Where to learn SEO?

From specialists to novices, I am often asked about SEO courses, SEO training, and other methods to learn.

As time goes by, the academic level of SEO is growing and there are already interesting courses. But I still believe more in the self-taught foundation to better fix the knowledge. For this reason, and mainly for a question of cost, I suggest listening to recognized professionals, rather than paying for courses.

A good tool to listen to recognized professionals is Twitter. From there you can get valuable information, tested and validated, in most cases.

For this reason, I decided to select the 50 Twitter accounts that I suggest you follow if you are interested in SEO:

Cyrus Shepard @CyrusShepard

Kevin Raposo @Kevin_Raposo 

Brian Dean @Backlinko 

Danny Sullivan @dannysullivan 

Jaime Novoa @jaimenovoa

Jesús Martinez @jesusmargon

Chris Dyson @ChrisLDyson 

Matt Cutts @mattcutts 

Bloomberg Gadfly @Bfly

Danny Groner @DannyGroner

Jordiob @jordiobdotcom

Ross Hudgens @RossHudgens 

Stacey Cavanagh @staceycav 

Dr. Pete Meyers @dr_pete

Simo Ahava @SimoAhava

Geoff Kenyon @geoffkenyon 

Phil Nottingham @philnottingham 

Eric Enge @stonetemple 

Annie Cushing @AnnieCushing 

Tad Chef @onreact_com 

Jaime Novoa @jaimenovoa

Jesús Martinez @jesusmargon

Danny Ashton @dannyashton 

Avinash Kaushik @avinash

Wil Reynolds @wilreynolds 

Kate Morris @katemorris 

Sean McGinnis @seanmcginnis 

Hannah Smith @hannah_bo_banna 

Ian Lurie @portentint 

Lyndon Antcliff @lyndoman 

Jordiob @jordiobdotcom

Ryan Hoover @rrhoover

Will Critchlow @willcritchlow 

Barry Schwartz @rustybrick 

Larry Kim @larrykim 

Kane Jamison @KaneJamison 

Bill Slawski @bill_slawski

Aleyda Solís @aleyda

James Agate @jamesagate 

Roger Montti @martinibuster 

Rand Fishkin @randfish

Jason Acidre @jasonacidre 

Emilio García @CampamentoWeb

Michael King @iPullRank

Paul Shapiro @fighto 

Adam Connell @adamjayc 

Jon Cooper @pointblankseo 

Fernando Maciá @fernandomacia

Natzir Turrado @natzir9 

Mjcachón @mjcachon

I also suggest you subscribe to Seopatía, Esteve Castells’ newsletter. Not only because it is so updated, but also because of its didactic and easy-to-interpret methodology for all SEO levels.

https://www.getrevue.co/profile/estevecastells

Finally, and doing a bit of self-publicity, I recommend attending SEOday. An international SEO conference where the industry’s main referents expose their SEO strategies and future trends.

https://puntorojo.com/seoday

I hope this information will be helpful for your SEO knowledge to grow. But the most important thing is that we all keep contributing to the list so we can help each other, that’s why I ask you to please comment with more Twitter accounts to follow, more newsletters, more courses, events, and other tools :-D

Why are we sharing this information? 1 week ago we got an offer from an ”SEO specialist”, who offered to write a post on our blog with ”introductory information about SEO”. After reading it, we realized that many people are at risk of consuming the wrong information, and it is one of the causes of the delay in the growth of the SEO industry.

I copy below the text so you can identify when you are consuming valuable information, such as that of the professionals mentioned above, and when you are not…

SEO for beginners

SEO is an extremely important word that is part of the vocabulary used daily by all those who work daily in the field of digital marketing.

Its acronym means Search Engine Optimization.

But why is Search Engine Optimization important? How does SEO work? Is SEO necessary? What happens if my website does not have SEO?

These are some of the questions that many people ask about SEO, so we have decided to dedicate this post to answering these and other questions in the simplest way possible.

At the end of this post, you will no longer be the uninterested party in the conversation, and you will start a new goal in your website (in case you don’t handle the term): “Providing SEO”.

If you already know the topic, we invite you to read it, you will surely find some interesting clues, or maybe it will simply help you to refresh the topic.

Something we have learned is that information is never enough, it should not be discriminated or underestimated.

Why is SEO important?

If I, as a user, customer, or buyer, am interested in a particular item, I will go in search of it.

Let’s imagine that I want to buy some shoes, but I have no idea how to use the Internet; the first thing I do is to go to a shopping mall because I know that there are shoe stores there, when I get to the site, I start to locate the shoe stores to evaluate the models and prices, and thus make the selection of the one I like the most.

I probably won’t visit all the shoe stores, maybe I won’t have enough time, or maybe I’ll get tired.

So if there are stores that would improve the offer and the models I probably won’t know about it.

The same thing happens with online shopping or searching, but with convenience, security and variety.

If a person enters the online platform with an objective in mind, it is like who goes to the mall, the Internet is your mall.  Look closely, the SEARCH is a guide, it takes you directly to where you want to go.

Continuing with the example of shoes, if a person enters online, women’s shoes, immediately the search engine will sort the websites, classify them, and display them by groups of pages.

As a buyer, I will start to evaluate the models and prices, and most likely I will do it in the first pages. Can you imagine that the search engine will show me 400 sites? I don’t think I would visit that many websites, it would become a stressful shopping experience.

What would happen if your website is ranked 400? or 300? or 100? or 50?

