relevant with Authority gives you a certain kind of link, in a certain part of the content, on a certain page, using a certain anchor text (along with a lot of other factors)…you’ll get juice and results.

There are one or two guys who are out on the scene who are really good and legit at that (Diggity).

So the guys who do the links and throw them out in an automated way (GSR SER, Xrumer etc) can accomplish these ranking tasks to a degree now-a-days. Some of them have that secret special black-hat sauce at the moment and are much more successful.

Another Example: You need to get your links indexed by Google for them to have any decernible effect on your site/rankings. Google recently closed off submitting your links, severely restricted Google Search Console submit, and have closed a few loopholes that made it easy to get your links indexed.

Result: A shit ton of indexers ate shit.

So what I’m getting at here is that yes. There are black hat ways to do PBNs. I used to have several large ones and got rid of them because of the hassle and I moved White/Grey to ecom etc. There are a few guys that are totally legit and its monthly “pay to play”

The best there is that is out there and known to the common man is Diggity. If you want to educate yourself on that stuff read his posts and check his Youtube. He’s legit and no BS

The point being if you’re gonna do stuff that’s past the Grey line make sure you take some time to think about what your goal is and how that intersects with Googles Algo goal. If it’s something that may get caught up in a future Algo nut-sack punch I’d reconsider it for any asset you want longevity for.

Because what will happen, and it may take 6 months 12 months, you’ll be doing other shit with this asset humming along and all of a sudden BOOM! Rankings tank. Domains rep trashed and you won’t know what the hell happened or caused it.

My. 02

Every one of them has their own index that they’ve crawled with varying degrees of thoroughness. So you’re getting a different take on each one. Some will have links that others won’t. Ahrefs is the most complete package in that regard.

The go-to guy for the complete package is

AHrefs.: Now they’ve recently done some messed up shit where they’re only doing ranking updates every 3 days which really is a turn off. But for links, competition, and general data nerd paradise. They’re tops

SEMRush: Is one I use daily as well it’s all about the keywords. They have massive amounts of keywords, related, competition research etc. I’ll go in there and download all the keywords on a competitors website and then cross reference them to find stuff I didn’t even think of.

Majestic: Gives you their own ratings for a few in house metrics CF/TF that are good to stay on top of if you’re looking for topical relevance. They also dig into bad neighborhoods with IPs. It has it’s place but I don’t use it that often.

SEOSpyglass Powersuite: to be honest they are the least complete of the bunch. The do find things that the others don’t but all in all they rank at the bottom as far as I’m concerned. I like it and it serves it’s purposes for me as I’ve used it forever.

There are a few other small ones that are working on it but not ready for real prime time. I’m thinking of Serpstat at the moment

If you want to do keywords my advice would be search online for a 30 day trial to SEMRush and grab yourself a gift card (make sure you profile it on the gift-card website with an address etc…) and use that. You can use the same card (the same way) for a 7 day trial on Ahrefs.

Comp Analysis: Ahrefs
Keywords: Semrush
Various shit: Majestic
Local program (free if you want) as a home base: SEOspyglass

8 Likes
#6

Aw Wor.

You know you gotta get something from every one of my long screeds. It’s a Tradition!!

I know you’re Grandmaster Wor-San

Love ya brother :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

2 Likes
#7

Very interesting!

So the stuff like GSA SER and Scrapebox, does that once again fall under the blackhat stuff you spoke about not focusing on? Is it the kind of thing where you actually need to really know what you’re getting to get the proper results from it, or is it something worth considering learning to build backlinks in the future?

Thanks for summarising! So if you had to pick software/s to purchase (on a budget, but still would be satisfied with quality) and you had to pick one or a small combo of software which would effectively achieve all round what you would need for basic website SEO ranking, what software/s would you choose and why?

Thanks for the tip :slight_smile: I will keep this in mind for trialling!

2 Likes
#8

GSA and the like are the definition of Black Hat.

Scrapebox is a phenomenal tool with many uses I use it every day. It can be used for any hat you like. But I don’t consider it in the same arena as the others.

If I were ranking a site and wanted to put my energy in it I’d actually tell you to find a provider and purchase the links. But then again that would be for a long term asset.

