SEO for Beginners: Rank #1 In Google in 2023
4 pillars of SEO
- keywords
- technical
- content
- backlinks
Find keyword opportunities (2:35)
- go to SEMrush
- enter your domain into the search bar
- go to organic research
- look at top organic keywords to see if you are already ranking
If you are not already ranking, go for low hanging fruits (3:05)
- find position 2-15 keywords and optimize them to get higher ranking
- if you go from #5 to #1, you get a lot more traffic
If you are NOT already ranking (4:05)
- Domain analytics > keyword gap > enter your domain > enter your top competitors’ domains
- you can go to Keyword Research > Keyword Overview and enter keywords related to your industry to see which websites have the most traffic
- different search intent, different readiness to convert
Can you actually compete for these keywords? (7:10)
- enter domain > organic search > position > KD > very easy
Prioritize keywords with high-transactional intent and low competition first.
How to do a site audit on Semrush (8:10)
- make sure your website is crawlable and indexable (9:30)
- optimize for user experience
- optimize site architecture (i.e. internal linking)
- Your pages shouldn’t be more than 3 clicks deep in your architecture
- Identify pages with poor internal link coverage
How to optimize your content
- Keyword cannibalization is when you have two or more pages targeting the same exact keyword phrase.
Backlinks (14:50)
- toxic domains will hurt your ranking (15:10)
SEO in 2023: My NEW Strategy for Google Traffic!
1. Write perfectly optimized search engine friendly articles (0:50)
- Google is not human. He doesn’t know how things are actually done. So it puts what seems to be the best article on the first page
- What you need to do
- follow how other articles on the first page on Google are written
- create an outline that’s better than what your competition’s
1a. How to create an outline that gets you to the top
- type a long tail keyword on Google
- write down the headlines of the top 3 articles and add those to your outline
1b. Answer question in a straightforward manner
- Let the algorithm know your article answers the question
- it also helps get the featured snippet position at the top of Google
2. Become a topical authority (3:45)
- put together a topical map
- EAT shows up 130 times in Google’s quality rated guidelines
- expertise
- authorities
- trust
3. Have a link building plan (4:50)
- Get links from high traffic websites like Medium, HARO, etc
4. Focus on user experience (6:40)
- if someone searches for how to shave a cat, by reading your article, they should know everything about shaving a cat
- give them the answer as fast as possible
- put together a key takeaway section at the beginning of your article
5. AI content
- Get links from high traffic websites like Medium, HARO, etc
SEO for Beginners: Rank #1 In Google (FAST) - Brian Dean
- success magazine calls him “the world’s foremost expert on SEO”
Step 1: Find 3 keywords you will create content around (1:30)
- Answer The Public
- Reddit
- can pop the keywords back on Answer The Public to get long tail keywords
- Exploding topics
- relative new topics so they are less competitive
Step 2: Create epic content (3:05)
- if it’s not exceptionally good, you don’t get backlinks
- longer content gets 77% more backlinks than short content
- e.g. a 4,700-word article contains everything someone needs to know about a specific topic, so it’s easier to get linked to
- things to include:
- case study
- strategy
- quote
- state
Step 3: Keyword-optimize your content (5:35)
- include keywords in important areas
- add LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords (6:25)
- keywords are words that are related to a main keyword and are seen as semantically relevant
- give Google confidence that your page is actually about that topic
- e.g. LSI keywords for Fresh Prince are Bel Air, West Philadelphia
- how to find and what to do:
- scroll all the way down on Google to find suggestions
- add some of these in your article
Step 4: Optimize content for users (7:10)
- people judge you on design first, content second
- not about fanciness, but simple, clean and easy to read
- give away useful info ASAP to make sure they stick around
- short intro then go right into the steps
Step 5: Build backlinks (9:05)
- find broken links on authoritative websites that you want to get a link from
- use Check My Links extension to find broken links on the page
- send a personalized email to reach out to that person and ask them to link to your page instead
Bonus tip: use unique images
- same content but with images other than stock photos can help your website rank higher (green lines vs red lines)
How to Rank Your Homepage on Google
- say what your website is all about right away
- your value proposition
- unique selling points
- why you are different from others
- what you offer
- testimonial
- mobile friendly
- mobile first indexing
- use free mobile testing tool: Mobile-friendly test
- make navigation simple
- bad navigation means too many options or they can’t find what they are looking for
- people should be able to find what they are looking for within 3 clicks
- lower options from 8 to 5 to reduce bounce rate by 3%
- info easy to find = people stay longer = higher conversion rates for you & higher Google ranking
- bad navigation means too many options or they can’t find what they are looking for
- Optimize headlines / titles with keywords
- list
- how to
- to to Ubersuggest to look for keyword by industry (KD lower than 40)
- do split test using clickflow
- include recent blog posts, podcast, etc
- close with a CTA
SEO is Changing - How to Win in 2023
Go to Google Search Console to find out what used to help us rank but not anymore (5:20)
1. Keyword based SEO is dead! (7:45)
- Think in terms of queries instead of keywords
- Create useful information for people that’s not over-optimized for search engines
- like you are writing a newspaper article for real people to read
- group smaller queries into one single post
- either create a 500-word post to answer one single question, or a 1,500-word article that answer 3 highly related questions
2. Topical authority is becoming more important (11:15)
- The more content you have on a more specific topic, the more likely Google is to trust that you have an authority or expertise on that topic
- create and group subcategories together,
- e.g not just mountain biking or mountain biking for women
- but you need to also write about mountain biking because if you don’t, Google will think that you cannot possibly be an expert if you have no content on what most people search for
3. Brand your website (14:00)
- build an email list to get people to come back often
- create social media channels