I started learning SEO for free!! And still have been.
SEO is like studying medical science. Continuous learning is the key. With newer google updates coming up every now and then, you need to step up your game!
But.. The basics remain almost constant, if you are looking to build white hat SEO skills. But one thing please do clear about it that SEO is not just learning, you have to implement the tactics you know. That’s how to lean SEO stand.
Will it take years to learn? No. If you do it practically.
Do I need a formal certificate? No. You just need your brain and a computer with internet connection.
Is it tough? No. If you can organize your learning.
Do I need to buy premium courses? No. If you are willing to give time and effort.
This guide is a compilation of the best resources on the internet that can help you learn SEO without spending a dime. For beginners like you, you won’t even know where to get started.
This guide is for you!!
Mentorship Vs. Self Learning
It’s always great to have a mentor behind you to get forward in any career. But for those of you from non-tech background, finding a mentor can be tough and expensive (professionals don’t share their time for free).
For me, self learning worked like magic! At the beginning, you might feel lost and overcrowded with information.
The best way to get started is to join a facebook group, forums and watching videos on youtube. Yes, don’t bother about learning at this point. Let your brain get acquainted with the jargons of SEO.
When you think you have a kind of rough idea on what SEO does, how it works and how people are getting returns from their SEO campaigns, then you can start getting organized.
Make a timeline for learning. For example, set a week for learning the on-page SEO basics. A 3-4 month plan can take you way ahead than most people who have no idea what they are doing.
Deciding on Your SEO Philosophy: White Hat or Black Hat?
This one always pops up in mind whenever you are implementing critical strategies. Well, SEO is a strategy, rather than a system to beat search engine rankings.
The best way to go about this is white Hat SEO. So, you will be following all the standard Google guidelines and stop yourself from getting penalized. It’s a long term process but keeps you in the game forever (if you don’t end up doing something stupid).
When you reach a certain level in your SEO career, you can experiment with black hat techniques. It might give a whole lot of new opportunities to earn and learn. This method is usually short term and eventually you will get caught.
For beginners, avoid black hat by all means.
Can You Learn Seo for Free? or Pay for Courses?
Definitely. Although we are talking about free SEO, I think a bit of clarification is necessary.
Free SEO
Pros
- Save your money for investing in Keyword research tools, web development and link building.
- Your options are open. You are not religiously following someone or a course that can end up teaching you wrong stuff.
- Whether you want or not, you will have to dive deep into learning everything. Because when it’s free, you need to go into the basics and start joining those ideas. This I think is the key where lots of beginners are misguided.
- You can always get yourself out when you don’t invest quite a lot. So, in the middle of learning if you feel, this isn’t for you, you can discontinue.
Cons
- Takes more time to learn. You will need to find all its bits together and maintain your own learning schedule.
Paid SEO
Pros
- Organizes and brings you everything together to save you hassle.
- Get insights from the mentor’s own experience.
- Makes easy to revisit certain ideas and techniques
- You will get updates strategies often (Depending on the course you buy)
Cons
- Expensive for most beginners who just want to get started
- It’s tough to judge and understand who teaches best (at least when you are a newbie)
- Keeps you strangled in a box and limits experimentation and finding new opportunities.
Learn Seo for Free: Here’s How to Do It
Getting to Know the Basics
In the last 10 years, a lot has changed. Before starting to play around with search engines, you need to know how things work and how SEO experts can take the opportunity. Here is a list of resources that can help you get started today.
- How Google Search works — This a 5 minute mini video from the search giant itself. It explains how google indexes and ranks sites using their analytics.
- A Brief History of Search Engine Optimization — This post from Searchenginejournal.com analyses changes across search engines during the last 20 years.
- Beginner’s Guide to SEO Success — This is a guide Ahrefs, one of most trusted and used keyword research tools for SEO. The steps are described in short for beginners to understand without complications.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide — These guidelines from google are evergreen and if you want to succeed follow them religiously.
