Best Way to Learn SEO

[webinsight]

spend your time reading threads here, learn from the others experience, watch tutorials and then, start applying what you learnt.

 

[splishsplash]

After being scammed last year, I've decided to learn SEO, any recommendations on the best way to learn and how long it will take to be able to rank low competition keywords?

The best way to learn is experimentation. Read a little, try a lot.

80% of what you'll read is written by people who have never ranked a site in their lives and another 15% is written by people who do ok with SEO. If you focus on reading you'll get lost in the sea of crap.

SEO is also very hard and there isn't really "one way" to go about it. There are many things that work, and even more that won't.

The easiest way for a newbie to get started in SEO now is to create 1 high quality site. Aim to have about 150+ 800-3000 word articles on it and build backlinks with link outreach. Email webmasters in your niche offering guest posts and just flat out create great content that you can share on social media and email other webmasters just 'asking' for a link. Rather than explicitly ask, you email them saying you enjoy their blog, and you've created "X blah blah" that you think they might enjoy. You won't find that much information on bhw about link outreach but if you practice it and read up on it you'll get good. The most important part about it is that it doesn't require much investment, just your time, where-as if you're going to go the PBN route you'll need a minimum of $1k/mo, preferably $2k-$3k/mo budget to do well.

 

[Vlad D]

Just build a website and try to rank it ...

choose a topic that you enjoy

 

[Boomba]

As others have said, pick a low competition keyword along with others and try to rank it. That alone will give you a TON of experience.

 

[LoftPower]

Stay on here, ask questions, read threads. Doing your research will greatly help you improve your SEO efforts.

 

[allstar130690]

learning through testing..

I believe testing is important, but wouldn't you agree that you need at least an intermediate level of SEO knowledge before you could properly test?

After being scammed last year, I've decided to learn SEO, any recommendations on the best way to learn and how long it will take to be able to rank low competition keywords?

Moz has a really good guide if you're at a beginner's level. I suggest reading that. Reading blogs can take probably take you to an intermediate level, although, I have a hard time knowing what blogs to read. "Making money online" is one of the biggest niches around, so I'm really cautious about blinding believing stuff I see on blogs.

Do you already have a website(s) or project(s) that you're working on? If you do, what type of project is it? Adsense blog, e-commerce

I suggest getting a program like Long Tail Pro, finding low competition keywords for your niche, then creating excellent content. If you use Wordpress, get the Yoast SEO or All-in-One SEO plugins for help with on-page optimization.

As to your last question about how long it takes to rank for keywords, the answer is it depends. If you're starting from scratch, I think it can take anywhere from 3-6 months before you start getting decent search engine traffic if you're using safe, white-hat techniques. Obviously, by using risky, black-hat techniques I'm assuming you'll rank quicker, or else what's the point? I may be wrong on this. Someone please correct me if I am.

Even though I have an old account, I consider myself new to SEO, as I started a site almost 7-8 years ago and then abandoned it and stopped working on Internet marketing. I just recently started getting back into it in the last month, so except to see more of me on the forums as I'm looking to learn and communicate with people who have the same goals.

The easiest way for a newbie to get started in SEO now is to create 1 high quality site. Aim to have about 150+ 800-3000 word articles on it and build backlinks with link outreach. Email webmasters in your niche offering guest posts and just flat out create great content that you can share on social media and email other webmasters just 'asking' for a link. Rather than explicitly ask, you email them saying you enjoy their blog, and you've created "X blah blah" that you think they might enjoy. You won't find that much information on bhw about link outreach but if you practice it and read up on it you'll get good. The most important part about it is that it doesn't require much investment, just your time, where-as if you're going to go the PBN route you'll need a minimum of $1k/mo, preferably $2k-$3k/mo budget to do well.

@splishsplash, I agree with almost everything in your post expect the part about focusing on just one site. I'm building two right now, and I'm planning to add one more and then that will be it for me. I think it can be helpful to have more than one site because you can experiment with different things without risking everything. Two of my sites will be in the gambling niche, so I think I'm going to have to use aggressive, risky methods to rank, which is another reason why I'm building more than one site.

I have a question about reaching out to webmasters for guest posts. I have a new site. Once I have 10-20 high-quality articles on my site, I'm going to start reaching out for guest posting like you mentioned. My question is what's in it for the webmasters who have high-ranking blogs (or at least blogs with better metrics than mine)? Why would they agree to let me write a guest post?

