If you’re like most SEOs, you spend a lot of time reading. Over the past several years, I’ve spent 100s of hours studying blogs, guides, and Google patents. Not long ago, I realized that 90% of what I read each doesn’t change what I actually do - that is, the basic work of ranking a web page higher on Google.
For newer SEOs, the process can be overwhelming.
To simplify this process, I created this step by step SEO blueprint. It’s meant as a framework for newer SEOs to build their own work on top of. This basic blueprint has helped, in one form or another, 100s of pages and dozens of sites to gain higher rankings.
Think of it as an intermediate SEO instruction manual, for beginners.
Level: Beginner to Intermediate
Timeframe: 2 to 10 Weeks
What you need to know: The blueprint assumes you have basic SEO knowledge: you’re not scared of title tags, can implement a rel=canonical, and you’ve built a link or two. (If this is your first time to the rodeo, we suggest reading the Beginners Guide to SEO and browsing our Learn SEO section.)
Keyword Research
1. Working Smarter, Not Harder
Keyword research can be simple or hard, but it should always be fun. For the sake of the Blueprint, let’s do keyword research the easy way.
The biggest mistakes people make with keyword research are:
- Choosing keywords that are too broad
- Keywords with too much competition
- Keywords without enough traffic
- Keywords that don’t convert
- Trying to rank for one keyword at a time
The biggest mistake people make is trying to rank for a single keyword at a time. This is the hard way. It’s much easier, and much more profitable, to rank for 100s or even 1,000s of long tail keywords with the same piece of content.
Instead of ranking for a single keyword, let’s aim our project around a keyword theme.
2. Dream Your Keyword Theme
Using keyword themes solves a whole lot of problems. Instead of ranking for one Holy Grail keyword, a better goal is to rank for lots of keywords focused around a single idea. Done right, the results are amazing.
I assume you know enough about your business to understand what type of visitor you’re seeking and whether you’re looking for traffic, conversions, or both. Regardless, one simple rule holds true: the more specific you define your theme, the easier it is to rank.
This is basic stuff, but it bears repeating. If your topic is the football, you’ll find it hard to rank for “Super Bowl,” but slightly easier to rank for “Super Bowl 2014” - and easier yet to rank for “Best Super Bowl Recipes of 2014.”
Don’t focus on specific words yet - all you need to know is your broad topic. The next step is to find the right keyword qualifiers.
3. Get Specific with Qualifiers
Qualifiers are words that add specificity to keywords and define intent. They take many different forms.
- Time/Date: 2001, December, Morning
- Price/Quality: Cheap, Best, Most Popular
- Intent: Buy, Shop, Find
- Location: Houston, Outdoors, Online
The idea is to find as many qualifiers as possible that fit your audience. Here’s where keyword tools enter the picture. You can use any keyword tool you like, but favorites include Wordstream, Keyword Spy, SpyFu, and Bing Keyword Tool and Übersuggest.
For speed and real-world insight, Übersuggest is an all-time SEO favorite. Run a simple query and export over 100 suggested keyword based on Google’s own Autocomplete feature – based on actual Google searches.
Did I mention it’s free?
4. Finding Diamonds in the Google Rough
At this point you have a few dozen, or a few hundred keywords to pull into Google Adwords Keyword Planner.
Pro Tip #1: While it’s possible to run over a hundred keyword phrases at once in Google’s Keyword Planner, you get more variety if you limit your searches to 5-10 at a time.
Using “Exact” search types, we’re looking for 10-15 closely related keyword phrases with decent search volume, but not too much competition.
Pro Tip #2: Be careful trusting the “Competition” column in Google Adwords Keyword Planner. This refers to bids on paid search terms, not organic search.
5. Get Strategic with the Competition
Now that we have a basic keyword set, you need to find out if you can actually rank for your phrases. You have two basic methods of ranking the competition:
- Automated tools like the Keyword Difficulty Tool
- Eyeballing the SERPs
If you have an SEOmoz PRO membership (or even a free trial) the Keyword Difficulty Tool calculates – on a 100 point scale – a difficulty score for each individual keyword phrase you enter.
Keyword phrases in the 60-70+ range are typically competitive, while keywords in the 30-40 range might be considered low to moderately difficult.
To get a better idea of your own strengths, take the most competitive keyword you currently rank #1 or #2 for, and run it through the tool.
Even without automated tools, the best way to size up the competition is to eyeball the SERPs. Run a search query (non-personalized) for your keywords and ask yourself the following questions:
- Are the first few results optimized for the keyword?
- Is the keyword in the title tag? In the URL? On the page?
- What’s the Page and/or Domain Authority of the URL?
- Are the first few results authorities on the keyword subject?
- What’s the inbound anchor text?
- Can you deliver a higher quality resource for this keyword?
You don’t actually have to rank #1 for any of your chosen words to earn traffic, but you should be comfortable cracking the top five.
With keyword themes, the magic often happens from keywords you never even thought about.
Case Study: Google Algo Update
When SEOmoz launched the Google Algorithm Change HIstory (run by Dr. Pete) we used a similar process for keyword research to explore the theme “Google Algorithm” and more specifically, “Google Algorithm Change.”
According to Google’s search tool, we could expect a no more than a couple thousand visits a month – best case – for these exact terms. Fortunately, because the project was well received and because we optimized around a broad keyword theme of “Google Algorithm,” the Algo Update receives lots of traffic outside our pre-defined keywords.
This is where the long tail magic happens:
How can you improve your chances of ranking for more long tail keywords? Let’s talk about content, architecture, on-page optimization and link building.
Content
6. Creating Value
Want to know the truth? I hate the word content. It implies words on a page, a commodity to be produced, separated from the value it creates.
Content without value is spam.
In the Google Algorithm Update example above, we could have simply written 100 articles about Google’s Algorithm and hoped to rank. Instead, the conversation started by asking how we could create a valuable resource for webmasters.
For your keyword theme, ask first how you can create value.
Value is harder to produce than mere words, but value is rewarded 100x more. Value is future proof & algorithm proof. Value builds links by itself. Value creates loyal fans.
Value takes different forms. It’s a mix of:
- Utility
- Emotional response
- Point of view (positive or negative)
- Perceived value, including fame of the author
Your content doesn’t have to include all 4 of these characteristics, but it should excel in one or more to be successful.
A study of the New York Times found key characteristics of content to be influential in making the Most Emailed list.
Source: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1528077\
7. Driving Your Content Vehicle
Here’s a preview: the Blueprint requires you create at least one type of link bait, so now is a good time to think about the structure of your content.
What’s the best way to deliver value given your theme? Perhaps it’s an
- Infographic
- Video series
- A new tool
- An interview series
- Slide deck
- How-to guide
- Q&A
- Webinar or simple blog post
Perhaps, it’s all of these combined.
The more ways you find to deliver your content and the more channels you take advantage of, the better off you’ll be.
Not all of your content has to go viral, but you want to create at least one “tent-pole” piece that’s better than anything else out there and you’re proud to hang your hat on.
If you need inspiration, check out Distilled's guide to Viral Linkbait or QuickSprout’s Templates for Content Creation.
8. Title – Most Important Work Goes Here
Spend two hours, minimum, writing your title.
Sound ridiculous? If you’re an experienced title writer like Rand Fishkin, you can break this rule. For the rest of us, it’s difficult to underplay the value delivered by a finely crafted title.
Write 50 titles or more before choosing one.
Study the successful titles on Inbound.org, Mashable, Wired, or your favorite publication.
Whatever you do, read this fantastic post by Dan Shure and the headline resources at CopyBlogger.