- Search Engine Book — This blog will take you through the history of SEO and how the actual process works to make sites rank high.
Build Your Own Keyword Research Guideline
Keywords are frequently used terms searchers use to search information. Basically anything you type inside the search box is a keyword but if the term doesn’t have any search history or volume, it does not have any value.
You can’t go about and put up any content and expect it will get ranked. A post doesn’t rank and compete with other posts. Instead, they are just results for a specific keyword you type in.
So, you need to find valuable terms that have less competition and still have sufficient traffic potential. Keep in mind, whatever sources you will find online, nobody will teach you A-Z on keyword research. And it’s logical, there’s no single best way to do it. You will have to practice yourself and make your own guide.
Here’s some resources that I think are the best on the web for this purpose:
6. Keyword Research: The Definitive Guide (2020) — If you search with terms associated with KW research, Brian Dean’s Backlinko will always show up. This man is a legend in this community and has put in tremendous time to provide in-depth guides nowhere to found. The best thing is this guide is always kept updated.
7. The 2020 Keyword Research Guide for SEO — This is a in-depth guideline from Semrush and written by Rob Woods, who has 7 years experience in SEO consultation and technical editor of the famous book ‘Art of SEO’.
8. Ultimate Keyword Research Guide for Amazon Niche Site — If you looking to crawl into affiliate marketing in future, this guide is probably the best available online. The author is Al-Amin Kabir, who is an award winning marketer known for building profitable niche sites.
Remember one thing, Your keyword intend is very important thing. You just select your topic however your do not know what your customer are looking for your specific keyword. So after finding keyword make sure you understand your keyword intend.
Research and Analyse Competitors
We are brought up with the philosophy of minding our own business. But in SEO, it’s extremely important to not mind our own business i.e. analyse and keep track of your competitors.
It also makes your life a whole lot easier. You can quickly imitate your competitors, find out what keywords they rank for and if there are any loopholes that you can capitalize on.
Here are some resources that I follow:
- SEO Competitive Analysis: The Definitive Guide — Start with this guide from Searchenginejournal.com. It’s short and simple and will give you the basic idea.
- SEO Competitor Analysis: Discover Your Competitor’s Keywords — This is one of my go to articles from Neil Patel. Emulate the step-by-step blueprint and apply it in any website you like, whether it’s ecommerce, affiliate blog or personal blog.
- How to Do an SEO Competitor Analysis — Aherfs is one the best tools for competitor analysis and a guide from their blog is always helpful. This is a practical guide to analyse and steal competitors keywords with ahrefs tool.
- The 14 Best SEO Competitive Analysis Tools (and How to Use Them) — This is an immensely helpful guide to essential tools required for spying on your competitors. You only need one but it’s always good to experiment with few and see which one works best.
On Page SEO
On page SEO is probably the only thing that you can fully control. This includes use of keywords, content structuring, optimizing titles, images and so on. In my sense, on page SEO comprises more than 60% of what you will be doing. So, it’s the most important thing to learn.
Follow these guides and bookmark them:
- ON-PAGE SEO:The Definitive Guide (2020) — It’s yet another Brian Dean guide that goes deep into basics and also covers Video SEO (if you are into youtube). You might not need any other resource if you stick with what he says.
- The Complete Guide to On-Page SEO — Here are some more helpful tactics to add up to your checklist. If Brian missed something in his post, this one covers that up.
- On-Page SEO: An Actionable Guide — I found this guide to be immensely helpful. You might find something new that has not been spoken in the last two resources above.
- 4 On-Page SEO Mistakes That Can Ruin a Blog — Knowing what seo tactics to apply is necessary. But knowing what not to do is crucial too. These guys from Income School offer practical insight on SEO related problems and niche site building tactics.
Off Page Seo and Link Building
Off page SEO and link building are simultaneously used for strategies that help to increase your site’s ranking and authority other than content and on page tactics.
