Do you want to learn SEO?
Hi Indie Hackers!
In exchange for feedback on the following, ask me an SEO-related question that's been on your mind and I'll do my best to answer it!
I've been here for a while as I've been juggling the full-time grind while building out my own project Centori on nights and weekends.
I started working on Centori after years of working in marketing/software and seeing common SEO solutions either being too technical, too expensive, or just too specialized to one thing.
Enter Centori - a platform that aims to be reasonably priced, cover all the basics of SEO (from technical SEO to keyword research and content creation), and be simple enough so that anyone can create an account and be able to use it.
Here' the problem: even the simplest platform still requires you to have some knowledge on how to leverage it to the fullest. I still have people who create an account and have this 'well, now what do I do with this?' moment which brings me to my main question:
Does anyone actually want to learn SEO?
I want to validate a theory that a platform that can allow people to do all the basic elements of SEO and learn along the way is valuable, to do that it'd be great to get some perspectives on the following questions:
- Do you want to learn SEO?
- Would you rather do SEO yourself or have someone do it for you?
- How have you tried to learn SEO before?
- What has been the hardest thing for you in learning SEO?
- If there was one thing you could have in learning SEO, what would it be?
Feel free to drop a comment or shoot me an email tscionti@centori.io!
Hey just checked your site
Thanks for the feedback! Been meaning to get the SSL cert so I'll just do that this week and get it set.
As for the load time, we're at the mercy of Wordpress unfortunately. I've been thinking of going with a different CMS (plugins to improve site speed haven't really worked out), especially since page speed and experience have been announced as ranking factors by Google.
Do you have any feedback on the questions posted in the post?
I think most folks want to know the bare minimums. Like what ranks well on Google, what keywords should I target etc.
Then another group wants to study it a lot and become experts.
I built http://versoly.com/ to replace Wordpress for landing pages and blogs with a goal around conversions.
Pagespeed is currently like 85+ on mobile and 95+ on desktop with no extra work required. We plan on getting them scores even higher :)
Thanks for the feedback! Anything in particular from your own experience where you fall in that group (learning bare minimums vs wanting to go deeper)? And anything that's been useful in your learning or especially challenging?
And cool! I've checked you guys out - I recall seeing a comment you dropped on a post about unlimited blog posts coming down to the launch plan so I'd be interested when that's set cause we have quite a bit of content haha
Do you have caching enabled on your Wordpress site? In the past I've seen them improve the page speeds tremendously so I am surprised when you say plugins haven't helped.
That may be part of it - I responded to the other comment below that I've got a fair amount of plugins and there are some image-heavy and js-heavy pages that definitely contribute to the slowness.
I'll look into caching though, I thought I had implemented some caching but could be wrong!
Yeah some plugins do slow down the loading process. But caching helps nevertheless. W3 Total Cache and Supercache used to be the two best plugins for WP caching back in the day when I dabbled with a few WP sites. I guess they should be still around.
All the best.
Thanks I'll give them a go!
Wordpress isn't the problem, there are a lot of Wordpress websites loading fast
That's fair - it's more my combination of plugins at various stages of being updated and js, Wordpress gets a rep for being slow but it's what you put into it (or don't) that makes it that way.
Yes!
I'm a DIY guy so I prefer doing it myself.
Yes!
Search engines change their algo all the time and it's hard to keep up.
Understanding how to write content that ranks well.
Thanks for the great feedback! If you don't mind a follow up question - is there anything in particular you've tried in learning SEO? What worked well? What didn't?
I'm interested in learning more about writing content for SEO. As a designer/developer, I know quite a bit about on-page SEO, but I want to dive deeper in keyword distribution/optimization.
Thanks that's great to know!
Off the top of my head, one of my favorite content-writing resources is Copyblogger as they've got a ton of free content around writing for the web and most of it is very easy to read through and apply.