If I was spinning something up right now I’d probably just have someone make me a whole bunch of Web 2.0’s (tier 2) and do the parasite thing. Make them hyper relevant and probably throw an assload of links at the next (tier-3) and just because I’m a sadist give another onslaught at a (tier4)

NOTE: But then I’m dealing with the indexer issues. And links that aren’t indexed…are worthless.

I do/have used links to achieve my goals. But I’ve found that doing my due diligence with my keyword/competition research when I’m ready to enter a niche. Being realistic about what my goals are and who is occupying the space and focusing on Social has given me gains that I’m happy with.

I don’t really swim too much in those ultra-comp niches anymore. I prefer to dwell in the sub-niche where I can “Hulk-Smash” things without going through the agita.

Everything has it’s place.

Here are one or two things that I forgot to mention in my earlier drone-on piece.

Check out the blog at Serpwoo (his podcast too) - The guys behind that (Jason Brown and CCarter) are absolute Grandmasters when it comes to knowing the old-skool ins and outs of the black hat game although they’ve moved away from that.

Here is an article you may find interesting to reframe a few things as far as initial Trust/Authority links go.

There are a few backlink checkers out there that are limited but have their uses from time to time. Especially when people block the big time crawlers at the robots.txt lvl.

Off the top of my head:

Moonsearch
SmallSEO Backlinks Checker - this one actually has helped me root out a couple of real hidden sneaky sneak pbns from time to time.

The problem with your question there is budget

Ahrefs is expensive per month. SEMRush isn’t far behind.

If I had to choose what I would use that could help me get things done. I’d go with SEMRush and Powersuite. I’d use a the two free crawlers as well and I would keep an eye on Appsumo for a lifetime deal on another crawler.

With powersuite you get a few tools that work really well together hosted on your comp. SEM does a decent competition research without digging to the 7th layer of hell like AHrefs.

I’ve survived without AHrefs before and really after initial spin-up and what not you could do it. If you’re pumping out content on a real regular basis SEMRush is a no-brainer for keyword targeting.

3 Likes
#9

That first bit makes sense, to just pay to have backlinks done. (I’m lost on the second bit, as I don’t yet know the difference between tiers). The organisation website is a very long term project so that part of it is no issue, but would depend on the prices for backlinks and their effectiveness for that price, versus learning and doing it ourselves. E.g. if it’s something we could effectively learn ourselves and then be able to make as many backlinks as we desire then maybe it’s worth learning. Also, by the nature of being a charity, not only is budget limited but we try to do everything as volunteers for the enjoyment of it, so I’ll learn if possible.

But to clarify, you’re saying that GSA is blackhat and you originally said to not think about black hat now, if at all. So should I not bother with things like this? I thought back link building was a big part of SEO too. Is there any sort of whitehat effective version of backlink building?

Okay. So first focus effort onto keyword and competition research.

Thanks for those suggestions! I’ve noted them down too :slight_smile: Might start watching the SEO Fundamentals video tonight (now). :slight_smile:

Yeah. Ha ha :slight_smile: doesn’t make it easy

Thanks for that :slight_smile: Very helpful to know

A random question. I remember seeing some free keyword research tool some months ago from Neil Patel (UberSuggest or something) and wondering if you have any thoughts on that, if you’ve used it at all. Just cause from what I’m aware most keyword research tools aren’t free or are limited searches/info, so that seemed interesting.

1 Like
#10

Holy cow dude, thank you so very much. I’ve been planning to start a blog but wanted to make sure I had the basics of SEO down first. Now I know where to start

2 Likes
#11

Thanks for all the informations!

Any SEO Plugins for Wordpress you would recommend?

Regards

2 Likes
#12

Now this kinda falls into peoples opinions with things (although I do have some factual basis for my feelings on this) with some of the ol’ ‘gurus’ out there.

Personally. Patel is full of shit. He’s an incredible marketer and a shitty SEO. Most of his stuff that is fleshed out has been taken from other pieces of content from other sites/authors that never got much traction. Yeah it’s all nice and fluffy. But it’s just great marketer bullshit.

