The world of SEO can sometimes seem like a daunting labyrinth of strategies and techniques. But what if we told you that SEO can be easy? In this blog post, we’re unveiling an exact 8-step process that’s been battle-tested to scale clients’ SEO traffic from zero to an impressive 200k per month, and beyond.
The best part? We’ve done the hard work, so you don’t have to. Get ready to demystify SEO and discover a straightforward path to success.
Here are the 8 main steps I’ll be covering below.
1 – Technical & on-page SEO
Some of this is going to be a bit technical, but here’s what you need to know. TL;DR:
- Use WP Rocket in WordPress to improve page speed & core web vitals
- Use Smush to compress images & improve load speed
Some other technical concepts are
- Sitemap.xml: Shows Google how to navigate your site and content.If you run WP, install Yoast or Rankmath to create a sitemap.
- Site architecture: Crawl of any page shoulder <4. I.e. any page should be reached with no more than 3 clicks from your homepage
- Image formats: Next-gen image formats (e.g. WebP) can be compressed better than JPG or PNG. Use Smush for this.
- Duplicate content: Google hates duplicate content and will penalize you. If you have duplicate pages, just merge them w/ 301 redirect or delete one.
- Robots.txt file: Tells search engines which URLs the crawler can access. Hide non-public or unimportant pages. If you’re a SaaS, hide in-app pages too.
- Optimize for general best practices – To keep things simple, use Yoast or RankMath here.
- Use GTMetrix to find which images to resize
- Activate lazy-loading if your pages contain a lot of images
- Minify if you have 100+ JSS files
- Use Cloudflare + BunnyCDN for fast & cheap solution
Small details like this add up. Use WP Rocket to fix most optimization
2. Keyword research
Once your site is optimized, it’s time to define your SEO strategy. First, create an SEO sheet in order to:
– Prioritize content
– Keep track of publishing process
– Get a top-down view of your web pages
Here’s what to cover in it
- Search phrase
- keyword you’re targeting
- Topic priority (1-5 based on importance)
- Status (written, draft, published?)
- Topic cluster – main category
- Search volume – CPC Find a copy of the sheet and make a copy here!
How do you fill in this sheet with keywords? Here’s my favorite method:
– Find 5 SEO competitors
– Run them through SEMrush or Ahrefs
– Organic research -> extract and start adding to your sheet
– Filter down, organize, and choose relevant KWs accordingly
Ideally, do this with competitors who have a strong SEO presence. Extract relevant ones and categorize them based on relevant topic clusters. Remember, the idea here is NOT to steal keywords. But find ideas you can write better content on.
3 – Creating SEO landing pages
Here, you create landing pages for important, money pages. For example, if you’re SaaS – “project management software”, “project management system”, and so on.
These are your main “use-case” topics. And also makes topic clustering easier.
If your SaaS has multiple main use cases, you build out different landing pages for each.
- Use the main keywords
- Alter sub-headings
- Add relevant images/visuals Then, optimize with RankMath or Yoast.
Once it’s live, you’ll want to place them somewhere on your website. Usually, this will be your navigation menu (header) and/or footer. Now, you’ll want to make sure they actually rank. And here’s what you need to know about that…
Typically, landing pages are harder to rank than content.
With content, quality plays a huge part. With landing pages though, you can’t just “create a better landing page” for a use-case. What you need here is backlinks.
4 – Creating SEO blog content
Now, let’s get back on track. So, how do we create blog posts that rank? 2 main things:
1. Create a comprehensive content outline
2. Get the writing part right.
Here’s what you need to know about each.
A content outline is a doc with all the info an article should contain, including:
- Which headers and subheaders to use
- Optimal word count
- What info each section should cover
- SEO optimization requirements (if not using Yoast, etc.)
Outlines are super useful, whether you have a writing team or you’re DIY. Here’s what to include:
- Word count (1.5x-2x whatever your competitor wrote)
- Similar header structure
- What the writer should mention (target audience language – Reddit, Quora, etc.)
Alright, here’s the thing. Outlines are super contextual to cover in-depth. So, here’s an example I made for this thread. Feel free to swipe the structure! (File -> Make a copy).
Outlines are only half the battle though. How do you write well?
- Use your target audience’s language
- No fluff – Keep the search intent in mind
- Follow your branding/writing guidelines
- Use Grammarly/Hemingway
- Hire the right writers to save time editing
5 – Link building
Alright, now we’re getting to the fun part. Links are essential if you want your content or web pages to rank. Especially if you’re in a competitive niche.
Think about it: Everyone has good content. Everyone knows how to write well.
So, the main competition is in backlinks. Google “best VPN” and you’ll see all the top content is almost the same thing.
- Well written
- Long-form listicle
- Easy to navigate
- UX-friendly But what’s the determining factor? Links!
If backlinks scare you, don’t worry. Only the most ever-green niches are super competitive.
Think VPN, health and fitness, gambling, CBD, etc. But how DO you do link-building?
So, there are a million link-building strategies out there broken link-building, stealing from your competitors, scholarship link-building, so on…
But here are my 2 go-to strategies that work in every niche
1. Broken link building
Find a dead page with lots of links, reach out to websites that link to them, and tell them – “Hey! I saw your link to this article, but it’s dead. Thought you’d want to fix that. You can use our recent article, if you think it’s cool enough?”
2. Guest posting
The most popular tactic. Find sites accepting guest posts, reach out with a pitch, and usually they’ll let you include 1-2 do-follow links back to your site. 1 in the blog, 1 to your site in the author box.
Conclusion
In the ever-evolving digital landscape, SEO remains a critical tool for achieving online success. We’ve shared an 8-step process that simplifies the journey from zero to 200k monthly traffic. By following this battle-tested strategy, you’ll be well on your way to SEO success, all while avoiding the common pitfalls.
We’ve made it easy, so go ahead and take the leap into the world of SEO with confidence. Your website’s traffic and visibility are about to reach new heights.
