However, with so much information out there, it’s a bit overwhelming to know where to begin.
indeed! Just build a website, create some content, optimize it for SEO using free tools like Yoast / RankMath or paid tools like Frase.io, generate a sitemap.xml file and submit it to your GSC (Google Search Console), wait for google to fetch the sitemap and crawl your site, and then wait!
If you've done your keyword research well and if you've build your site in the right way (you've planned it out and structured it well, you've created schemas, mobile friendly version, etc) you should be getting traffic in no time....
Now, whether or not that traffic will continue coming in is a different story (and most of the time it won't keep coming), so that's when you need to really delve deep into SEO. But for now, these tips should help you get a few visitors here and there...
Could anyone recommend some solid beginner-friendly resources, threads, or maybe a roadmap on how to get started with SEO traffic specifically?
I've got no roadmap, but I will give you the steps, and link you with some guides....
STEP 1... Basically, if you're new to all of this you should always start with a niche. If the word scares you, then think of it like something you are either...
- passionate about
- interested in
- knowledgeable about
- all 3
that you can approach from an angle that no one else approaches. For example, if you like smartphones (by the way, I SUCK at smartphones so I have no idea if this example is accurate / real, it's just something I came up with on the spot so I can make the point, so please excuse its irrelevancy for now)
So, as I was saying... if you like smartphones (just like millions of other SEOs / marketers out there probably), and you would like to rank a website in the smartphones industry so you can get SEO traffic (from google, Bing, Duckduckgo, etc) you can't just slam a website about smartphones in general and expect to rank #1 for any of the keywords that have lots of traffic because these keywords are almost always targeted by everyone, their grandma, and their pets when they're doing SEO. Besides, you will almost guaranteed have to compete with Apple, Samsung, etc. as these companies are the biggest smartphone producers and I dare predict that you don't have the budget, or political / financial influence to compete with these tech giants. So yeah, going straight for the keyword "smartphone" is a NO GO for someone like you and me (beginners and mere mortals, that is)
And that's where the importance of a (well chosen) niche comes in.
Now, there are many ways in which you can go about doing niche + keyword research, and most likely different methods work well in different industries, so the way in which you can find a niche that's working for you will most likely depend on the industry you operate in / wish to get into.
But for the sake of example (and going with the smartphones industry), you could plop the 2 keywords (smartphone and smartphones) into your favorite SEO tool (preferably Ahrefs or Semrush since these 2 tools have the most data about everything.... well, besides google, of course, but we can't use google's internal secrets since we don't have access to them, so we have to work with Ahres / Semrush / Mangools / etc in this case)....
So, plop those 2 keywords.... or rather, the 2 forms (singular and plural) of the 2 keywords into your favorite SEO tool and start clicking, sorting, filtering and analyzing the crap out of everything (the sites ranking top 10 for each one of these keywords and their 1000s of smaller other keywords, the content of the sites ranking in top 10 of these main keywords + their 1000s of other keywords, then the backlinks of the sites ranking in top 10 for these main keywords + their 1000s of many other smaller keywords, etc.... basically, spend hours... days if you must, even a week if you must, but it's important that you get this part right because this will make the difference between you ranking in weeks and getting traffic without competition, or ranking next year and only after you spend $1000s on backlinks and content generation)...
So, plop those 2 keywords into SEO tool, and then sort / filter / dive deeper into their related or complementary keywords and analyze the crap out of everything until you find a niche, ie. a group of keywords / topics that....
-
are closely related to each other
-
have decent search volume (although, this might not be as important nowadays because if you find a niche that no one targets and if you do the right SEO things google might send you so much traffic that the data provided by SEO tools will not matter anymore)
-
no one, or almost no one ranking in top 10 doesn't cover in depth, or doesn't cover it at all
-
it's profitable
Of course, the "it's profitable" part is equally important because if you can't make money in that niche what's the point of spending days finding it? Like, for example, a niche like "balloon inflating" probably has 0 competition, but who in their right mind can make money with this niche, just by driving to strangers to inflate their balloons? Everyone can inflate balloons, so a niche like balloon inflating - while untapped - is arguably one of the worst niches you could make a site about (if you even have enough content to write about balloon inflating to begin with), so yeah.... when doing niche research you also need to consider how you are going to make money with that niche.
Which is where doing research on big networks like Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, Shopify, CJ.com (for the ecommerce niches), or Clickbank, JVZoo, E-Junkie, etc (for the digital products niches) is needed. You just need to know whether products / services related to the niche you will pick exist, and how well they sell (also, how much they are refunded too, because if they sell well but they also have high refund rates that's also not good)....
