Can you learn Search Engine Optimization (SEO) yourself?

Before beginning, I’d like to hear a bit about me. In 2015, I earned my degree in Human Resources from a pleasant university located in an attractive city in Denmark. (Un)fortunately, I struggled finding a relevant job within HR. So what to do with your free time?

I realized that there were numerous other individuals with the same qualifications and capabilities as mine. So I was wondering how I could shine out. I was looking for something that was not taught to me at college. Basically, I was still in the dark when it came to Search Engine Optimization. I had not gained any knowledge on the topic yet. I started to teach it myself anyways.

Understand the Concept

The typical approach to launching a small to mid-sized online venture is this: Purchase a domain name, opt for an affordable content management system, craft your site architecture as it initially appears, and quickly populate it with content.

Many times, people fail to take a strategic approach to Online Marketing.

Eventually, it dawns on them that their e-commerce store or internet offering is insufficient in regards to Google rankings and not quite achieving the level of success that was anticipated.

Currently, there are two reasons why business owners are looking for assistance with their SEO. They are unwilling to carry out the task themselves.

The initial step I take when handling a customer’s website optimization is staying calm!

Most of the time I have absolutely no concept of what their services or products are. You wouldn´t believe how many niché products there are. I frequently question to myself, ‘How in the world can I uncover keywords for “pneumatically controlled coupling” products?!’ Don’t fret — remain focused.

Keyword Research

Once I have an in-depth understanding of my customer and their site, I focus directly on the central theme. The subject of Keyword Research is highly discussed in the SEO world, with vast amounts of material on it in the form of articles, videos, and books. This is a subject that merits its own blog post. Therefore, I won’t explain the matter in depth.

Keyword research is essential for developing a successful SEO strategy.

I educated myself on SEO and viewed multiple videos, but I found the web tutorial by the “Learning Club” particularly useful in terms of understanding research regarding keywords. If you have no experience with SEO, it might be worth exploring.

It is apparent why it is necessary to grasp the notion of one’s customer. In this step, you should do some investigating to find out the appropriate keywords for each page of the website. In other words, let the fun begin!

Let me illustrate to you my strategy for handling this situation. MOZ has generously offered a helpful tool known as a Keyword Map to SEO enthusiasts and professionals. This basically works by organizing URLs and targeted keywords. You can have a glimpse of the potential and chances of existing sites. Let me give you an example:

It is apparent that I am creating a website design starting with step one and breaking it down into Landing Page (orange), Subcategories (blue), and Products (green). Furthermore, I have included data including Click Through Rate, Bounce Rate, and Clicks for the keyword I am attempting to optimize. This method of mapping is an outstanding approach to monitoring your SEO efforts. I recommend taking the time for that. It will save a lot of trouble 😉

So far so good. You may be wondering where I obtained the key terms. To identify keywords, I use a variety of keyword tools such as keyword generators and research tools. They are for FREE and super easy to use.

These devices allow me to discover a multitude of keywords for my customer in a short space of time. Check them out and give it a try!

Once I have assembled a compilation of possible key words for each individual page, what keywords are worthwhile focusing on? The Search Volume can be a valuable starting point for determining if a keyword might be beneficial for your business to target or not.

Regrettably, the previously mentioned methods will not provide you with the requested information. The free Google Keyword Planner is the go-to program for achieving this. To utilize this tool, you must register for Google AdWords. You can use the service without any payment, provided you don’t do any advertising or bid on specific keywords.

Keyword Competition Analyses

At this juncture, you ought to have an unobstructed perception of your client’s business. It is likely that you are familiar with the web page, and you may have a compilation of 5, 10, or 50 potential search terms for each page. The following measure you should take is to select the words that you wish to have good rankings for in natural searches. For that, you need to do some analysis.

Backlinks and Page Authority (PA) on page 1

Generally speaking, higher numbers of backlinks translate to a better ranking of a website. It is not always true, as illustrated by this example. Connections on other websites can demonstrate the significance or fame of a website. The greater the number of domains that link to your page, the more important Google perceives your page to be in terms of the subject being discussed.

Moz has created scores that are closely tied to each other, known as Page Authority and Domain Authority.

They generally characterize the PA as a numerical rating that goes from 0 to 100, which is used to evaluate the amount of probable success of an individual page. The DA (Domain Authority) is fundamentally equivalent, as it reflects the entire domain instead of just one page. Higher PA DA can help you to outrank competitors.

So what do I check here? If we look closely at our e-commerce store, it’s obvious the top 3 listings for the keyword “soccer cleats” each have numerous backlinks and notable Page Authority ratings.