That being said I used to LOVE Ubersuggest. That along with Keyword Shitter, Mergewords, and a few other that are slipping thru my addled memory were in the workflow stack when getting my hands dirty. Since he took it over just about everyone I knew gave the ol’ collective ‘groan’ and moved on.

So to be completely honest I haven’t touched it. I don’t know how they source their data or what they’re doing with the search inputs. So I’m really no help there.

Use this:
Keywords Everywhere
and this for when you need more detail on a few.
Keywordrevealer

The metrics and presentation are fine. Black Friday I think they run a special but the $9 a month for the 25 a day will be fine.

Here is an oldie but a goodie I’ve had for years that they update usually on a monthly basis. I actually have it running on an older machine for when I want another take. I have a soft-spot in my heart for it and it gives a surprisingly large amount of information for an old tried, tested and not talked about piece of software.

TrafficTravis

Study and learn what the metrics are and what they indicate. (key)

Here are a few other things I forgot to add that are pretty useful. Both browser plugins and free with reliable data.

I still use Moz when I’m too lazy to use Scrapebox to do a quick DA/PA (which I know is a bs-ish metric but old habits sometimes die hard) search.

Mozbar
and
SEOQuake

Those are fun for the whole family and will amuse you for hours. :wink:

Well the marketing of Yoast makes it sound like the go-to, and once-upon-a-time it was. Now it’s shit (look at that 2 shit things in one response!). They’re is a myriad of reasons why not the least of which they actually consult with Google to see what types of features they should have that would work well with them…So if you hear about that one. Avoid.

This is the one I use

SEOPress

4 Likes
#13

Cool. Thanks for sharing your opinion. I had also overheard someone once saying something along these lines.

Okay then :slight_smile: So you’d recommend avoiding it then?

Okay, thank you :slight_smile:

That’s good to know.

Sounds like you are quite fond of it :smiley: I’ll check it out too

Thanks again :slight_smile: I’d love to know then why you say DA/PA is not a good metric - like what is it good for then and what might it not be good for? I only know of DA/PA briefly in theory and obviously not application, so it would be nice to know your opinion from application, otherwise I could be misled and believe things I read about in theory which actually are not useful in application.

Ha ha… SEO seems like real family entertainment :sweat_smile: at least I’ll be having fun with my new toys.

That’s good to know about.

I’m not sure if I’m misunderstanding, but are you saying that Yoast consults with Google? I would have thought that consulting with them would lead to building things which would be advantageous to ranking in Google, but is that not the case now?

I’ll check it out. Is it pretty reputable too?

#14

One other thing I am quite curious about is that I am unsure of what to actually expect as far as a time frame for results and where things can/should be at as you progress along. And also, how quickly you re-analyse what is happening. For example, with IG marketing you know like: week one you make/buy an account, after weeks 2-4 it’s warmed up, after 2 months there’ll be X number of expected followers and you’ll see what’s performing well for follow sources, 6 months might have X number of expected followers. And you kind of just analyse and optimise to increase results.

But as I am new to SEO, I have no idea how long things take to implement, and then how quickly the results show. Is it something where you kind of just start by keyword researching a few of your main pages, put those keywords into the SEO tool on your site and ensure you’ve got relevant content in the actual website articles, and then from there you could theoretically start seeing improved ranking for those keywords? (As well as having to optimise all those other things you talked about). Or is it a much more gradual thing as far as analysis and results? I hope that makes sense what I’m trying to ask.

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#15

Reasonable question.

Now there is gonna be some stuff here that is gonna shoot over your head…right now. But if you persevere and really want to learn you’ll come back and read this and it will begin to make sense.

There is no set ‘time-frame’ for when things happen.

There are so many variables to the answer and really this is one of the things that get 99% of people.

If I threw up 500 words of content for “Fonzie’s Fabulous Lightsabres” because no one has ever attempted to rank for that keyword…it should shoot right to the top of the non-existent SERP. (Search Engine Page Results).

This is one of the key selling points for all those cold-calls and spam about “I’ll have you ranking number one on Google!” - Yeah you can rank me #1 for “Walrus Ass-Cream” but not what I want to rank for. But still they prove their point. You’re #1! Yay!