Since this post seems to be getting a pretty positive response, I think I'm also going to invest a lot of time into creating some educational resources as well :)
My questions
Schema markup: how to connect multiple websites?
A large corporation, (corporation.com) has a publication that resides on a separate website (publication.com)
I want to connect the corporation and publication using schema markup.
Is it okay to markup the publication with organization schema that mentions the corporation name? Where should I mention the corporation name?
Thanks for the feedback! Just curious, are there any tools that you've tried? What did you like/not like about them?
Hmmm that's a fun question. I'd be curious first off, why that's the case that they'd want the publication on a separate domain rather than their own? Is the publication a subsidiary of the parent org?
There are some options though I'll add a disclaimer that I have not tested these I've just researched them.
Based on this post in stackoverflow it is possible to label websites with a parent<>subsidiary relationship by setting the subOrganization in the Organization schema.
I'd say that's worth a shot!
Here's a brief list of tools I tried/currently use:
Coming from a non-development background, some aspects of technical SEO have been difficult for me to grasp. I'm a visual person, so when I stumbled across classyschema.org I was very happy. It's a visual way to understand schema and I quickly incorporated it into my toolbox, because it improved my workflow.
Having tried the big three (SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz)...they're all good, but the user interface and design is what made the difference for me. I'm in these tools every day, so it's important for them to be intuitive. I didn't like Moz, SEMrush is OK, and Ahrefs is awesome.
Re: schema. The publication is not a subsidiary, so I'm not sure if that markup would work. What do you think? Any other options?
Completely forgot to respond here! Sorry about that, been dealing with a few issues on our platform.
I'm not 100% sure then, I'd have to do more research though and need more specifics to offer proper advice - a lot of structured data (at least from what I've encountered) is geared towards helping a singular site rather than linking two separate domains though I'm sure someone has done it before.
Good luck with the project!
Hey, I'm founder of https://remoteleaf.com.
I want to learn SEO and implement it on my project. I just don't know where to start. How do I start? What should be the #1 focus?
Thanks for the feedback! If you don't mind a couple follow-up questions:
-Is there anything you've tried before? If so, what worked and what didn't?
-Through learning SEO what are you hoping to achieve?
To answer your questions as well - SEO can be broken into two activities: optimizing your content so Google will rank it favorably, and creating new content that answers questions your audience is asking. Optimization is where things get technical, but even simple modifications like editing your page titles and meta descriptions can result in improved rankings. Content creation revolves around keyword research and blogging/landing page creation to put content on your site that can rank.
That's a very high level overview, but it helps frame an approach to SEO . I've actually just finished writing an ebook this week as an intro to SEO if you want to check it out here
Thanks for the response. I really have not done anything. I just want to get started, not sure which way to go.
Looking at your comment, I think I should start optimizing my content so Google will rank it.
No problem! I'd say that's a great start, it gives you a good foundation to build off of and from there you can focus on adding content to your website.
Do you want to learn SEO?
Yes.
Would you rather do SEO yourself or have someone do it for you?
Myself - i prefer to have the knowledge of SEO
How have you tried to learn SEO before?
Yes, currently following neilpatel.com free weekly courses
What has been the hardest thing for you in learning SEO?
Finding high ranking keywords or related keyword ideas.
If there was one thing you could have in learning SEO, what would it be?
Techniques to increase backlinks and domain authority
Thanks for the feedback! If you don't mind a couple follow up questions - how do you like neil's courses? And for finding high-ranking keywords are there any tools/strategies you've tried?
As for increasing DA and backlinks at a high level the best thing you can do is create a lot of content around a topic that is core to your business. I always recommend folks pick 3 topics related to their business, if that's too much just pick 1.
Google the topic, see what Google auto-suggests or what shows in the 'people also searched for', then take those keywords and Google them, this will give you a pretty good base of related searches for one topic you want Google to know you're an expert on.
