How to train SEO by dividing the training&work to manageable small experiments? [NEED ADVICE]

What do I mean by this headline?

I've been reading a lot lately about something called deliberate practice. Here is a list of books to help clarify:

* Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance - READ
* The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How. - READ
* Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise - Currently READING
* Outliers: The Story of Success - THIS AND THE REST OF THE BOOKS DOWN THE LIST ARE TO BE READ ONE BY ONE
* Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World -
* The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life - Master Any Skill or Challenge by Learning to Love the Process
* The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
* Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers
* The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance - Read long time ago, due to another read
* The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.

So what does that have to do with SEO?

Summarizing my understanding so far is that deliberate practice is absolutely the best scientifically proven way to continually keep improving in any discipline. There is just nothing like it that can replace it. It's hard by definition and requires grit (see book #1) to sustain for long time.

I think it also should apply in learning SEO. I recognize some of the principals of application every time an experienced member here repeats the mantra: "Test everything, Keep experimenting, Track your results, Add your twist to the method"...etc. And this is all great, but... the deliberate practice, so far, in it's full effect has been analyzed for disciplines that have been practiced for decades and centuries and the standards of excellence are generally consistent. Think playing the violin at world class level. The training for violin has evolved for several hundred years to boil it down to a systematized set of coaching principals that efficiently improve the performers quality.

Anyway, enough of theoretical background. The real question here, for me is the following: How can we design as simple experiments as possible to learn some principals of SEO? But, here is the catch, I still need to keep developing my website.

I hope what I tried to say is at least partially clear.

How would you setup simple case studies, on a live website, that can give feedback as quickly as possible so it can be tested what works and what not?

I know many members here, CONSTANTLY, do these kind of tests on their websites.

@WebMinati comes to mind from recent memory, but I'm sure all the top performers here do it.

Could you give some examples of the simplest tests/small case studies that can be implemented on a live website that are both designed to give results and serve as a training for SEO?

My own idea, not tested yet. (Usually, I just build website with lots of content and some of it ranks well, some don't and I'm not smarter one iota why or how to meaningfully learn better SEO than pure guesswork.) Choose one very easy KW (usually information type kw), and try to create content and backlinks to push it all the way to #1 Google rankings and keep measuring KW progress, time to rank, traffic it gets for each spot it progresses to...

Can this somehow be even simpler and more effective for learning?

Regards,
Zatoichi

I just need to add something.

What is deliberate practice:

* It is always worked towards achieving some specific goal. Traffic, ranking, ctr,... An exact number would be prefect as a target.
* There is preferably quick feedback on whether performance is good or bad. This is the trickiest point for me. If it takes a month to rank a kw than I can only do concurrent experiments in order to do more experiments. The ideal situation is if an experiment can be run quickly and give the feedback quickly. Anyone knows how to get quick feedback on seo?
* It divides a complex problem into small chunks that can be improved on independently (and quickly; see above)
* It is systematic. Often a coach or trainer is needed in order to zero in on improvements that matter the most. Example - wasting time on improving website design 50 times over but no work being done to understand kw research.
* It requires high repetition with the above mentioned quick feedback. Fail quickly to learn quickly. It's discussed in detailed in the above books. There are no prodigies in this world. Every single person who achieved master level performance spent thousands hours practicing. But practicing in a systematic deliberate way, not the way amateurs do practice (most of people anywhere).

What deliberate practice is not:

* Doing what you always do and hope for the best this time.
* Doing improvement haphazardly and not tracking anything. Working without the goal.
* Just working harder without actually getting any better at this. Someone could be working hard at internet marketing for the same amount of time as Niel Patel or Brian Backlinko without getting much anywhere.
* Not having any plan on how to actually get better at SEO. Jumping from tutorial to tutorial and one seo course to another.

One of the big problems I see in improving in SEO in a systematic way is that it's all connected very tightly. For example, if your title writing skills suck it can kill the good kw research and on-page optimization. Nobody clicks on a page 1 result because it sounds very boring, for example. If you mess up just one important thing (out of many) you can't get measurable feedback on which to improve. In addition to the problem ranking algorithm always changes and makes previously hard learned knowledge useless sometimes. This translates to no consistent standards to improve upon. Big problem. (Remember all the threads: Getting back into online marketing and have no idea what works nowdays)

Can anyone successful with SEO here suggest one or more simple practice case studies that helped them make improvements? The kind of improvements when after doing it for a while something clicks in your head and you actually feel you can understand what is happening on a deeper level. And, you actually can consistently apply what you learned in new projects and get consistently good results.