It would be unwise for a fledgling website to attempt to optimize for “football shoes” as they would be unlikely to succeed due to the current competition. Rather than looking for general terms, investigate further and investigate less competitive, more specified phrases like “boots for soccer and football”. Examine all of the keywords from your preliminary listing and make sure they meet the requirement.

Check for Google Penalties

If you are looking to guarantee that the link opportunity you are considering is of the best level of quality, you can verify whether or not it has been impacted by Google’s algorithm using the free Website Penalty Indicator tool. This utility permits you to type in a domain name and view its approximated search activity, as well as features of substantial Google innovations.

When should you decide a link opportunity is not worth risking a decrease in search engine traffic? In cases when there is a correlation to a transition made in the Google algorithm and the webpage’s traffic has not been regained, the following illustration is an example.

The quantity of visitors to this website finding it through natural Google searches has persistently dropped since they experienced the inaugural Google Panda update in 2011. Consequently, getting a connection from this place is improbable to be recognized as advantageous from Google’s perspective.

Evaluate Opportunities Closely

This is the difference between link creators with outstanding skills and those who employ deceitful methods. Spammers would examine these chances and deliver a general form email to all of them, requesting a connection.

Link builders that are proficient are going to take a look at potential link possibilities.

Here are a few of the things one may see once assessing the most promising link possibilities.

Your competitor obtained the link by submitting their website to a specific category in the website’s directory.
Your competitor obtained the link by submitting a great piece of content to the website’s blog.
Your competitor obtained the link by creating a profile in the website’s community.
Your competitor obtained the link by sharing a quote, fact, or statistic to support content on a specific page on the website.
Your competitor obtained the link by posting a job listing on a high authority domain.
Your competitor obtained the link by offering the website a unique piece of content, such as a tool, badge, or other resource that related to a specific page’s content.
Your competitor obtained a link that you will likely not be able to get due to a difference in website or specific partnership. However, the website offers other link opportunities such as a directory, blog, community profile, or resource page.

Analyze Your Competitor’s Link In-Depth

There are a few things you need to analyze about your competitor’s link:

What page the competitor’s link is placed on.
Where the link is placed on the page.
What content supplements the link.
Where the link goes on the competitor’s website.
The recency of the link placement.

One example would be your rival gaining a link on Amazon. Investigating further could lead to discovering that the connection is located in their Askville forum.

One individual provided a reply to an inquiry on Amazon’s forum which contained a connection pointing to a particular page on a rival’s website. They included connections to other rivals in order to raise the value, identifying that a link builder could have produced the same result for your rival that would indicate they were a learned member of the community. It is likely that you can get your own link, however, prior to that you have to hunt for questions that have relevance to your link in the online community.

Therefore, if you wish to obtain a comparable link in this article or some other article, your website would have to provide an excellent resource for finding out about distance education and finance a grant.

Create Custom Content

Now is the fun part. In order to get the most valuable backlinks for your website, you should put effort into creating content that will make it easy for websites to link to your site. Try to come up with content that is similar to what competitors have done so that you can maximize the link opportunities they have attained. It is easy to assume that all directory listings or community profiles are the same; however, some are more successful in appealing to users than others. The better ones would motivate an individual to select your link, while the poorer ones would make them look elsewhere.

If you are looking to acquire precise hyperlinks, it is essential to craft material for entries in directories, personal bios, and blogs. It is necessary to conduct some investigation and uncover intriguing statistics and facts that can be credited to you. You have to generate exceptional instruments, advertisings, pictures, and footage that people would like to spread around.

Essentially, you should strive to produce content that outperforms your competitor. Rather than trying to take your competitor’s links, the intention is to offer a supplementary source of information (which, if possible, will be more useful). One way to make a difference could be to put together a thorough and considerable guide on a certain subject. Or creating a better-designed calculator. Or creating a more streamlined template. You don’t always have to start from scratch, usually it’s just a matter of making small changes and advancements.

Obtain the Link

Once you have determined all of the possible link possibilities and crafted the proper content for them, it’s time to begin acquiring your backlinks. You don’t need to do any extra work for directories, community profiles, question and answer websites, and message boards; simply comply with the instructions laid out on each of those sites.

If you wish to gain link prospects through guest posting, be sure you don’t approach the site in the same manner as every other guest poster or worse, come off like a link spammer. Factors that make a difference between a poor and desirable guest blogging request include the following three items.

Personalizing the email in the form of addressing a specific blog owner or editor by name.
Demonstrating you have thoroughly gotten to know the blog. Something to the effect of “I just finished reading your guest post guidelines, and would love to contribute a 1,500 word post on [something that matches the topics in the guidelines].”
Expressing interest in being more than just a one-off guest blogger. Many sites are now asking for people to be regular contributors. Some go so far as only giving nofollow links to one-time guest bloggers.