For those keywords, head to sites like Reddit or Quora to see what questions people are asking, these will be your blog topics. Google's job is to answer questions, so having content that answers questions around a topic will help you be seen as an authority and improve your rank. It will also give you content that you can request links to, though how to request backlinks and get results at a good response rate could be a course in of itself.
Thanks for the answer tscionti! This is very helpful
Neil's course is acceptable. They dont go to indepth or give many case studies which would help me understand better.
As for tools, aside from Neils tool - i have tried some keyword tools but they are limited in results. Strategies that I am trying now is to increase as much backlinks that I can ( linking from quora or reddit ).
Hey Tyler,
A few points you might want to consider:
(Do the same for your icons & any icons on the site)
Cheers,
thanks for the tip! It's always bothered me how it's just a bit fuzzy, I'll give that a go :)
You can tell it's working properly when you zoom in and it maintains it's sharpness - hence "Scaling Vector Graphic".
Cheers.
Do you want to learn SEO?
Well, I already know quite a bit. But SEO is always changing, so you have to keep open to learning and adapting your techniques as the landscape changes.
Would you rather do SEO yourself or have someone do it for you?
Gosh, I want someone else to do for sure, but unfortunately very few reasonably priced SEOs are truly/legitimately better than me. Most really good SEOs are too expensive for me to hire. Though some expensive SEOs are crap too.
How have you tried to learn SEO before?
Learning SEO is evergreen. You learn it constantly. I've been writing online for 12 years, so you learn what you can, it changes, so you learn the new stuff.
What has been the hardest thing for you in learning SEO?
It's not so much about it being hard to learn SEO. The information is out there if you take the time to educate yourself. You just have to use critical thinking to vet out the good advice from the bad advice. Take some advice, implement it, see if it helps your content rank better, and repeat.
The hard part is related to investing the time needed to do SEO really well. For example, it may take 5-10 hours to write one really well put-together article -- it's hard to do that at scale.
Having a single resource that curated the best advice from all the different experts. Right now you have to follow so many different people (Neil Patel, Income School, John Locke, Rusty Brick, SEOJet, Ranking Academy, Ahrefs YT, Reddit Forums, etc.) to get a feel for what's happening in SEO -- it'll make your head explode.
Thanks for the feedback this is super insightful and helpful! Would it be cool if I followed up with you via email? Since you're knowledgeable about SEO I'd love an "insider's" take on some of the stuff I'm working on.
Of course :) You can email me at oh.iam.mike[ at ]gmail.com
Thanks!
Do you want to learn SEO? YES!
Would you rather do SEO yourself or have someone do it for you? I'm bootstrapping. so I rather do it myself just to save money and for the skill aquisition
remaing questions - no
One thing I would like to see is a short course. Maybe 2-3 hours max with the key concepts. It's not something I want to spend weeks learning.
I recently did a short course on designing. My favourite thing about it was that a lot of the key concepts were covered in a short period of time.
Thanks for the feedback! This is super helpful to know. If there were one topic you'd have to choose for a course on SEO what would it be?
I actually don't know that much about SEO. I just know it's very important.
Maybe an intro on how a bootstrapper could do their own SEO
Good to know!
I actually just published an ebook as an intro to SEO here which might be a helpful starting point.
Been thinking over creating a course as well, so going to start mapping that out too.
Where can I buy affordable SEO data api like search volume, cpc, etc?
Happy to answer! Are you able to provide feedback on the questions posed in the post first?
Ok, sure!
Do you want to learn SEO?
Yes
Would you rather do SEO yourself or have someone do it for you?
I can do it myself
How have you tried to learn SEO before?
I learnt it 10 years ago. Mainly learning from moz, google, blogs, other professionals
What has been the hardest thing for you in learning SEO?
Link building, catch up for competitive keywords
If there was one thing you could have in learning SEO, what would it be?
The weighting of various ranking signals
Awesome thanks this is great to know!
As for an API I'd recommend DataforSEO, I use them to power parts of my app and their rates are pretty good!
This comment was deleted 6 years ago