So anyway, find a niche that ticks the 4 checkboxes mentioned above (profitability, lack of competition, relevancy, and search volume), but - as I mentioned in the beginning - which is also something you are passionate about, knowledgeable about, or at least have some slight interest in. And the reason you wish to choose topics that you have at least some slight interest in is because if you'll need to keep pumping out content every day / week it helps if you have some interest in that content, otherwise you will get burned out fast and you will abandon the project. Ask me how I know after doing this over and over again on monthly basis for years straight
STEP 2... after you have your niche sorted out you need to find some keywords to write about, and also some main topics to center your site around.
Although, if you do niche research with the method I touched upon above you are going to find main topics and keywords to target inescapably. So, in a sense, I already touched upon on how to do keyword research in the previous point....
What I forgot to mention, however, is what to look for when doing niche research. Like, I know that I said you should analyze the sites ranking in top 10 for EACH ONE of the 1000s of keywords you will be checking, and I said that you should also analyze the content and the backlinks of these sites ranking in top 10 for each one of these 1000s of keywords. But what exactly you should be looking for? Well....
2a) the sites (also including the URLs of the pages that are ranking in top 10 for the keyword you're checking, not just the site overall)....
- check their authority (DR)
- check the page's authority (UR)
- check the site's age, historical data (indexed pages, ranked keywords, ranked pages, etc)
- also check what type of sites they are (Wikipedia, ecommerce sites, forums and UGC sites like Quora, Reddit, or it's Youtube, etc)
2b) the content.... when analyzing the content of a page you need to look for:
- gaps in knowledge that's relevant to that topic that you can fill that your competition hasn't filled yet
- how well SEO'd the content is (check the meta tags, the LSI terms, whether or not the page uses schemas, check the internal links, etc)
2c) the backlinks.... when checking the backlinks you will, obviously, want to see sites and pages that have...
- as few RDs (Referring Domains) and backlinks as possible
- as weak RDs and backlinks as possible (preferably 0 RDs and backlinks)
Now, how exactly you can assess the quality and stats of these things (especially of backlinks), and how to interpret the various DR / UR and historical data that you'll come across when analyzing these sites and their backlinks and content is a whole different matter that will take us even deeper into the SEO rabbit hole, so I'm not going to do this. Instead, you should look this info up on the forum or on Youtube because if I keep explaining everything I'll be here writing all day. And I'm already 40 minutes into typing and I already need a rest
So anyway, points 1 and 2 above are meant to
confuse you even more .... I mean, are meant to help you find a niche that's approachable, and to find some main topics to center your site around, and also some easy keywords that you can target for fast and easy traffic instead of waiting for months...
What I forgot to mention, however (with regards to finding a niche in the smartphones industry) is that examples of niche that you could target are:
- smartphone app making (although, this one is probably competitive too)
- logo making apps for iphone (also probably very competitive, but I don't know, you'll need to research it yourself)
- 3D printing smartphones
- etc...
As I said in the beginning of this thread (but forgot to put these examples there), these are made up examples, don't expect any of them to be real / accurate, I've given them just so you can get an idea of what to look for when doing niche research (basically, unique / interesting topics that no one covers but which you can cover because you're passionate about them, or have some knowledge about / interest in covering them), but which are also profitable (I assume there are some ways to make money with a niche like 3D printing smartphones, but if there's none.... well... back to the drawing board to find better niches)
One more thing that I'd like to say before moving on to step 3 is that no matter how daunting or scary going though each one of these tasks for each one of the 1000s of keywords seems like, after you do it for the first 10-20 keywords you will begin to notice some patterns and things to look for, and your intuition and instincts will cut your workload by leaps and bounds, so don't feel panic yet!
Just go at your own pace (even doing it for fun like you're some kid who found a new cool toy) through the first 10-15-20 keywords, analyze everything about them that I've mentioned, thoroughly, and soon you will skim over the rest of the keywords because you will instinctively know what to look for and whether a keyword will be of any use to you (as a long tail keyword to write about, or as a main category, or even as your main niche keyword).
The important thing is to set aside a few hours / days to have some quiet, so you can go through each site, each keyword, each backlink to see if you feel you can beat them. And when you have some 3-10 main keywords ready to use as categories, and about 10-1000 long tail keywords ready to use as supporting content you can then proceed to
step 3 below....
