HOW TO LEARN SEO (COMPLETE ROADMAP)
1. Learn SEO fundamentals
This is the place to start if you need to learn SEO basics. Knowing how search engines work and the four significant facets of SEO is essential. These are the main facets of SEO.
How search engines work
Search engines search for content and then store it in an enormous database called an index. This is a library that holds web pages, not books. The search engine returns matches from the index when you search. The search algorithm ranks the results using complex algorithms.
When you search for something in Google, you need to look across the web. You are only looking for pages within Google’s index.
This is important for one reason:
You can only rank on Google’s search results if you are in Google’s index.
Google’s index is built from two sources:
- Sitemaps A sitemap is a file that lists all pages of your website you want search engines to index. You can submit your sitemap to tell Google that your pages are present.
- Links to known webpages – Google already has billions upon billions of pages in its database. Google will “follow” a link you receive from one of these pages to find your page.
Not all known web pages will be found on other websites. Google can find new pages for your site by following links from pages already on your website.
Keyword research
Keyword research is the study of what customers are searching for. This is important as you will only be found if your target keywords are being searched.
This information is not available from Google, unfortunately. Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer is the best tool to search for keywords. You can use it by entering broad topics relevant to your industry and hitting search. Next, you will go to the keyword ideas reports. Each keyword’s search volume will be displayed along with other SEO metrics.
Keywords Explorer also shows the “Traffic Potential” metric for each keyword. This shows how much traffic the top-ranking keyword page gets. This is a good indicator of how many visitors you can get from ranking #1.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO allows you to optimize your content for search engines. It is based on understanding searchers’ needs and providing it to them. This process is known as optimizing search intent.
If we take a look at the top results under the keyword “best protein powder”, we can see that all of them are blog posts comparing top choices:
This indicates that even though searchers are looking for protein powders, they are still considering their options and may need to be ready to purchase. It would not be easy to rank an e-commerce product page for this query. This is different from what searchers are looking for.
Link building
Link building refers to acquiring backlinks on other websites that point to your website. This is important as backlinks are among the top-ranking factors.
This is likely why there is a clear correlation between linking websites and organic traffic.
However, not all links are created equally. Links from high-quality, relevant websites are more effective than links from low-quality and irrelevant websites. This means that if your website is about Bitcoin, a link to a website about cryptocurrency will likely positively impact rankings more than a link to a website related to travel.
It is one of the most challenging aspects of SEO and one of the most sought-after SEO skills.
Technical SEO
Search engines like Google can crawl and index your content using technical SEO. Search engines like Google will likely be able to do all three of those things.
Let’s look at these three items in greater detail.
- Search – Google must first know if your page exists and how to find it.
- Google now requires permission to crawl the page. This is where a computer program downloads page content.
- Index –Google requires permission to add your webpage to its index.
The first step of the process can be solved by ensuring that your page links to other pages on your site and is included in a Google sitemap.
You must ensure that Google is not blocked from crawling or indexing. This is done by using a file named robots.txt for crawling and a meta tag for indexing.
2.Use your knowledge to put it into practice
As a beginner in SEO, I started a website about bodybuilding because I was passionate about the subject. First, I ensured that my technical SEO was correct and that Google could crawl and index all content I created. To find relevant topics, I did keyword research. Then, I started publishing optimized content.
The website did well, confirming that the SEO theory I had learned was correct. But I also made mistakes. After randomly changing the copy, I recall the page rankings that were sagging. This experience taught me an important lesson that I have always remembered: Don’t fix what’s broken!
3. Increase your SEO knowledge
SEO is complex, and it isn’t easy to know everything. It’s just too vast. Now that you have spent time researching SEO and know which aspects you like, it is time to narrow down your focus and increase your knowledge.
This is called a “t-shaped” SEO.
A t-shaped SEO has a broad understanding of SEO but excels in a particular area. You should choose the area that you are most passionate about and best at.
This is for me link building. That’s why I wrote so much of our content on this topic.
Here are some more examples of t-shaped seos:
- Patrick Stox: Technical SEO
- Nick Eubanks :Keyword Research
- Jon Cooper :Link Building
- Marie Haynes :Google Penalty Recovery
Marie Haynes is hyperspecialized. Instead of choosing one aspect of SEO (e.g. keyword research or link-building), Marie Haynes decided to focus on the niche of Google penalty recovery. Marie is the only SEO who knows more about this topic.
If you are learning SEO to be an expert in the field, it is a smart idea to get hyper-specific. If you are trying to rank websites, it is better to be more specific and focus on one of the four major facets of SEO.
4.Keep your pulse on the pulse
SEO’s fundamentals are not subject to change, despite what some people may claim. However, small details are always changing. Google updates are repeated several times per year. They make changes to the way search engines handle technical SEO aspects, and smart people come up with new strategies.
This is why it is important to stay on top of SEO news.
Meetups and SEO conferences
SEO is big business with many conferences. For example, BrightonSEO on meetup.com. For example the one I attended in my hometown. There are many places where SEO-minded people can share their insights and techniques.
Listen to SEO podcasts
Podcasts are a great way for you to stay on top of the latest SEO news while on the move. In this episode, Bibi , a link building extraordinaire discusses her innovative approach to sending out outreach emails.
Join SEO Facebook groups
Facebook’s active SEO community is always available to answer your questions and provide advice if you require it. Our Facebook group Ahrefs insider has nearly 17K members. It is active.
Join SEO Slack communities
Join an SEO Slack group if you don’t want to be distracted from Facebook. While some are free, others require a monthly fee. Traffic Think Tank (TTT), if you are open to paying communities, is a great choice.
Check out SEO blogs
Just like the one you are reading. We often publish innovative ideas, processes and studies. We studied over a million pages to determine the SERP titles that Google was using, and published our results to the community.
You can watch SEO YouTube videos
Where we publish similar content as our blog.
Sources official
Google posts official algorithm updates and announcements to the Search Console blog. It also hosts weekly “office hours” hangouts via its YouTube channel. You can also follow John Mueller or Gary Ilyes Google search representatives on Twitter.
Learn SEO news
Search Engine Roundtable is the pulse and source of information for search marketing. It publishes daily updates about everything search.
5. Optional: Teach others what it is.
You’ll find a recommendation to pass on what you learn from the roadmap.
Although this may seem counterintuitive, considering you want to learn more SEO, teaching others helps me retain my knowledge and help them assimilate it. It forces me to communicate things, which sometimes leads me to believe that I don’t know as much as my previous knowledge.
You can post this on a blog or YouTube channel. However, it is also possible to do it privately (in groups or communities) or directly (face-to-face, direct messages).
Publicly expressing your opinion can be an excellent way to protect yourself from misinformation. People are often kind enough to point out mistakes if you need to be more careful.
Bill Slawski points out an incorrect claim in my article on Twitter.
This brings me to an important point…
If one of these is false, don’t attempt to teach SEO to others.
- You have thoroughly researched and understood the subject matter you are teaching.
- You are teaching something based on personal experience and testing.
You want to avoid spreading more misinformation in an already saturated industry.