- LINK BUILDING FOR SEO: The Definitive Guide (2020) — This is the best guide ever on link building. It covers a plethora of strategies that have worked for most people, including myself. Brian Dean once again nailed it.
- Link Building Case Study: How I Increased My Search Traffic by 110% in 14 Days — If you don’t know yet what’s ‘skyscraper technique’ is, you haven’t become a part of the community. This technique works and it’s 100% white hat.
- The Ultimate Guide to Off-Page SEO — Most of what this guide talks about are already covered in Brian Dean’s post. However, it’s important to know what Neil Patel has to offer as he is everywhere on the internet.
- 13 Off-Page SEO Techniques To Drive Organic Traffic & Raise Brand Awareness — I found few of the techniques discussed here new and appealing. I will definitely give them a try.
- 7 Link Building Services That Actually Work [2020 Reviews] — There are some new tactics added to this list. This is an addition to the resource #16. Make sure to apply all of them, because you don’t know what might work for you.
Content Creation Tactics
When it comes to content creation, I found most gurus or experts leave that aside. But in SEO, content is everything! No matter how good your SEO campaign is, you can’t beat high quality content.
The first thing to consider is who will be writing out your articles. Is it you or another writer or an agency?
Writing yourself
If you are a one man team now, you better refine your writing skills. It’s too competitive these days and you can’t rank with shady articles.
Here are some guides:
- COPYWRITING: The Definitive Guide — You will be able to learn the skills required to write a polished and user-friendly article. I don’t think you will be needing anything more than this to get started writing.
- How To Write SEO Friendly Content (Beginner To Advanced) — This one is for implementing SEO tactics in your writing. It’s always best to write for users but you can’t neglect the search engine either.
Hiring a writer
If you want to avoid writing, the next best way is to hire a dedicated writer for your project. This will largely depend on what type of niche you are operating in and what kind of articles you require.
If you are into affiliate marketing and require specialized content focusing on product reviews, you better look for writers who have experience in writing articles of that sort. If you are into adsense, you will be needing a writer who can produce unique informative posts that can drive traffic.
Here are some guidelines for you:
- Looking to Hire Writers? Here’s Everything You Need to Know — This article covers sources where you will find writers to hire and some tips to choose one.
- 14 Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Content Writer — If you follow this guide, I don’t think you will have any problem whatsoever to find a writer who suits your demands.
Writing Agencies
There are tons of content writing agencies out there. The number 1 reason to choose an agency is to save time and hassle. If your site gets and requires lots of new articles on an everyday basis, you will have to depend on an agency.
Some agencies offer cheap articles with a fast completion. But sometimes the quality lacks. Others offer high quality articles but the expense can be a bit high. Start experimenting with a few of them until you find one that meets your needs within your budget.
Be realistic. You will find at least 2-3 garbage works in every 50-100 articles you order from any agency. However, this is acceptable and you should add that up to the overall cost of running your business.
Here is a source for all the popular content writing agencies on the internet.
26. Top 10+ SEO Content Writing Services — This post describes all the agencies in details with rates, pros and cons of each of them. This should save you some hassle and minimize experimentation.
Getting to Know Essential Seo Tools
Learning SEO is free but you can’t learn it properly until you start applying these techniques. At some point you will need to pay for some essential tools. But there are great free alternatives that will work at the beginning.
- 29 Best Free SEO Tools (Tried & Tested) — I used most of these free tools in my earlier days in SEO and niche site building business. If you know the basics, you can crack the search engine with these tools only.
- SEO Tools: The Complete List (2020 Update) — This is got to be the most complete and in-depth guide on kW research tools on the internet. It analyses 50+ different tools including free and paid versions.
- The Ultimate Guide to Ubersuggest — Ubersuggest is Neil patel’s free KW research tool that helps beginners to get started. Follow this guide, if you don’t want to go with a paid method.
