6 secrets for mastering the art of SEO

6 secrets for mastering the art of SEO

When it comes to SEO, there is a mountain of information you will have to learn before you can implement anything successfully and boost your own rankings prior to making any money organically.  SEO is always evolving since the search algorithms are constantly changed to help the search engines show the most relevant, and best content there is on the web for each and every search query.  If you understand that much, you also know that you'll always be learning about the new updates and how they work in order for you to keep pushing towards that #1 position.

In the world of search engine optimization, there are thousands of companies and even more freelancers trying to get the top spots for specific keywords, so you know it's a difficult journey.  The beauty of the search engines is that they are an equal opportunity ranking system, as long as you play by the rules, which means you have a chance to get on top of a 500,000 searched keyword just as much as a million dollar company.  Of course, you'll have to know what you're doing and build up your link profile as well as do various on page optimization things in order to please the search engine gods, but that's all pretty common when it comes to rankings.

In this discussion I'll be going over 6 secrets you need to understand before you can start mastering the art of SEO, and those 6 secrets are:


Understand that you have to walk before you can run
Whenever I visit a marketing or SEO forum, I always come across a person who is trying to rank RIGHT NOW for their extremely difficult keywords.  The experienced people will always say the same thing, which is "You should target lower difficulty keywords and work your way up to the main ones.  You need to target the low hanging fruit first, so you can get some traffic and sales, then target the bigger ones" which is pretty good advice.  We tell people to do this because you'll never rank for a main keyword right away, and if you're targeting lower difficulty keywords you can build up a presence online, which Google will start to watch.

After a few months, you can then start to target your main keywords, and you might actually start to crack the top 5 pages if you're lucky.  It will always be an uphill battle, and even if you do rank #1 for your main keywords, it will then turn into a king of the hill battle royal for the top spot.  There's no where else to go except down, and everyone will try to kick you off of the top so they can get the traffic you earned over time. 


Understand you'll always be learning and will never know everything
When it comes to SEO, I feel like I'm always reading research studies or big blogs going over what the new method is to rank quicker.  I of course take everything with a grain of salt and let other people abuse the systems before I even think of going in, mainly because I don't know what's going to happen and I want to see if there is any backlash because of someones rankings taking after they tried their hand at something new lol.

You won't learn SEO and Marketing overnight, it takes years of trial and error to know exactly what works and what doesn't, and even when you get to the point where you feel you know everything, it all changes lol


Understanding the acronyms
If you plan on doing SEO yourself, you will need to get well versed in all of the acronyms.  This is because there are a lot of them and some look similar but mean completely different things all together.  If you don't know the acronyms, you could mention SEM but meant to talk about SMM which is a totally different thing. 

Below are some examples of the SEO related acronyms you'll need to know:

• SEO >>> Search Engine Optimization
  The act of ranking your website organically within Google by optimizing your websites pages as well as building a presence on 3rd party websites so you can climb to #1 for your keywords.
  
  
• CTR >>> Click Through Rate
  The percentage of people who clicked your link within the search engines either on your ad or organic listing.
  
  
• IM >>> Internet Marketing
  The act of marketing around the internet to build buzz about your website or company in order to increase sales.
  
  
• OBL >>> Outbound Links
  he amount of links on a page that are aimed at other websites.
  
  
• PR >>> Page Rank
  The page rank of your website, or page, between 1 and 10 which is set by Google (doesn't matter much anymore since PR isn't a metric for SEO).
  
  
• SMM >>> Social Media Marketing
  The act of marketing on social media platforms in order to boost sales.
  
  
• SERP >>> Search Engine Results Pages
  This is the results pages within the search engine after you look up a keyword or phrase.

Now these are just a few of the possibly hundreds of acronyms that you'll have to familiarize yourself with, but this is a good start for you if you're just getting into SEO.


Understand that not everything needs your backlinks
When it comes to SEO, you now don't have to place a backlink each and every time, in order to get a benefit from your post.  You can place plain text URLs as well as mention your business name or domain name without the .com or .net and still get a benefit from the search engines.  They search engines are smart enough to figure out you're trying to talk about your website, without you having to always place a link, and they will eventually boost your rankings because of it.

When you do place a backlink, be sure to vary up your anchors and even place your URL as the link itself, in order to get the most benefit over time.  If you're linking to a sub page, be sure your anchor relates directly to that sub page for the best benefit passed through the link to your website.


Understand that branding now helps with SEO
Branding has always been on the back burner for SEO because people didn't really think that it played a huge role in your rankings, but I've always told people to get their name out there and watch their rankings climb lol.  Over the years, people have started leaning more towards a branding type of SEO than just placing links wherever they could, and it's been treating them well in the rankings.  Basically, you'll just want to help out as many people as possible and get your name out there, in a good way, so the search engines can find you and all the positive content written about you from the people you've helped along the way.

The more branded, and positive, content out there about your business and website, the easier it will be to rank for your desired keywords


Understand what to do on your own websites
On page optimization is a big player in the overall SEO of a website.  You will never have the best result possible with an off page SEO campaign if your on page optimization is lacking.  Plenty of SEO companies out there will actually do free on page SEO because they want their main services to shine, and that wouldn't happen if the clients on page optimization wasn't set up properly.

If you're not optimizing your titles, descriptions, headers, alt tags, content, etc. you'll just fall behind your competitors in the race to the top of the mountain.  You could be outsourcing your SEO, and if your on page SEO isn't great, your money will pretty much be wasted until you correct everything.



In conclusion
SEO isn't something that you should take up as a hobby, since it could make you a lot of money, and because it's a key point in your overall marketing campaign.  Yes, marketing and SEO are closely related, so much that people sometimes confuse the two when they are marketing their own websites and placing links for themselves lol   You can't be a know it all, because you'll likely fail sooner than later, so be modest and know that you don't know something.  Know your acronyms, if you don't, you'll just look like a fool when you ask "What's SMM and why do I need it?" on an open forum revolving around SEO lol.  Basically, you just need to read and then test what you've learned on a burner website that you aren't afraid of hurting.  After you've gone through a few burner websites, you can then try out your newly acquired skills on a website you truly want to rank and make money from


Remember to follow me!
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/Razzy


Thanks!

Razzy