I'm guessing I would have to sell them on the fact that I can write an excellent 800-1000+ word article that provides a lot of value to their established readers?

Also, how valuable is a backlink from a high-ranking blog in my niche? I think it would take me at least 2-4 hours to create that type of content, and I'm trying to see if it's worth the time investment.

 

[splishsplash]

@splishsplash, I agree with almost everything in your post expect the part about focusing on just one site. I'm building two right now, and I'm planning to add one more and then that will be it for me. I think it can be helpful to have more than one site because you can experiment with different things without risking everything. Two of my sites will be in the gambling niche, so I think I'm going to have to use aggressive, risky methods to rank, which is another reason why I'm building more than one site.

I have a question about reaching out to webmasters for guest posts. I have a new site. Once I have 10-20 high-quality articles on my site, I'm going to start reaching out for guest posting like you mentioned. My question is what's in it for the webmasters who have high-ranking blogs (or at least blogs with better metrics than mine)? Why would they agree to let me write a guest post?

I'm guessing I would have to sell them on the fact that I can write an excellent 800-1000+ word article that provides a lot of value to their established readers?

Also, how valuable is a backlink from a high-ranking blog in my niche? I think it would take me at least 2-4 hours to create that type of content, and I'm trying to see if it's worth the time investment.

The reason a newbie should start with 1 site if he has no budget is because he won't have the money for more than 1.

If you're aiming for 150x 800-3k word articles MINIMUM for your site, PLUS multiple guest posts articles per week, you're going to be writing 8 hours a day just for 1 site.

There's no experimentation with this approach though. It works. If getting contextual backlinks from real blogs in your niche every week didn't work, then nothing would work.

Experimentation is for the blackhatter who's testing things like, rankerx tier 1, gsa tier 2/3 vs manual tier 1 vs rankerx tier 2 vs gsa tier 3 and other such variations. There's nothing to experiment with when doing an authority site. Write good content, email lots of webmasters, rinse repeat for a year.

Webmasters let you guest post because they get free content, and that's the nature of the web. Real sites link out to 1000's of websites. Linking out to websites doesn't reduce the power of your site. It's only blackhatters who are paranoid about linking out to a single site and leaking precious link juice from their page that worry about that. The web naturally links all over the place. People like to link. It is the nature of the web. Email a webmaster about an article you've written that might be of interest to him and his readers and he'll just link to you. Why wouldn't he? If it's good content and he likes it he will link. Do both guest posting and just spreading word about your content.

 

[Jobdollarr]

You only need to know the basic fundamentals of seo. Then optimize the tool.

If you buy the tool without knowing the basic fundamentals of seo it would be futile.

Senuke X helped me

 

[SupremeBotBuilder]

The best way to learn is experimentation. Read a little, try a lot.

80% of what you'll read is written by people who have never ranked a site in their lives and another 15% is written by people who do ok with SEO. If you focus on reading you'll get lost in the sea of crap.

SEO is also very hard and there isn't really "one way" to go about it. There are many things that work, and even more that won't.

The easiest way for a newbie to get started in SEO now is to create 1 high quality site. Aim to have about 150+ 800-3000 word articles on it and build backlinks with link outreach. Email webmasters in your niche offering guest posts and just flat out create great content that you can share on social media and email other webmasters just 'asking' for a link. Rather than explicitly ask, you email them saying you enjoy their blog, and you've created "X blah blah" that you think they might enjoy. You won't find that much information on bhw about link outreach but if you practice it and read up on it you'll get good. The most important part about it is that it doesn't require much investment, just your time, where-as if you're going to go the PBN route you'll need a minimum of $1k/mo, preferably $2k-$3k/mo budget to do well.

OP, this is exactly what you need to do.Forget about buying links for now, seriously forget about it.

This is how I'am building my personal programming blog , which is aimed at getting more traffic to my freelance site(the main site, my blog is on blog.domain.com).

Basically, I'am writing content which has around 900-2400 words in each article. Now, it takes me around 90 minutes to 200 minutes on average per blog post to write, because I also include code sample and go over each step. This has giving me some traffic with just the first 6 pieces, but it takes me a lot of work to do.

Essentially, what I'am planning on doing is writing 10-15k words on a single topic but broken down into different articles all linked together with a table of contents. Think about it like a mini programming tutorial divided into several parts.