9. Length vs. Depth - Why it Matters
How long should your content be? A better question is: How deep should it be? Word count by itself is a terrible metric to strive for, but depth of content helps you to rank in several ways.
- Adds uniqueness threshold to avoid duplicate content
- Deeper topic exploration makes your content “about” more
- Quality, longer content is correlated with more links and higher rankings
I. Uniqueness
At a minimum, your content needs to meet a minimum uniqueness threshold in order for it to rank. Google reps have gone on record to say a couple sentences is sometimes sufficient, but in reality a couple hundred words is much safer.
II. Long Tail Opportunities
Here’s where the real magic happens. The deeper your content and the more in-depth you can explore a particular topic, the more your content becomes “about.”
The more your content is “about”, the more search queries it can answer well.
The more search queries you can answer well, the more traffic you can earn.
Google’s crawlers continuously read your content to determine how relevant it is to search queries. They evaluate paragraphs, subject headings, photographs and more to try to understand your page. Longer, in-depth content usually send more relevancy signals than a couple short sentences.
III. Depth, Length, and Links
Numerous correlation studies have shown a positive relationship between rankings and number of words in a document.
“The length in HTML and the HTML within the <body> tag were the highest correlated factors, in fact with correlations of .12 they could be considered somewhat if not hugely significant.
While these factors probably are not implemented within the algorithm, they are good signs of what Google is looking for; quality content, which in many cases means long or at least sufficiently lengthy pages.”
- Mark Collier The Open Algorithm
This could be attributed longer, quality content earning more links. John Doherty examined the relationship between the length of blog posts on SEOmoz and the number of links each post earned, and found a strong relationship.
10. Content Qualities You Can Bank On
If you don’t focus on word count, how do you add quality “depth” to your content?
SEOs have written volumes about how Google might define quality including metrics such as reading level, grammar, spelling, and even Author Rank. Most is speculation, but it’s clear Google does use guidelines to separate good content from bad.
My favorite source for clues comes from the set of questions Google published shortly after the first Panda update. Here are a few of my favorites.
11. LDA, nTopic, and Words on the Page
Google is a machine. It can’t yet understand your page like a human can, but it’s getting close.
Search engines use sophisticated algorithms to model your sentences, paragraphs, blocks, and content sections. Not only do they want to understand your keywords, but also your topic, intent, and expertise as well.
How do you know if your content fits Google’s model of expectations?
For example, if your topic is “Super Bowl Recipes,” Google might expect to see content about grilling, appetizers, and guacamole. Content that addresses these topics will likely rank higher than pages that talk about what color socks you’re wearing today.
Words matter.
SEOs have discovered that using certain words around a topic associated with concepts like LDA and nTopic are correlated with higher rankings.
Virante offers an interesting stand alone keyword suggestion tool called nTopic. The tools analyzes your keywords and suggests related keywords to improve your relevancy scores.
12. Better than LDA - Poor Man's Topic Modeling
Since we don’t have access to Google’s computers for topic modeling, there’s a far simpler way to structure your content that I find far superior to worrying about individual words:
Use the keyword themes you created at the beginning of this blueprint.
You’ve already done the research using Google’s keyword tool to find closely related keyword groups. Incorporating these topics into your content may help increase your relevancy to your given topic.
Example: Using the Google Algorithm project cited above, we found during keyword research that certain keywords related to our theme show up repeatedly, time and time again. If we conducted this research today, we would find phrases like “Penguin SEO” and “Panda Updates” frequently in our results.
Google suggests these terms via the keyword tool because they consider them closely related. So any content that explored “Google Algorithm Change” might likely include a discussion of these ideas.
Note: This isn't real LDA, simply a way of adding relevant topics to your content that Google might associate with your subject matter.
13. Design Is 50% of the Battle
If you have any money in your budget, spend it on design. A small investment with a designer typically pays outsized dividends down the road. Good design can:
- Lower bounce rate
- Increase page views
- Increase time on site
- Earn more links
- Establish trust
… All of which can help earn higher rankings.
“Design doesn’t just matter, it’s 50% of the battle.”
-Rand Fishkin
Dribbble.com is one of our favorite source of design inspiration.
Architecture
Here’s the special secret of the SEO Blueprint: you’re not making a single page to rank; you’re making several.
14. Content Hubs
Very few successful websites consist of a single page. Google determines context and relevancy not only by what’s on your page, but also by the pages around it and linking to it.
The truth is, it’s far easier to rank when you create Content Hubs exploring several topics in depth focused around a central theme.
Using our “Super Bowl Recipes” example, we might create a complete section of pages, each exploring a different recipe in depth.
15. Linking the Hub Together
Because your pages now explore different aspects of the same broad topic, it makes sense to link them together.
- Your page about guacamole relates to your page about nachos.
- Your page about link building relates to your page about infographics.
- Your page about Winston Churchill relates to major figures of World War II.
It also helps them to rank by distributing PageRank, anchor text, and other relevancy signals.
16. Find Your Center
Content Hubs work best with a “hub” or center. Think of the center as the master document that acts as an overview or gateway to all of your individual content pages.
The hub is the authority page. Often, the hub is a link bait page or a category level page. It’s typically the page with the most inbound links and often as a landing page for other sections of your site.
For great example of Hub Pages, check out:
- CopyBloggers Magnetic Headlines
- Moz's Learn SEO
- Amazon’s author pages (this one about Stephen King)
On-Page Optimization
17. Master the Basics
You could write an entire book about on-page optimization. If you’re new to SEO, one of the best ways to learn is by using Moz's On-page Report Card. The tool grades 36 separate on-page SEO elements, gives you a report and suggestions on how to fix each element. Working your way through these issues is an excellent way to learn (and often used by agencies and companies as a way to teach SEO principals)
Beyond the basics, let’s address a few slightly more advanced tactics to take advantage of your unique keyword themes and hub pages, in addition to areas where beginners often make mistakes.
18. Linking Internally for the Reasonable Surfer
Not all links are created equal (One of the greatest SEO blog posts ever written!) So, when you interlink your internal pages within your content hub together, keep in mind a few important points.
- Links from inside unique content pass more value than navigation links.
- Links higher up the page pass more value than links further down.
- Links in HTML text pass more weight than image links.
When interlinking your content, it’s best to keep links prominent and “editorial” – naturally link to your most important content pages higher up in the HTML text.
19. Diversify Your Anchor Text - Naturally
If Google’s Penguin update taught us anything, it’s that over-thinking anchor text is bound to get us in trouble.
When you link naturally and editorially to other places on the web, you naturally diversify your anchor text. The same should hold true when you link internally.
Don’t choose your anchor text to fit your keywords; choose your anchor text to fit the content around it.
Practically speaking, this means linking internally with a mix of partial match keyword and related phrases. Don’t be scared to link occasionally without good keywords in the anchor – the link can still pass relevancy signals. When it comes to linking, it’s safer to under-do it than over-do it.
Source: Google's SEO Starter Guide
20. Title Tags - Two Quick Tips
We assume you know how to write a compelling title tag. Even today, keyword usage in the title tag is one of the most highly correlated on-page ranking factors that we know.
That said, Google is getting strict about over-optimizing title tags, and appears to be further cracking down on titles “written for SEO.” Keep this in mind when crafting your title tags
I. Avoid Boilerplates
It used to be common to tack on your business phrase or main keywords to the end of every title tag, like so:
- Plumbing Supplies – Chicago Plumbing and Fixtures
- Pipes & Fittings – Chicago Plumbing and Fixtures
- Toilet Seat Covers – Chicago Plumbing and Fixtures
While we don’t have much solid data, many SEOs are now asserting that “boilerplate” titles tacked on to the end of every tag are no longer a good idea. Brand names and unique descriptive information is okay, but making every title as unique as possible is the rule of the day.