It will be like the stores in the Mall that for X reason I will not visit, no matter if you have better offers, if your models are unique, if there is no website with more security than yours, if the design is impeccable, IF THE SEARCH ENGINE DOES NOT GIVE YOU A GOOD POSITIONING THE CUSTOMERS OR USERS DO NOT SEE YOU.

And if they don’t see you, they don’t visit you, and if they don’t visit you, you don’t sell.

SEO helps you to position yourself, it helps you to be among the first, SEO is a key factor of websites, that’s why it is so important!

Statistics show that the behavior of a person interested in a product, service, or information, is to locate the target in the first pages, it is not very common to visit all the pages shown by search engines.

Do you understand now why SEO is important for your website?

I WANT A LOT OF SEO ON MY WEBSITE

Now that you know what SEO is, you’re probably thinking of calling your website administrator or developer and asking him to put a lot of SEO on your page, and that you want to appear among the first ones.

That’s great! If you’re doing that, you’ve understood what SEO is.

But I must give you a dose of reality:

“SEO is an organic work that takes a long time to obtain, so much that the first results you’ll see will be in 6 months, and with a good digital marketing campaign.”

Yes, I’m sure it fell like a bucket of cold water, but that’s the truth, SEO does not work like a button that is programmed, SEO must be worked, it must be planned, and it must be executed under a digital marketing campaign model preferably, and for best results, you should do it guided by people with experience in the area.

HOW DOES SEO WORK AND HOW DO I WORK MY WEBSITE TO HAVE SEO?

To know how SEO works, it is a primary requirement to know what elements or factors are involved in SEO?

1. Search engines are websites developed to locate on the web everything that users want to find on the Internet. The main search engines are the following:

• Google.
• Yahoo.
• Bing.
• Dogpile.
• DuckDuckgo.
• Ecosia.
• Exalead.
• Gibiru.
• Among others.

And although there are many more, who dominate the search market, Google, with all the applications it has created for PC, mobile, and Tablet, has become our necessary search participation.

1. The algorithm is a kind of programming code used by search engines to rank web pages. We are not going to dig too much into its structure, it is enough to know that we must make our publications to be well qualified by the algorithm. Google constantly updates the algorithm, so it is good to keep updated so that your SEO is optimized.
2. The design of your website, its design structure, and the speed of the site are very important for the Google algorithm to position you among the first. Avoid very heavy images, in this sense, less is more, it comes very well to what you want to achieve.
3. Publications: what you publish on the Internet, is the key to your entire site, it is your branding, it is the anchor to attract or repel your visitors. Publications are the day-to-day, previously people did not pay much attention to them and published according to their criteria and ideas.

With all the advancements in the online market, websites have adapted their publications to a persuasive market trend, with articles of real interest to users.

And users have become much more demanding; so, if you want to get your users’ attention, you must give them useful material to read.

Keys to SEO in publications

If your publications are optimized for SEO, then you have a good chance that Google will find you and give you a good positioning.

We remind you that you must be very patient with this positioning of your website because the competition is quite tough, you are not the only one in your area, nor the only one who wants to get good positioning.

However, some important keys can help you in positioning, in what is popularly called giving SEO to the publications.

1. Keywords: Keywords play an important role, but you have to be careful when writing and we will explain why:

In the beginning, there were several keywords that you had to fulfill, but people abused this, writing texts like to eat tastily, you must first say what is to eat tastily and what is not, we will show you what is to eat tasty because eating tasty is the best of all life.

The texts became sentences and even tongue twisters, so Google changed the algorithm. On the contrary,

• Try to have the keyword in the first paragraph in the first 20 words and if you can, start the text.
• Distribute the keyword in the paragraphs evenly.
• If you repeat keywords too much, you may be penalized.
• Use synonyms of your keywords.

1. Keyword selection: to select which keywords to use you can use the search engines and see the trends, when you enter a word Google gives you search references.

There are also Google pages and tools that help you to see search statistics such as Google Adwords Keyword Planners.

1. Use several keywords: You can optimize your article for several keywords, this way you have more chances to compete.
2. Title: Select a title that is attractive and place the keyword in it.
3. Many words: Many social networks have adopted the modality of few words and many images, so many users have become accustomed to punctual and not very long texts.

But as extremes are bad, do not write texts of less than 300 words, do not write very long paragraphs, and try to be persuasive.

1. Use of bullets: texts, where you use enumerations and bullets, are also prioritized by Google’s algorithm.
2. Use titles and subtitles: and include keywords in them.
3. Use of bold keyword highlighting: this practice is good but should not be abused, highlighting a couple of times some words is fine.
4. Content: this is the main thing, pay a lot of attention, Google gives priority to original content, your own, so do not try to copy anyone.

Original texts for SEO

The best thing you can do to work on the positioning of your page is to be original, and this is very serious, the horses when they compete only look ahead, you should do the same.

This is the only thing we invite you to imitate, if you have an idea of how to run your business, blog, or store, do not imitate, do not look at your competition and do the same, be original.

The best you can do is write what you know and think, distribute your words in a balanced way, and use many synonyms.

This way Google will take you into account.

In addition, bad practices are penalized, what many used to do is no longer valid, that of writing the same thing with other words, Google’s algorithm detects it now.

Recommendations

First of all, we recommend you to be patient, SEO takes time to give results but it gives them.

One of the secrets of SEO is in the research, determine who your audience is, what they would like to read, what would be useful, and give new information and your followers will remain loyal.  The research will make keyword selection easy.

Position your website and expand your ideas.