Crack Technical SEO Complications
Technical SEO comprises activities that aren’t directly related to ranking. But without these you won’t even rank in the first place. They will keep your site safe and make it perfectly ready to crack the search engines.
Here’s what technical SEO covers:
- Site structure and Silo
- URL format
- Solving indexing issues
- Avoiding cannibalization
- Optimizing for faster page loading
- Mobile optimization
And stuff like that…
The below resources can come in help:
- Technical Seo: The Definitive Guide — This post describes more than 10 technical SEO issues and how to solve them. Once you get acquainted with these terms, you can search on google for more information on them.
- The Ultimate Guide to Technical SEO — This list is organized perfectly for beginners to understand easily. It covers most of the issues you will likely face.
- The Beginner’s Guide to Technical SEO — Here’s a bonus resource that will cover any issue that the previous two resources missed.
Credible and Valuable Sources for SEO
Blogs
Well, it’s tempting to watch a youtube video on SEO. Even I do that. But trust me, youtube still doesn’t have enough resources to help you learn SEO. Most of the good advice can be found on blogs and websites.
Follow these great blogs:
- Search Engine Land — This website is created by SEO guru Danny Sullivan. So, you can expect authentic, tried and tested strategies from them.
- Google Blog — It’s Google’s own blog. It’s best to get updates on upcoming changes and current changes to Google analytics.
- Backlinko — Of all the resources we mentioned here, most came from Backlinko. This blog is filled with in-depth SEO guides that’s like dreams coming true for newbies.
- Search Engine Watch — This is yet another site created by Danny Sullivan. It’s regarded as the most authentic source for everything SEO.
- Moz Blog — Moz is a popular SEO tool and it’s blog provides helpful guides and insights. It’s a Rand Fishkin site, so you can expect credibility from them.
- Ahrefs Blog — The most used SEO tool ever. It’s a go to source to learn KW research using Ahrefs.
Books
SEO techniques are always changing. So, books might not be the best source to refer to. However, if you love reading, these are worth your time.
- The Art of SEO — If you ask anyone in the SEO community to refer to a book, you will be redirected to this one. It talks about how the system works and every other thing.
- Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies — As you all know the Dummies series books are always targeted towards newbies. This one might not be as in-depth as the previous book but the language is easy and will help you get acquainted with SEO sooner.
Youtube Channels
Here are some Youtube Channels that offer valuable content on a regular basis:
- Ahrefs
- Neil Patel
- Backlinko
- Income School (My Favorite for niche site building)
- Google Analytics
- Google Webmasters
SEO Case Studies: Getting motivated
There are tons of SEO providers online. Despite that, case studies are just a handful. It’s because most agencies keep the information to themselves and as SEO can fail sometimes, case studies can bring in negative thoughts.
Here are some case studies that you can refer to:
Where to Head now: SEO Goals to Pursue
It’s also important to set a goal before you start learning SEO. Because some applications of SEO require a specific skill set. Here are a few goals you can pursue.
- Gain Raw Traffic — Search engine optimization when done right can bring you a huge load of traffic. These visitors will come naturally when your Keywords get ranked. You can capitalize this traffic to sell affiliate products or earn from ad programs.
- Boosting eCommerce Sales — If you are targeting to build an eCommerce site, you will be needing traffic from different sources. SEO can give you free traffic that can increase your revenue.
- Personal or Company Branding — For some folks, selling isn’t an issue. They can use SEO to empower their brand image and gain new business opportunities. This works best for physical businesses who want more exposure rather than sales.
- Lead Acquisition — If you have an online agency looking to sell digital products/services, you can use the power of SEO to find new clients and new business deals.
Final Words…
I guess that’s the end of this guideline to SEO basics. These sources have been carefully chosen based on recommendations from SEO experts and from my own experience in building niche sites and working with clients at Pro Alpha Tech.
What matters most is taking action. With actually building a website and implementing the strategies will take you nowhere!
So, get started today!!