II. Avoid Unnecessary Repetition
Google also appears (at least to many SEOs) to be cracking down on what’s considered the lower threshold of “keyword stuffing.”
In years past it was a common rule of thumb never to repeat your keyword more than twice in the title. Today, to be on the safe side, you might be best to consider not repeating your keywords more than once.
21. Over-Optimization: Titles, URLs, and Links
Writing for humans not only gets you more clicks (which can lead to higher rankings), but hardly ever gets you in trouble with search engines.
As SEOs we're often tempted to get a "perfect score" which means exactly matching our title tags, URLs, inbound anchor text, and more. unfortunately, this isn't natural in the real world, and Google recognizes this.
Diversify. Don’t over-optimize.
22. Structured Data
Short and simple: Make structured data part of every webpage. While structured data hasn’t yet proven to be a large ranking factor, it’s future-facing value can be seen today in rich snippet SERPs and social media sharing. In some verticals, it’s an absolute necessity.
There’s no rule of thumb about what structured data to include, but the essentials are:
- Facebook Open Graph tags
- Twitter Cards
- Authorship
- Publisher
- Business information
- Reviews
- Events
To be honest, if you’re not creating pages with structured data, you’re probably behind the times.
For an excellent guide about Micro Data and Schema.org, check out this fantastic resource from SEOGadget.
Building Links
23. The 90/10 Rule of Link Building
This blueprint contains 25 steps to rank your content, but only the last three address link building. Why so few? Because 90% of your effort should go into creating great content, and 10% into link building.
If you have a hard time building links, it may be because you have these numbers reversed.
Creating great content first solves a ton of problems down the line:
- Good content makes link building easier
- Attracts higher quality links in less time
- Builds links on its own even when sleeping or on vacation
If you’re new to marketing or relatively unknown, you may need to spend more than 10% of your time building relationships, but don’t let that distract you from crafting the type of content that folks find so valuable they link to you without you even asking.
24. All Link Building is Relationships - Good & Bad
This blueprint doesn't go into link building specifics, as there are 100's of ways to build quality links to every good project. That said, a few of my must have link building resources:
- Jon Cooper's Complete List of Link Building Strategies
- StumbleUpon Paid Discovery
- Citation Labs
- Promoted Tweets
- Ontolo
- eReleases - Press releases not for links, but for exposer
- BuzzStream
- Paddy Moogan's excellent Link Building Book
These resources give you the basic tools and tactics for a successful link building campaign, but keep in mind that all good link building is relationship building.
Successful link builders understand this and foster each relationship and connection. Even a simple outreach letter can be elevated to an advanced form of relationship building with a little effort, as this Whiteboard Friday by Rand so graciously illustrates.
25. Tier Your Link Building... Forever
The truth is, for professionals, link building never ends. Each content and link building campaign layers on top of previous content and the web as a whole like layers of fine Greek baklava.
For example, this post could be considered linkbait for SEOmoz, but it also links generously to several other content pieces within the Moz family and externally as well; spreading both the link love and the relationship building as far as possible at the same time.
SEOmoz links generously to other sites: the link building experience is not just about search engines, but the people experience, as well. We link to great resources and build links for the best user experience possible. When done right, the search engines reward exactly this type of experience with higher rankings.
For an excellent explanation as to why you should link out to external sites when warranted, read AJ Kohns excellent work, Time to Long Click.
One of my favorite posts on SEOmoz was 10 Ugly SEO Tools that Actually Rock. Not only was the first link on the page directed to our own SEO tools, but we linked and praised our competitors as well.
Linkbait at its finest.
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Great article. But the emphasis on content often frustrates me.
I often feel that the SEO industry is one of the easiest to create content. And it ends up being one large circle jerk where people create content on how to create content - where everyone tweets each others content, liking, sharing, trying to build a name, showing everyone how easy it can be.
That is fine, but I feel it really misrepresents how difficult it can be for harder b2b type industries. Example: call centre in middle america, or mattress distributors, or server providers for multinational companies. There are no businesses tweeting, sharing, liking "how to create great content" equivalent type posts for obscure b2b businesses.
Thanks Jame. A lot of SEOs feel your pain - the truth is, a of us work in "boring" markets. The challenge is 2x, but the rewards created by these restrictions are often greater.
Dollar Shave Club made disposable razors interesting. Not only was this good for SEO, but it's brilliant marketing.
If you're on a low budget, you have to work with what you've got - and different industries share different standards. I've worked with businesses selling:
If your product doesn't grab anyone's attention, then your marketing does - even within your b2b microcosm. Our friend Stephanie Chang wrote a great guide to Content strategy for boring businesses
Best of luck! Let us know how it goes.
Thanks for the reply.
That DollarShaveClub had me laughing.
What a feeling that would be to be responsible for that kind of marketing.
Thanks for Stephanie's link. I'll check it out.
I'd be interested to know what you did for ScreenPrinting.
I would not say Alzheimer's Disease is boring, it is tragic. When your mother does not know who you are, content is not high on the list of thoughts or feelings. I tried to be methodical with my mother, after she no longer recognised me, to her frustration & my grief. Once I stopped with the showing of family photographs (thinking this might cause a memory response), I had this inspiration. Went to her bookshelf & silently pointed to her copy of Gone With The Wind. She immediately came out from that fog & for a few moments & talked to me about that book. I think reaching the people you need to reach will happen, often in ways you cannot plan. You just have to be open for something that cannot easily be put into words, an inspiration, perhaps. Later, same day, I told her I had gotten Shirley Maclaine's autograph. Again, a response, "How did you manage that?"--Proceeded to tell her about her book signing. All was understood, then the fog. It's like that with this cloudy world of Social Media, sometimes you get it right, other times you fall flat on your face--I think that odd word inspiration is what works for me, when I listen to it.
Well written @Cyrus. I am totally agree with you. Now a days forget about link building and focus on content marketing.
I also work with a sign company and I too would be interested in what your strategy was for the screenprinting company.
I totally agree with you. I have read tens of articles on how to create interesting content for boring niches, and I still have yet to find an amazing idea that will go viral.
Cyrus' post outlines a process (and points to tools to help complete that process). It's definitely not a post about creating content. One of the examples he uses is a food/recipe site, which obviously has nothing to do with the SEO industry.
While some industries are going to be more difficult to create value (not just content) for, I promise you the businesses in these markets who are willing to work with good SEOs/marketers and figure out how they can use all this stuff are going to crush their competitors in the long run.
Best blog post on SEO that I've read so far this year. Awesome stuff Cyrus! Thanks for this checklist!
Appreciate it Jason. Your endorsement means a lot.
This better be on the Moz top 10 next month!
Boy better know!!!
Hi Cyrus! I believe that content without value is spam. We can actually write tons of articles about a certain topic and hope to rank, but we need to make sure that these articles have "quality". I believe that value is harder to produce than words, but value is rewarded one thousand times more. Value is actually a future proof as well as algorithm proof. Value builds links by itself and this value can create loyal fans.
Hey Cyrus,
I'm a bit confused about what you mean by the 90/10 rule of link building... Are you saying if you spend say 40 hours creating a piece, you should spend just 4 hours outreaching / seeding / promoting it?
Whilst I totally concur with investing in content creation, the rule of thumb we use is if you spend 40 hours creating a piece you should typically spend a further 40 hours outreaching / seeding / promoting (and often we spend more).
Really interested to hear your take on this :)
Hannah
Hi Hanna, I appreciate your comment. I expect my stance is a bit controversial, especially with experienced folks like yourself who are already good at content creation.
