{"id":4628,"date":"2023-05-17T14:16:16","date_gmt":"2023-05-17T12:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/?p=4628"},"modified":"2023-05-19T18:07:47","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T16:07:47","slug":"what-you-learn-in-first-year-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/en\/marketing\/what-you-learn-in-first-year-seo","title":{"rendered":"What you’ll learn in your first year of SEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is really quite simple: if you want to learn how to do SEO, you have to\u00a0do\u00a0<\/em>SEO.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reading books and articles and watching YouTube videos by the experts is all well and good, but it\u2019s no substitute for rolling up your sleeves and getting down into the trenches.<\/p>\n

Here are 9 of the hard truths that will trickle out during your first 12 months of engaging seriously with SEO.<\/p>\n

1. In the wonderful world of SEO, the Davids can take on the Goliaths<\/h2>\n

Probably like a lot of other SEOs, I first got into this field when I optimised my own website (for\u00a0legal translation services from German to English<\/a>).<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a terribly auspicious start! When I first looked at the first page of the Googlehttp:\/\/www.spezialis-translations.at\/ results for the keywords relevant to my strategy, I honestly wondered whether it was worth bothering with SEO at all. The top spots were dominated by big translation agencies, offering all language combinations and translations across a range of subject areas from medical to insurance and marketing. Would I, a highly specialised one-woman show with only one language pair, be able to make any inroads into their territory?<\/p>\n

Well, since my aim was not just to improve my website but also to learn about SEO, I decided to give it a shot anyway and see what happened.<\/p>\n

Quite a bit, as it turns out.<\/p>\n

One year later, and with several first-page rankings under my belt, I\u2019ve proven that the Goliaths aren\u2019t always running the show. If the Davids are smart enough, they can compete \u2014 and get ahead.<\/p>\n

2. Persistence pays off<\/h2>\n

SEO isn\u2019t a film \u2014 it\u2019s more like a long-running soap opera. It goes on, and on, and on\u2026in much the same manner as C\u00e9line Dion\u2019s heart in the late 90s.<\/p>\n

It is a common misconception that, to be successful in SEO, all you have to do is make the necessary technical and structural changes to your website, write some content and that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

Nothing could be further from the truth. While technical and structural adjustments and improvements & additions to content are important: continuity in execution is the decisive factor between those who see a return on their SEO efforts and those who give up, demoralised.<\/p>\n

3. Investing in SEO is like investing in a friendship or other relationship<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s true \u2014 with SEO there are no firm guarantees that it will pay off or that you will get the returns you want. But that is no reason not to dive in and do the hard yards. Do you invest in your friendships or relationships with the sole intention of getting a specific, short-term gain? Of course you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

SEO is an investment that you can only make with the right amount of faith and goodwill.<\/p>\n

4. Seeing results is SO motivating<\/h2>\n

As I\u2019ve mentioned, with SEO, you don\u2019t see results overnight. It takes several months even to see the first uptick in impressions and\/or clicks. Your website only builds up authority with Google slowly and you have to keep on feeding the beast of Silicon Valley reasons to take you seriously and allow you to rank better.<\/p>\n

But once you see your traffic ticking upwards, it is the greatest motivation! Immediately, you feel spurred on to do more, be even better.<\/p>\n

It is quite addictive. In no time, you are officially an SEO nerd.<\/p>\n

5. Getting backlinks is really, really hard<\/h2>\n

Backlinks, as the heart of offpage SEO, are a key factor in achieving good rankings. And yet it is devilishly difficult to obtain them. It takes a hell of a lot of creativity, promotion and outreach to get just one.<\/p>\n

Buying backlinks is possible, but it\u2019s a risky business. Basically, it is against Google\u2019s guidelines and you could incur a penalty for doing it and undo all your hard work.<\/p>\n

Even if you are going to go ahead and take that risk, you need to know where best to get those juicy backlinks, which ones are good investments and how to integrate them into your website naturally. That is a science all by itself.<\/p>\n

6. Don\u2019t get too caught up on the data<\/h2>\n

Of course, a big part of putting together a good SEO strategy is to work out which keywords are going to work best with regard to your goals. Identifying those keywords is a matter of research and looking at the relevant search data. Analysing the results of your actions and how your website is performing with regard to the agreed KPIs is also \u2014 you guessed it! \u2014 a matter of data analysis.<\/p>\n

However, constantly poring over the numbers and obsessing over what is happening on a week-to-week, or even day-to-day basis is going to result in a situation where you focus too much on the short-term gains and can\u2019t see the wood for the trees.<\/p>\n

In his book \u201cThe Value of SEO<\/a>\u201d, Andrew Holland even goes so far as suggesting doing \u201cblind SEO\u201d, i.e. doing SEO for a whole year\u00a0without\u00a0<\/em>looking at a single metric. This will encourage you to build the best and most relevant website for the users you wish to attract to it rather than focusing on just data and traffic. That will get you much better results over the long term.<\/p>\n

7. When it comes to content, quality beats quantity every time<\/h2>\n

Following on from the previous point: how do you make your website the most relevant in your niche and a place to which your target users return time and time again? Answer: by investing in your digital assets \u2014 meaning your website and the content on it.<\/p>\n

When it comes to content, building a website which achieves these goals means prioritising quality over quantity.<\/p>\n

You can pump out 5 quick but shallow articles a week that are just a repetition of what everyone has has already done\u2026OR you can take the time to create a piece of content which is unique and surpasses anything else your competitors have out there on the same topic. The one that answers the questions that users didn\u2019t even know they had.<\/p>\n

Guess which strategy is going to earn you more points with Google when it is assessing which website offers the user the best possible answer to the relevant search enquiry? Exactly.<\/p>\n

8. Understanding search intent is key<\/h2>\n

Search intention means what the user is actually looking for when they type certain keywords or keyphrases into the Google search window.<\/p>\n

This can be tricky to work out. Take the keyphrase \u201ctranslation laws<\/em>\u201d, for example. Users could be searching for a translator to translate certain laws. OR it could mean that the user is looking for existing translations of certain laws. From the keyphrase alone, it\u2019s impossible to tell with any certainty.<\/p>\n

Be critical about search intent when researching keywords and creating your SEO strategy. Failing to do that analysis up front could mean amassing useless impressions and clicks later on, distorting the picture of how well you are really doing on the SEO front.<\/p>\n

9. There\u2019s always more work to do<\/h2>\n

As you can see, the first 12 months of SEO are going to be a story of learning, trying, failing, learning more, analysing, trying more, winning a bit\u2026and so on.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s tough going. But afterwards, you\u2019ll have a better idea of how approach SEO, what works\u2026and what doesn\u2019t! You\u2019ll also fully understand how SEO success can only come from long-term commitment to the discipline.<\/p>\n

Your website (or your clients\u2019 websites) can\u00a0always\u00a0<\/em>be better and more useful to the people it intends to serve. Whether it\u2019s adding unique images, valuable infographics or top-quality content that your users love\u2026just like a real house, there\u2019s always something you can do to your digital assets to spruce them up and make them better.<\/p>\n

Time to get back to work!<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Photo credit: YuriArcursPeopleimages<\/a> on Envato Elements]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nine hard truths that are going to trickle out during your first 12 months of engaging seriously with SEO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4629,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1053],"tags":[878,804,863],"channel":[],"class_list":["post-4628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing","tag-digital-advertising","tag-digital-marketing","tag-seo-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4628"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4656,"href":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4628\/revisions\/4656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4628"},{"taxonomy":"channel","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskplaywin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/channel?post=4628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}