But if you want to jump in the sharks for all those heavily contested keywords - just to give you an example of what I’m talking about in a White Hat mindset (meaning I’m not talking about payday loans, Viagra etc…) just look up the most expensive CPC Keywords for Google for this year or any other.

You have to understand the way that Google is looking at things is when it grades you and does it’s crawl it’s looking for things that TRIP A FILTER.

A Low Quality Signal Meaning whatever you did in all of the metrics that they’re looking at cross their threshold and tripped a filter and got a “penalty”. You must correct said penalty…if you can and hope on the next indexing pass that it works.

But how the hell do you know what is what with all the myriad of shit they have up their sleeves and are working on all the time (Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, etc…)

Here is a ranking example and why it’s so byzantine:

This is Googles Reasonable Surfer Patent

What it basically is saying is that for this particular ranking factor Google takes into consideration:

Which links on a page are most likely to be selected by a reasonable surfer – those are the links that probably carry the most weight.

Bill Slawski of Seo by the Sea is the world renown “Google Patent Whisperer”

Here is his explanation

Here are an example of all of the factors that MAY (it’s been updated and there are other things Google doesn’t let us know).

Rank1
Rank1651×939 198 KB

Rank 2
Rank 2670×748 120 KB

Yeah…

I know…

The reason I showed you that is because that is 1 particular, still nebulous, ranking factor that will determine where you page lies on a particular SERP. There are hundreds of others.

Now I’m not saying this to dishearten you.

I’m saying this so you realize it’s NOTHING like IG. Like you mentioned we all have a pretty good idea of the general ebb and flow of what makes accounts tick and grow (hey a rhyme!).

There are the factors that the hard-core are more aware of (devs, Cooper, etc.) that are the secret, tested, shit they do the work on. But generally we all know the less that broad strokes. IP, Age, How it was created, etc…

With Google it’s…I think you get the picture.

Again it’s not meant to be depressing and hell there are probably people who don’t agree with me. They could have a workflow that works with SAPE links (you’ll learn about those later) and do the ol’ 1-2-3 for sites. But they are not long term.

So here is the answer to your question.

There is something of a misnomer that’s called, for the lack of a better term, the Google Sandbox. And it is true.

When you put up a new site Google will test you. Will fuck with your head. To see if you DO ANYTHING of an off-page nature. Links etc.

In fact there is patient right here

Explaining it in Google-ese:

  • Where reducing the rank of the document compromises: reducing based on the indication of rank-manipulation, a ranking value for at least one of: a site associated with the main document, a domain associated with the document, a link associated with the document, or a linking document associated with the document.

What that means is: Google has detected a low quality signal so the algorithm kicks in and they’re going to make your ranking fluctuate to see how you respond.

The low quality signal had something to do between your site, another site, a link between them - either inbound or outbound.

Google decides two places in the SERPS and will slowly transition your ranking even though no ranking signals have been sent to them.

They will yo-yo you independent of new ranking factors.

At this point THEY ARE LOOKING FOR NEW RANKING FACTORS THAT HAPPEN DURNING THAT TIMEFRAME to see if you’re trying to manipulate the SERPS.

Then they will ultimately decide where you land.

Whew.

So you don’t know. They are gonna fuck with you.

You’ll be #8 one minute off the SERP the next then stuck at #72 for a week.

You need to make sure your on-page right on. (you can control that variable).

But you see you don’t know what that is right now. But you’re asking the right questions just where you wanna end up ain’t the right spot imho.

Take a step back and look at what you keep hinting at…tossing links at the site.

Can you see a little bit here how that’s not the right tact to take?

Do your wood-shopping (wax-on/wax-off) with that first post I put up there and if you persevere I promise you this stuff will start to make sense.

8 Likes
#16

Now, SEO is dead!
You have to lots of budget to invest!

#17

Could you explain what you are saying more?

#18

@HenryCooper nice tutorials, nice writing. Just 2 likes, lold

#19

SEO in a competitive market is equal to having a huge budget for linkbuilding or PBN. If you have not a lot of budget i wouldnt even try to compete lol

#20

Why is @HenryCooper tagged? I don’t understand your comment.

1 Like