And to be fair, I think different rules/expectations apply to agencies, as they should.
Certainly, if your an agency like Distilled you'll get a good ROI on those extra hours spent on outreach, and from a purely point of view its worth it to spend that time building links. If I was a client, I would consider it money well spent.
On the other hand, I think the industry as a whole (and content marketing in general) suffers from the exact opposite problem. Too much minimum viable content/product that the world doesn't benefit from, and afterwords folks wonder why link building is so hard.
We don't need more content, we need better.
One way to get there is to raise our expectations about content and marketing in general. I've seen your work you do kick-ass work. Sadly, the rest of the world has a ways to go.
But yes, for the common marketer (and the beginner and intermediate SEO) if you have 80 hours scheduled for a project, I believe you'll find your link building far easier if you spend the vast majority of your time creating something truly memorable, and fewer hours trying to promote something that doesn't sell itself.
At Moz, we've literally spent 100s (and 100s and 100s) of hours over the past 7 years on the Beginners Guide to SEO. Now it nearly markets itself. Last year, we spent 50-60 hours updating the guide, and about 4 in marketing it.
Sadly, many newer marketers don't create anything. If you're a purely technical SEO who doesn't touch the marketing side, this may be fine. But if you want to be a marketer, if you want to tell stories and make connections that move people - that's a mindset I'd like to see us reverse.
Realistically, (and I mentioned this in the post) if you're new, inexperienced, or don't yet have established marketing channels in your space - the actual outreach will require additional investment in time. No way around it.
And if you have a truly successful piece of content you may well find it worth your time to pursue additional outreach.
Create epicness first. My 2 cents.
Cheers and hugs! :)
Hey Cyrus,
Thanks for your answer!
I think we're definitely on the same page in terms of content creation - I'm a massive proponent of investing time and resource in creating something truly remarkable; I guess my experience of the time and effort required to leverage said content just differs a little from yours.
We've been working on one client in particular for over a year creating this sort of content (to date we've done 8), and to be honest I'd hoped that by now we'd be able to spend more time creating the content and less on promotion, however we're not quite there yet - these pieces still don't 'fly' by themselves.
Flywheels take a really long time to build :)
Really love this post by the way and hope you're having fun back at the Mozplex!
Hannah
Good discussion. Just as I was beginning to think I had finally become a beginner... the goal posts moved a subtle step sideways. Echoing Hannah's and James' comments your balance of time spent does seem skewed - until I look back at the actual time spent on projects that have worked. It's the time on content creation that's really been beneficial.
Tricky for the mostly low budget local projects I've managed to attract so far though ;-)
The post was really very informative Cyrus and it does make me take a look at the rut I was beginning to dig in this work.
Hi Cyrus, this is awesome. It seems really comprehensive and has come at a good time for me i.e. I'm not working on SEO day to day, but I know the lingo and how to implement. This I feel will serve as a great resource for when I come to build and promote my own website. I know you mention you haven't gone in to massive depth on some subjects (such as link building, which is big on its own), but would you say absolutley everything is covered? I ask because I would really like to use this as a blueprint, and would feel bummed if anything was missing that was important.
The cool thing about SEO is there is always more you can do, and in 1000 different creative directions.
The Blueprint assumes you've done a little SEO already, and are familiar with the basic concepts.
You can explore each topic more in depth. The biggest fundamental to pay attention to is making sure your content is crawlable and indexable. Check out Mack's post detailing her Launch Checklist to cover your bases.
As you grow you'll gain more expertise in each of these areas, and experience both valuable disappointments and surprising successes! I envy your journey.
Thanks Cyrus, thats a great addition. I guess what I need to do now is get my hands dirty and go for it as I've done a little and I am already familiar with the basic concepts.
Great Post Cyrus, fabulous information providing and your strategies is helpful for all users.
Cyrus - great post. I loved the part on the 90/10 rule! I am definitely going to add that little piece to my SEO pitch with clients, thanks!
Absolutely Outstanding! What a phenomenal post Cyrus. Thank you so much for taking the time to put together such a well-written and well-illustrated Master Blueprint.
Somehow, its good but Cyrus you didn't mention link building part and you gave only 10% share which means everything depends on content writing and marketing. Is this possible?
Yet another piece of evergreen content on the Moz blog. Great stuff, Cyrus. It's so easy to focus on minor details and get sidetracked from your end-goals. Having a blueprint with time frames, budgets and measurable goals is the foundation of a successful campaign.
An excellently detailed and actionable article.
I particularly agree with your dislike of the word "content", it definitely strips away all value and taken without context can point you in the direction of publishing something that fulfills little or no purpose. It's vital for beginners to grasp this and is an important part of the article.
The British comedian Stewart Lee spoke in an interview on providing "content" for websites and it's something I found very insightful. It's also interesting to hear what "content providers" outside the industry think of this culture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMg1VYzJzuM
This is a masterpiece. I'm adding a shortcut to my desktop right now.
This is a great post! Being a detail-oriented person, I got stuck on John Doherty's chart showing the relationship between the length of blog posts (x axis) and the number of links earned (y axis). It's a labeling problem. You have to read John's article to make sense of the numbers. The x axis numbers actually refer to the number of blog posts containing Y links. It would be really helpful to have the number of article words mapped onto a secondary Y axis displayed across from and opposite the original Y.
Hope that makes sense. It does to me!
This is a seminal post. Anytime anyone asks me how to "do" SEO, this will be the first place I send them :) In particular, referencing helpful tools is awesome. Once someone understands the concepts, the tools are what can get people to good execution.
Jim
fullstackmarketingnewsletter.com
Very useful post for beginning in SEO Field.....
Great Post...::)
Good post specially for the layman just coming to SEO.
Great post, excellent blue print to follow. Thanks.
Thanks for the fantastic SEO Blueprint and very well explanation about content in point no 10. Content Qualities You Can Bank On
Cyrus,
You put more work in this excellent than most creatives and PR types put into their clients. Really great work. I'm an SEO freak and there was new stuff in here for me. I'm no genius...I'll give that to you. Nice work.
SPW
Good post, thx this for sharing this.
As you describe in end that is link bait. Every one suggested the same but it really very hard to work on get some links.
We need to follow below steps as I understand
1) Clarify your objectives: What can we do for this including develop unique content and market them, developing any software tool and market
2) Gather the information: Do more research a we can do, collect the required data including guest bloggers, news sites, or other power full site where you can approach your endeavor.
3) Plan your action: That could be your approaches or you need to hire some expertise if you can afford them
4) Implement your action: And see how you are getting expected results, but keep patient and do aggressively anything
5) Review your object: Go to first step and review your object most possibilities you didn't select as per your capabilities or approaches.
I hope this will also help
Thx
Cyrus, I like most of your post but I don't agree with your 90/10 rule - What do you think most SEOs spend their time doing and why? The percentage will also depend on how competitive a verticle your website is in - to determine how much link building needs to be done.
Thanks though
S
Once you learn the rules, next you learn how to break them :)
But learning the rules is a tough one! Breaking them properly is this thing that takes a strange combination of delicate strength.
This is EPIC! Wow. Truly a monster SEO primer. Thank you kindly....
What an absolutely fantastic post. I wish I had had a quick reference like this when I first started in SEO.
Hi Cyrus,
Honestly, I am thinking to send one email to Google. If someone will search How to rank well in Google so this blog post should be there in top 10. I really like all explanation and declaration which you have added in blog post.