After all of this is done, am going to post my tutorials on the programming sub reddits and cold email other bloggers in the same scene saying how much I like their blog post and you should check mine etc.

I haven't done any link building but I can see my traffic raising little by little as I write another piece of content.

 

[dhia27]

I believe testing is important, but wouldn't you agree that you need at least an intermediate level of SEO knowledge before you could properly test?

Of course, you need to know SEO basics and techniques and ... before you test

 

[allstar130690]

The reason a newbie should start with 1 site if he has no budget is because he won't have the money for more than 1.

If you're aiming for 150x 800-3k word articles MINIMUM for your site, PLUS multiple guest posts articles per week, you're going to be writing 8 hours a day just for 1 site.

There's no experimentation with this approach though. It works. If getting contextual backlinks from real blogs in your niche every week didn't work, then nothing would work.

Experimentation is for the blackhatter who's testing things like, rankerx tier 1, gsa tier 2/3 vs manual tier 1 vs rankerx tier 2 vs gsa tier 3 and other such variations. There's nothing to experiment with when doing an authority site. Write good content, email lots of webmasters, rinse repeat for a year.

Webmasters let you guest post because they get free content, and that's the nature of the web. Real sites link out to 1000's of websites. Linking out to websites doesn't reduce the power of your site. It's only blackhatters who are paranoid about linking out to a single site and leaking precious link juice from their page that worry about that. The web naturally links all over the place. People like to link. It is the nature of the web. Email a webmaster about an article you've written that might be of interest to him and his readers and he'll just link to you. Why wouldn't he? If it's good content and he likes it he will link. Do both guest posting and just spreading word about your content.

Good point. There's not enough time in a day for one person to built more than one authority site without outsourcing. I can't recall if the OP mentioned creating all the content himself, but if he is, then one site is definitely the way to go.

I have one site that I plan to build into an authority site, and I agree that your suggested approach is tried and tested. I'll definitely be following your advice for that site.

Reading your post is nudging me to strictly focus on building an authority site, as creating high-quality content is my specialty, not SEO. Thanks for your posts. You're giving me some important topics to think about while I try to figure out how to move forward with my sites.

 

[jonwilliams]

Consider to read on this forum about seo. Start from one step and move to other step!

 

[splishsplash]

Good point. There's not enough time in a day for one person to built more than one authority site without outsourcing. I can't recall if the OP mentioned creating all the content himself, but if he is, then one site is definitely the way to go.

I have one site that I plan to build into an authority site, and I agree that your suggested approach is tried and tested. I'll definitely be following your advice for that site.

Reading your post is nudging me to strictly focus on building an authority site, as creating high-quality content is my specialty, not SEO. Thanks for your posts. You're giving me some important topics to think about while I try to figure out how to move forward with my sites.

It's just easier to make money with an authority site.

A site with 250 articles is going to rank a LOT easier than a site with 25 articles. Google definitely favours bigger sites, plus you will naturally rank for a lot more longtails.

The smaller sites is fine if you've got a bigger budget and can crank out pbns, but the link outreach approach is do-able for anyone willing to put in the hours every day.

 

[iAuthority]

You can get lot of information from BHW. And also google it to know more about SEO techniques.

 

[splishsplash]

You can get lot of information from BHW. And also google it to know more about SEO techniques.

Thanks for your valuable contribution.

Perhaps instead of just telling someone "There's information on BHW", which, um, we kind already know, y'know? Maybe you could share some of your own experience/advice?

Make a BIT less obvious you're signature-spamming people

 

[Disco Stu]

you can find some amazing SEO courses on Lynda.com....

 

[Seolb]

I think BHW is the right place. Because it helps more to gain knowledge on SEO and it is best for newbies. I say it,because I am a newbie!

 

[jerrymc]

After being scammed last year, I've decided to learn SEO, any recommendations on the best way to learn and how long it will take to be able to rank low competition keywords?

There are a ton of ways to learn everything about SEO. There are free courses on Udemy, you also search BHW to find the best threads that will teach the basics and some complex things about SEO. There are also a number of websites that can help you. Just do a quick Google search, websites like quicksprout, Matthew Woodward, and a lot more.

Just don't stop learning and you'll be good.

 

[suneely]

Join any digital marketing academy and learn seo.