Also, before moving on to step 3 here are a few guides on how to find good niches and keywords:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/t...nth-affiliate-keywords-no-paid-tools.1700045/
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/h...of-niche-selection-a-beginners-guide.1672732/
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/guide-keyword-research-via-reddit.1577914/
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/newbie-guide-keyword-research-analysis.1509524/
Note that some of these guides might look different to what I've explained, but that's because there's more than 1 way to do niche + keyword research (so, they're all valid ways of finding good niches), but it could also be because some of these methods work better for different industries (ecom vs digital products for example) because google has all sorts of rules, filters and exceptions for almost everything...
Anyway, let's move on to step 3...
STEP 3... with points 1 and 2 above done, it's now time to plan out your site (around the 3-10 main topics that you've found that will make up your site's main categories) so you can give it the desired shape and structure to please the retarded googlebot.
If you need some inspiration on site structuring this guide by Splishsplash will help a lot until you get the hang of site siloing:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/seo-siloing-2023-the-last-siloing-guide-youll-ever-need.1502244/
STEP 4... after you've planned out your site properly and decided on which keywords will be your categories, and which ones will be your supporting content, it's time to...
- make the content (include as much unique, important and visual info as possible, such as charts, tables, stats, infographics, even videos if you must)
- optimize it using tools like Yoast / RankMath / NeuronWriter / Scalenut / Frase / Surfer SEO / or the many billions of similar tools out there
- publish it (with user-friendly, but also with SEO-friendly, short, URL permalinks)
- interlink ALL of the RELEVANT articles within EACH silo together (you can - and should! - also interlink articles from different silos / categories if it makes sense, don't shy away from this if 2 articles cover related topics but in different categories)
STEP 5... mind the technical aspects of your site before making the site live. Stuff like...
- mobile friendliness
- site speed, CWV, schemas, structured data
- site navigation and cleanliness (this really helps improve user experience and lower bounce rate, which are 2 important on-page signals that google usually cares about)
For more details on technical SEO you can consult this guide:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/technical-seo-guide-my-checklist-and-useful-tips.1389710/
STEP 6... after everything is done, I recommend you run a full site audit using software like Screaming Frog to check for potential errors like missing meta tags, broken links, faulty / looping redirects, etc. Just run a full audit like I said, using your favorite site auditing tool / service (or the one you can afford, as these tools can get pretty expensive sometimes), and fix everything before making the site live, as google tends to penalize sites that have errors or they're sluggish or they have no mobile friendly version.
Also throw your site into GTMetrix and Page Speed Insights to double check the speed (ideally, you want 100% scores across the board, obviously, but I think everything over 90% is good too).
STEP 7.... generate sitemap for your site using the SEO plugin (if you're using Wordpress I think many SEO plugins have the option to generate a sitemap. If the SEO plugin you use doesn't offer this ability just install a free sitemap generator plugin) and then submit it to your GSC for google to find your site and crawl it.
Check the report google have generated for your site in a few hours (sometimes it can take minutes, especially if your site is small, so check regularly) and fix any potential indexation / crawling issues that google might find.
STEP 8... after the first 7 steps are done and google have crawled your site and you've been indexed, even if you don't rank yet, it's still important you keep working on your site as usual, such as...
- publish more content around new keywords you will discover using SEO tools or around keywords that google shows you inside of your GSC that google shows your site for but which you're not covering yet
- start building links, slowly but steadily (and only quality ones at first)
Link building is a whole new topic that we could get into for hours if I start delving into it. And every sub-topic of link building is important too. But I'm not getting into details now as this is already too long and you'll have a lot to unpack with the info presented here.
But just know that you need to approach link building in a safe (both in terms of frequency with which you are building links, as well as the anchors used, and also the quality of the links you're getting), but also in a steady manner (you don't want to build 10 links this week and then do nothing for all eternity. Link building, much like content publishing but also like SEO in general, is a perennial and ongoing process, so you want to keep going with it, or else google might consider your site dead and de-rank you)
For more info on link building I'm sure there are dozens (if not 100s) guides on the forum and on Youtube that you can check and which are good, but the ones below are a good place to start as well:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/guide-how-many-links-per-day-week-or-month-should-i-build.1502403/
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/g...s-for-a-new-site-for-newbie-bloggers.1691617/
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/11-innovative-link-building-strategies-beyond-the-basics.1697371/
STEP 9... monitor, track, fix, adjust everything (keywords, content, pages, backlinks, etc) as needed to improve the rankings...
As I said, SEO is an ongoing process, you can't just do it once and then stop and just cash in. If not Google with their myriad of constant updates, then definitely your competition will not let you sleep on your laurels, so keep an eye on everything. Log in (10 times a day if you must) into your GSC, into your site auditing tool, into your keyword tracking service / tool, into your keyword research tool, etc... log in daily into all of these tools and use them to see what's changed, what needs to be improved / adjusted, etc...