I am quite confuse and excited to know more about content & link building strategy for Ecommerce website. I am 100% agree on content creation & link building for blog, news site and similar kind of websites. But, if we are talking about Ecommerce and 100+ retailers are selling similar product on website so, it’s quite hard to drill down more on unique content. It’s quite hard to compile uniqueness on similar feature products. If you can give your inputs on it so that will help me.
Design link building campaign for very new & quite different subject website: I am working in Ecommerce marketing firm & getting issue to design link building for each new Ecommerce website. Sometimes, it’s possible: I am working for home decor related website & have to move on insect control related website.
By the way, I really like this blog post & going to discuss with entire team… Who does not like to rank well in Google?
Hi Anand,
This is tough. Ecommerce sites with undifferentiated products face an uphill challenge. Many successful retailers have to go that extra mile to make their product by offering things like
These steps aren't absolutely necessary, but if your product isn't distinguishable from other sites on the web, then your marketing must be.
Back to the Dollar Shave Club example. They sell the same razors everyone else does, but their marketing is different and unique.
I can't tell you what you need to choose about your business that's different from all the rest, but once you find it, that's the most valuable asset you have!
Best of luck.
Excellent blueprint. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.The one glaring omission is the affect social media has on SEO. You mention 100s of ways and that a New York Times tweet could get you ranked. I would at least add social channels to the blueprint.
ThanksMichael
Good point Michael! We'll include it in future additions.
Thank you, Cyrus for this amazing resource. Talk about viral content! Some of it (plenty, actually) is above my head, but I love that. It will serve as a great road map for what I need to learn more about.
#13. I especially appreciate your emphasis on design. That's a gem and so simply stated. It will come in handy the next time we are trying to explain to a prospect just why design can't be breezed over or taken lightly.
Great piece of work Cyrus, I have actually passed the posting link out to clients of ours who use our software but need to manage their own SEO activities. Positive feedback from them as well - Real value here!
If your blog post was a pie, it would be a steaming hot Blueberry and Cherry pie surrounded with Vanilla ice cream!!
Big smiles!
David
Yes,
I think it is quite in-depth and its much better than a 'starting point'. In fact, I'd say it is in-line with most of the high-end strategies out there.
What other things should we consider besides your post?
Kudos to Cyrus. I really enjoyed this read.
Simply AWESOME !
Awesome post. Kudos Cyrus.
One of the best SEO campaign explanations we've ever read! Thank you so much for sharing!
Am I the first one to notice it reads "Souce: Google's SEO Starter Guide" instead of "Source" in point #19?
Thanks. Google is the source. Now fixed!
I learned a great deal of important thought categories from this article--the thoughts were already there in my mind, but not as nicely organised! The video @ the end was splendid! Thank you!
Thanks for this tour de force on the complexity of the art of calculating an accurate system to guess how to rank our works on the search engines & to gain an audience in the social networks... lol.
This effort has made me want to learn yet more about this dance with content, relevance & engagement. Thank you so much for giving me a lot of ideas to test & tweak.
For Thomas Outt I wonder if you have considered playing music that you know your mother liked. Music may open many doors if you are able to find out what her favourites were.
Again thanks for a great site with a very interactive membership. Cheers Phil Tozer
I can't believe I left this out on my Reading List. I just read this now.
Excellent post, Cyrus. Very useful for starters like me who look up to experts like you and the rest of the helpful community here at Moz.
Keep up the great work. Looking forward to more articles like this. This is the type of article that I cannot help but share or even print a hard copy that I can review from time to time.
Nice work Cyrus. The "mudda load" of SEO knowledge. Gonna have to read this one twice.
This is probably one of the best blog posts on SEO that I've ever ran across. Great stuff Cyrus! Thanks for this comprehensive 25 step blueprint. Very informative and well put together. We tend to keep tweaking and tweaking and often leads to over-optimizing. I agreed with your 90/10 rule that the emphasis should be on creating quality content and links will eventually come naturally.
As everyone mentions, this is a great post, but truly the points about the variety of content and brevity of content makes a ton of sense. If you are building a tiered series of blogs relating to a topic, then have 100 word posts doesn't quite at the value of the 500 word post. Ironically, many don't seem to understand the 90/10 formula, as realistically that is very long time ( but who said SEO is short term ). In the short run, for a client looker for a faster return on SEO, allocating 90% of the budget / man hours to creating something good will get you fired, as this method yields zilch within 3 - 6 months, thus adjustments must be made. All things considered, probably a 40 / 60 or 50 / 50 spread is better short term. Once familiarity is there with the client, then it makes sense to explain the longer content. One area that was neglected in this post is Content Research ( SEO keyword research was explained and Content Research was slightly mentioned ), but using social monitoring, website impressions and general public-facing sentiment as well as popular culture is key to creating that stellar content that goes viral. We have found that even in niche markets, creating something "on trend" while difficult leads to small but distinct net gains ( signage, publishing, food manufacturing ).
Came back to this post again by that post here: http://moz.com/blog/be-the-result-that-google-wants-to-rank and rememberd that this was a really great post - but I wonder I didnt commented that - so I do now. This was a really great post ... nice to read usefull - all that, one of the best SEO Blueprint Posts I read :)
Good Work - belated
Great piece of work Cyrus, I have actually passed the posting link out to clients of ours who use our software but need to manage their own SEO activities. Positive feedback from them as well - Real value here!
Hi Cyrus,
Thanks for the article. Really well written piece.
I have one question for now: What's your take on Yoast's one keyword / keyphrase strategy on Wordpress sites? I see that you write that it doesn't make sense to target only one keyword in your article.
Regards
Stefanus
I assume you're refering to https://yoast.com/focus-keyword/
Yoast has a good point, and it's certainly a valid approach. I believe as you become more advanced in your writing and SEO style, you naturally evolve into a more holistic approach to exploring your topic more deeply, answering more questions, and attracting more long tail traffic.
Our own tools at Moz encourage a singular-keyword focus as well. It's a good starting point and doesn't necessarily conflict with the long tail strategy listed here, but I think much more is possible.
This is extremely insightful and does a great job of bringing up a lot of SEO topics that get overlooked. I also like the massive amount of resources that are linked to. I'm going to be reading for days to make sure that I have all the knowledge I need.
I also thought I should mention that there is a typo on the Link Building title page. "Buildig Relationships" is missing an 'n'.
Edit: And in full grammar nazi fashion it appears that in the link building section it should say "exposure" instead of "exposer".
Cheers! Thanks for the heads up. We'll get those corrected the next time we do an upload.
Just a note to let you know we've updated "How to Rank: 25-Step Master SEO Blueprint" with a free, beutifully designed and downloadable eBook. Get it here:
http://moz.com/blog/how-to-rank
I have no words for expressing my gratitude to you all who do things like this awesome post. It's really, really helpfull. Many thanks, Cyrus!!
Great blueprint. For point 24, in addition to Paddy's awesome book, his 'Big-Ass List of Link Building Resources' is amazing: http://www.linkbuildingbook.com/link-building-resources.html
I don't normally just say "thanks" as it leads to a boring comment feed and looks like spam but thanks! What a blisteringly useful post and it couldn't have come at a better time for me. I'm launching a new site and the tips here will be on my mind as I put it together.
I'm not versed in SEO enough to try anything black hat even if I wanted to so I have to slog it out writing good material that people want, but I've done that before I know that without being sensible about SEO you don't get all the rewards you might otherwise be due.
I'll also be using the info that even search engines appreciate good grammar for the courses in writing that I teach to people who don't even think people care about good writing any more.
Thanks again, Cyrus.
Nice idea, beginning of SEO is very good, you give good concept about title, keyword, content , anchor text is very nice.
Thank you for this unreal post. I love how it touches on the basics but goes into great high-level detail on the relationship between the various factors that contribute to better rankings. I always knew the "natural" way is the best way, but now comes the tricky part of convincing clients that they have a lot of work to do! They can't just expect SEO's to make magic happen with no marketing support on the client side.
That's just great, awesome awesome job!
Cyrus,
This is going to be a crazy awesome guide for a long time to come. I already learned much from it and I have been doing this for a long time. Well organized and specific. Thanks so much for sharing this with the community.
Outstanding post Cyrus! Thanks.
Very interesting blueprint to read about SEO but hard to implement (in my case). Usually, in most of the cases, If the journey begins from the content creation, I get stuck in the vary beginning. Developing link baiting content has always been difficult part for me and most of the webmasters.
Hi Sanjay,
I used to be just like you. For the first 2 years of my SEO career I created no content, no linkbait, nothing. The first few pieces were hard and awkward. But like everything else, you get better with practice. You just have to keep trying again and again. Best of luck!
For a full time SEO or small business owner like myself this is awesome!
Yet another nice compilation of content for the beginners in 2013 for seo, Thanks Cyrus for this post.
This blue print means a lot to new comers.
Bookmarked for re-reading, something I rarely do. A truly great post I will be directing some beginners to. I love the emphasis on the need for truly good content with link-building being a relatively small part of the process
What a fantastic post! Wow. I'm amazed by how you fit so many concepts into one post and I keep thinking about the two-hour rule/50 potential examples for titles. I worked for a few years as a print magazine editor and I thought we were being thorough when we came up with, say, half a dozen article titles before choosing one. Food for thought . . .
This is an excellent post.
Very detailed. I am looking forward to more great articles from you!
This is like the bible of SEO.
Thank you for giving use such good quality article.
WOW, that's a blog post lol. I'll save this and read it on Thursday :) Thanks!
This is a great reference for anyone in the web biz. Book marked!
A very well and in detail article. I really loved reading the entire article. It did took much time to me read the entire article. Then also I read it 2 times :)
There were some important links and tools your shared here thanks for that. I would like to add one more keyword research tool i.e Soovle.
Truly the best!! Everything you write is gold! Very solid. I can imagine how much time you invested on writing this post, its awesome, and we thank you very much!!
This post will go down as one of the all time greats! It's always refreshing to kind of go back and start from the beginning. View the problem with a fresh set of eyes, and that's exactly what you have done for me here. It's also great to see how others in the industry approach things differently. I've picked up a few under utilized techniques and been reminded of others. (bookmarking now!)
Few months past I wrote a post on the Digital Key Design blog about reverse engineering the Google Guidelines for content creation and onsite optimization purposes, that fits well with your theme here.
Thanks for sharing!
-Cuyler
Great blueprint Cyrus. Absolutely can relate to your point about how countless hours of reading still does not contribute to the way we rank websites. Ironic but true.
Hi Cyrus,It looks like you have a typo. You used completion when I think you meant competition?
"Using “Exact” search types and “Local Monthly” search volume, we’re looking for 10-15 closely related keyword phrases with decent search volume, but not too much completion."
I'm annoying, I know. ha. Great Article! Thanks!
Pete
Great post! What are your thoughts on KOB analysis (Keyword Opposition to Benefit Ratio) for further streamlining your keyword research. This process if I'm correct, takes "Keyword Difficulty" against Keyword Benefit (CPC x Monthly Search Volume) to determine a ratio allowing you to select keywords with low competition and high benefit.
Haven't heard it called that before, but seems like a good analysis for certain situations, for example Adsense clicks - but not necessarily for targeted conversions.
It's one of those situations where you have to define your business goals to see if this analysis would deliver the best keywords to your site. Best of luck!
Depends how well "CPC" represents your perceived "Keyword Benefit".
It's perhaps useful when comparing organic vs ppc but as it's a measure of "commerciality" you'll want to question visitor intent, awareness, relevance etc and as Cyrus says, this comes back to your goals.
I've always found this to be a rather blunt tool. Looking back at your keyword research a few months later and comparing it to the keywords (or keyword themes) that are actually delivering value (conversions) can be enlightening.
Loved this! Particularly: "Want to know the truth? I hate the word content. It implies words on a page, a commodity to be produced, separated from the value it creates."
"Content", "quality content" and "link bait" are words I could live without ever hearing again.
This is great - thanks, Cyrus.I always look forward to posts by you, this is the best one yet!
Great read. Design is so important.
Eating your own cooking! This is a great example of stellar content that is linkable.
Excellent article that got the grins going all over the place.
Good article and a great blueprint for success, and back to the lab to doublecheck. What was that ?.....why, what we do everynight Pinky TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!!!
Most excellent info. There is so much misinformation out there post Panda & Penguin updates that most people are confused at best. This was a great overview of the process and one I will share with my customers.
Thanks for the post. I LOVE it. I certainly can use a basic tutorial on everything!! SO much great info all in one place and it starts back to the beginning. As a newbie, it is helpful to be able to make sure my core knowledge ( as limited as it is) is on tract. There is so much misinformation to sift through out there.
superb infographic/contextual look at what can help in SEO - good over view for any DIY'iers
I love you for creating this blue print. Very well done!
This is a nice meaty post on SEO, I want to ask you if you have an expert opinion on how curation plays in SEO? Disclosure (founder of a curation site) What are some pros and cons as you see them?
Content Curation is awesome, when used correctly. Incorrectly, it can cause some SEO pain. Our authority Gianluca has written a few posts on the subject. He's our go-to guy:
I really enjoyed the semi-info-graphic / editorial style. Very cool. You know your stuff!
thanks Cyrus and thanks for mentioning wordstream :)
Excellent intro to SEO but I'm not so sure the skill level is beginner to intermediate? The SMB I know and work with, some of these concepts and tactics would be considered advanced optimization techniques.
Very, very impressive post! Just skimming it made me smile all over the place. Skimmed due to lack of time but saved it to Feedly to read it at home tonight.
That must of been messy! Smiles everywhere! Love it.
By far, the best post to learn intermediate SEO for a beginner.
Thanks and good job Cyrus!
Great article and tips. This will be printed and hung on my wall. Excellent work!
Dude! Rock on!!
I love the information. Maybe Rand can add this post to the learn seo page so this awesome educational article won't get lost in a few weeks!
Not a bad suggestion!
Wow awesome article. The framework is awesome, not SEOs like us can take it modify it for our clients/verticals. Thanks!
Awesome. A very long yet helpful article. It took me a while to finish reading the whole thing. But, it was worthy. Thanks Cyrus. Hope to read more great articles and tips from you.
Fabulous Blueprint Cyrus! Much gratifying and elucidative for everyone in order to perform SEO in correct means. Clear, simple, very easy to understand and applicable tactics. Personally, its much helpful to learner like me and others too.
Thank you so much! :)
super comprehensive cyrus!
i would add under the content section "develop an angle" and exploit the hell out of it with your content. obviously with haro and such, but also with prospecting in general :-)
Now this is what i called an intelligent blue print... This is covering all the details of how you should go step by step with SEO from keyword mapping to structured data!
Although you didn’t really cover the link building part but still tools and books that you have mentioned for link building are pretty impressive.
Wonderful post!
"I assume you know enough about your business to understand what type of visitor you’re seeking and whether you’re looking for traffic, conversions, or both. Regardless, one simple rule holds true: the more specific you define your theme, the easier it is to rank."
This is where most people fail in my opinion. It is also why I screen potential partner or client businesses. If someone can not answer simple market analysis driven questions they are not ready to begin putting money into search.
Fantastic post Cyrus.
What are your thoughts on applying 'alt' tags onto anchor text? Needed? Or just stick to 'alt' tags on images?
Further more you mention Micro Data and Schema.org, the resource you link to is fantastic, but how do I add the micro data to an individual wordpress post for instance? Is there a WP plugin?
I would like to know the answer to that second question as well. I tried some Wordpress plugins for microdata, but I was not satisfied with the result.
Any recomendations for a good microdata Wordpress plugin perhaps?
Not sure about alt tags in anchor text... except do you mean in images? Then yes, an absolute necessity.
As for structured data in Wordpress, I highly recommend Yoast's SEO plugin for Open Graph Tags, and a few other plugins for Schema.org data that might help:
I've tried the first 2, and they work decently. My experience with schema and Wordpress hasn't always been smooth, fair to say. :)
Let me build on the images topic line for a second...site speed is key, but bulky jpegs are an issue (almost all clients have or want TONS of huge photos on their site)...they also use slow hosting providers. To try to make the best of these situations, we use smush.it (by Yahoo!) on our client's sites, which usually helps a great deal.
This is not an article but an ebook on SEO for beginners like me.Thanks a lot and I am learning it step by step to rank my websites.
Thanks for this post. Excellent reminder of where to put your effort.
Wonderful post for every blogger as well as content writer to create quality content which can rank faster in Google SERP. Thanks Cyrus.
Every day and with every algorithm update we learn something new. Old tactics could be banned now but content marketing works always:)
Yes, This post is very help full for ranking i am totally agree with you Cyrus! always consider on relevant content and high quality related back links.
Will this be updated to implement the changes Google made the latter part of 2013? I'm new to SEO and looking for something for 2014 that will be up to date to include these changes. Thanks so much!
It's actually more up to date now more than ever. Hope you find value in it. Thanks.
Thanks Cyrus For great post
Great tips to rank on Google search engine and valuable parameters defined by you which are improving the rank and increase the visibility of website in search engine.
Hi Cyrus Shepard,
This is such a fantastic article & very helpful to me to improve ranking for my websites.
I am going to book mark & sent it to my friends.
Thanks
I will recommend xml sitemap validator online free tool, check your sitemap before submitting it to google.
http://www.clegent.com/xml-sitemap-validator.do
Hey Cyrus! You have done a great job i have words for expressing to you all who do things like this awesome post. It's really helpfull.
thanks,
Guysavoy
I've found myself coming back to this time and time again. Thanks for putting together such a comprehensive guide.
Best post on SEO, period.
Great Post!
I love beginners guide to SEO too but this is what I was looking for :)
Thanks for sharing!
Great article, I have alot of it saved and will read it many times.. everything seems to be about understanding the fundamentals now.
Great post for this year really comprehensive post, well explained step by step...Thanks Cyrus!
Great Work really Boom BOOm ... i have a Question you use term Hub what are these internal pages or Blogs..
Cyrus, Thanks for your post. i have recently join the moz and visit on this post "How to Rank: 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint". I have also checked your post and previous post. i appreciate for your great contribution in SEO Industry and this blog post also.
Good strategy
That's a great article! I'm really thankfull. It's nice to see how good can be let the time pass learning something new without getting bored. Right in the point, i hope it can help me in my next projects. Thanks a lot.
Great post, bookmarked right now..
I recently develop a new blog on education niche. In start up i did add a SEO yoast in my WordPress blog. After adding to webmaster( Google Webmaster, bing , Alexa and yandex). I set up a Small campaign for Social Bookmarking sites ( Scoop.it, pinterest, StumbleUpon, many high quality sites i took 25 i numbers). Apart from that my account get approved by Google adsense with in 2 month. Now the Google.com had given 3879 links to it. So will i need to get more link building from another sites while doing guest posting, and other tactics of SEO. My daily user is 200-500 user daily and updating my blog regularly
Thanks for sharing this information.. Nice Article..
Great Post Thanks Cyrus for this article... if we want to rank a video blog so we use this...???? like <a href="http://dramasapps.com/">Dramas apps</a>
Nice Article... this this is very Informative for SEO..
there is a problem
It has been working on the same steps.
But at the beginning of renovation panda 4.2 our site dropped.
Great article. Definitely cleared a few things up for me.
Hey, very great Post Cyrus, thanks for sharing :-)
Some great info here. I have a real estate website in the extremely competitive market of South Florida ( http://www.fortlauderdalebeachproperty.com ) but I have managed to get up near the top of the generic results in the major search engines. What many people don't understand is that SEO is a process, not a secret sauce which is simply added to your site. SEO elements must be interwoven through your entire website. Most website designers do not know how to do this. Before you hire one make them show you other sites they have designed and see where these sites appear in the generic results.
Great read. I'm researching SEO strategy today, and this is one of very few articles I've found so far I expect to read again and use for general reference.
I found this article very practical, which I don't often find with alot of SEO articles. It gives one a good process/method of approach to SEO. Something that made a lot of sense was the keyword theming, I hadn't looked at it like that before. Thank you!
Why my website has been no change in the search engine ?
Great post. I am relatively new to SEO and this takes some overwhelment from it
Thanks so much for sharing. Your points are spot on especially our sites besides doing keyword research we really need to do on-page and off-page seo.
Best blog post on SEO that I've read so far this year. Awesome stuff Cyrus! Thanks for this checklist!
Really Cyrus, You done a awesome job. Very impresive and informative post it is. Well researched and well explained.
I really enjoyed this read.
Hey guys I'm putting together a free SEO course on Youtube (20+ video) surrounding the how to master SEO theme you may want to check out. I'm also throwing together a list of SEO terms, definitions, and examples that you might find helpful. Let me know what you think!
Terms:
http://seizesuccess.org/courses/how-to-master-seo/seo-terms-definitions-glossary-seo-terminology/
Course:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLApsRihxrATdV9cHV72p5ibtv62OI2ppy
thanks for this article, its look very good, i think this can help my for my site
thank you it was a great help
Nice Share Sir ,
It Help Me To Much
Thank You
Great article, I agree on all points with you. I served as a great learning and reference this article.
Thank you
i think, SEO is the best way to make your website beat the SERP :)
I have downloaded your pdf file. thanks for your contribute and for sharing this such a valuable info with us :)
Excellent i love the tutorial he said
Thank you for this awesome article. As a remodeling contractor - websites and SEO is outside of 'what I do well'. Your article sure allows for me to learn A LOT! Thanks!
mpressive, however it takes 5 hours to read this post:).
Its really great. It has included almost everything you need to rank high in times of consecutive updating search engine algorithm.
But these practice are not working after a long time. Can anyone give me suggestion about my website https://kiyara.in
Sorry i should not post this type of website here but i am just a business promoter and can anyone tell me my mistakes so i can do better on it. you can revert me on sohakhan441atgmaildotcom
I feel like you should have a donation button on this page ;)
Cyrus, No doubt it an Informative, descriptive and authentic article. I often think that, obey rules and apply these techniques could probably lead to rank high, but whole SEO revolves around content and not only content but informative and trust worthy same as this article(personal view). One might ask what is the heart of SEO?
Wow. Nice information. This is totally new to me. Really a great job you have performed in this blog. Thanks for sharing with us.
Learning few things here. Phew!
Very useful ebook/post! Waiting for an advanced level one!
Great article! One thing that has really helped me, similar to the 90/10 rule of content marketing, is to stop reading all the time. If you don't take action and start working on design, content, and your site in general, you will never get anywhere. You can learn everything there is to know about your subject and SEO, but what good is that if you never put any of it into action?
Stop speculating about what will and will not work, and try it out for yourself. It's better to get your site going, and have progressively better content as time goes on. Chances are you'll begin learning a lot more by trying things on your own, testing, and monitoring, than just by reading.
Try spending 95% of your time working (writing, design, promotion, etc.), and 5% reading articles about SEO and other tips...
All of the things covered in this article are extremely important, and well written. Now that you've read it, go do some work!
Really fabulous information.
Thanks
Excellent. Thank you. In all honesty, I only read part but could not wait to write "thank you" immediately. I am going back to the top now to read the rest.
I only say "Thanks you very much Mr Cyrus for providing us a wonderful and detailed article".. Its true after Panda and Penguin Updates.. New comer is too much confused regarding SEO... and many of SEO's instead of SEO called them... "Internet / Online / Inbound Marketer"....
Bookmarked for sure.
This post was just amazing Cyrus!I recently hired a newcomer to SEO and this is more then perfect for him, he's basically my personal, assistant :P So I'll be training him up to hopefully, someday be my 2nd hand man. He also has a ton of experience in sales so that's helping my brash approach to dealing with those pesky customers.I've just given him this and his first thoughts were (in his words:"wtf is this, it's huge" - After around 5 minutes, I came back and he simply says: "I think I've learnt more in this 1 post so far, then all the posts you've shown me before".Cyrus, I'd be more then gracious to meet you and if you ever need any work I have about 1,000 things for you to do :P Awesome post and as always, your contributions to the SEOmoz and the SEO community in general are astounding!
Excellent SEO blueprint that I'll keep coming back to! Thanks for spending so much time on the ranking details - great read.
Very Good stuff in there. Certainly helpful for people thinking about how to get their sites ranking better and SAFER.
Wow..!! What a post..!! Worth Reading. Great Explanation. Very Helpful for beginners in Seo industry.
Thanks Cyrus..!!
What an amazing article. Most of it was common knowledge but there were a few points with content creation and the link sections that were awesome. Thx for the external link resources as well.
very very nice post! Enjoyed reading it!
Fantastic post, thanks very much for all these tips. It's great to have them all in one place, and in somewhat of a chronological order. The tools and programs you mentioned along the way were also very helpful! I agree that most people get the 90/10 rule the other way around, but its probably because link building can see instant rewards. Creating the best content possible is the best long term SEO plan though.
PK Group
Was a long read, but worth it. I myself am new to SEO, but i enjoy reading up on these blogs. I'll be making sure to be making use of the 'diamond in the rough' searches. Thanks!
Thanks Cyrus! This is Just So SEOlicious...
Takeaways - Lot's of bookmarks !
1 Free Tool that I often use to check for any copied content - copyscape.com
- KAS
Such an amazing article Cyrus!
Full of great pointers, I will be circulating this around the team to read.I love the 90/10 rule!
I will be saving this article to my feedly for future reference!
Its really a great post thank you so much for sharing such a great information. It helps every beginner and lead him to the way where people call him a SEO Expert :) Thanx again
Great post. I've been doing SEO as a career for nearly 7 years now but it's always good to take a step back and go back to basics.
This is a terrific roadmap! Thank you for putting this together Cyrus!
Very good and detailed article, for beginners this will definitely take you up another level and for us who have been in the industry for a while its a very good reminder to go back to basic and keep it simple.
Excellent Blue Print ! There is so much content out there it is overwhelming. You tightened up the info so I have a starting point and a framework towards success ! Thank you much.
Hey Thanks for sharing such a amazing post, I really liked it all.
Wow took me 1 week to read it :) Thanx for that!
Sam
Thanks for the awesome info. I am wondering what impact changing a file extension from html to php would have on a websites serps rankings. Maybe someone can write a nice guide to this. I know there are a ton of sites that don't have the php extension but would like to update the sites but have concerns about serps rankings.
Great article Cyrus! Comprehensive guide and would have a try and check whether could work even smarter.
Great solid foundation to start from, and keep in mind for beginners and professionals alike at all times when working to gain better rankings for pages on a site.
Thanks for your post , learned a thing or two from it :)
This all step is really good for me thanks for share with us. I will wait for update SEO tips!
Don't know if I am missing it but is there a print button for blog posts? (Don't want to print the PDF as it will use a lot of ink!)
This is exactly what I need right now - thank you!
Just come through from one of the recent tweet of Rand Fishkin, and find this blog very informative for create a quality content. Everyday I learn lot of thing from MOZ as today. Thanks Cyrus for these tips.
A truly great post with links to some awesome resources, particularly some keyword tools I hadn't used before. I fully intend to go through this again and pick out the relevant action points in order to get our content team back on focus and targeting effectively the long tail.
A good infograph; easy to understand and awesome post, but the software used are paid and everyone or every company can't afford those. It could be greater if you would use all free tools as you used Google Adwrod.
All of this, I love the way you rank a website in 25 steps :)
That's massive effort from Cyrus but it makes me to think that widely shared strategies and how-to's like this has tendency to diminish in value as bigger number of people will be using same ways and seeing decreased return of value from their actions because these strategies will be already commoodified.
Ah, interesting! I'd like to think that this particular how-to mitigates this because it only presents a framework, and the actual content/work placed on top of it will vary in both quality and implementation. I'm not sure it's even possible to "spam" or overuse this technique in any way that Google would devalue. (then again, we SEOs tend to overdo everything :)
Yesterday I wrote a 1,400+ words blog post and I was really proud of it - until I found this article :0 I guess I will have to work a lot harder on my posts, especially when I am trying to share instructions on how to rank and whatnot. Thank You, Cyrus. Thank You, Moz.
- Alex
Thanks for the book working through it now :)
Very Very thanks Mr. Cyrus Shepard this is exjact knowledge share for me . its really help me..
Excellent post Cyrus, looks tricky ways after Google panda and penguin updates to get rank #1.
Now competitor analysis and content marketing is the greatest way to push up on the top. Lin building is depend how you are building back links but before keep in mind you should have a proper keywords (long tail thru analysis)
Great Article Cyrus,
There is Broken link at : Distilled's guide to Viral Linkbait
Yeah! I guess it should move here: http://www.distilled.net/linkbait-guide/
Now fixed! Thanks
fabulous! Very simply written with step by step. It's really useful informational tips for intermediate SEOs. "Thanks Cyrus" I'm waiting for next article.
Fantastic post, Curys!
Saved it for my colleagues.
One of the best post I have seen about SEO
I am Confused about your 13 no topics : 13. Design Is 50% of the Battle
If you have any money in your budget, spend it on design. A small investment with a designer typically pays outsized dividends down the road. Good design can:
Lower bounce rate
Increase page views
Increase time on site
Earn more links
Establish trust
… All of which can help earn higher rankings.
“Design doesn’t just matter, it’s 50% of the battle.”
-Rand Fishkin
Please, show me some link about the prove of this topics.
Hi Robin,
I can recommend the following pieces of work:
Additionally, some data-driven design posts:
Hope this helps!
Great great blueprint, truly awesome work Cyrus!
Another great example of creating good content (with high value) is this post for example.
You make a blueprint that many will link to and bookmark, so this post is infact a great argument that these methods are the key for effective SEO.
Great article thanks
This is such an intelligent blue print, Cyrus always comes with blast . Thanks for this latest strategy of getting high ranking. You have given wonderful explanation about the general mistakes done by people. Your keyword selection technique is excellent. Thanks for this post.
Great post! Liked it very much and this will help the SEO masters to make more efficient strategy.
Superb blog, Beginners SEO can get more knowledge from this blog. Thanks for sharing this post with everybody.
Great post, Cyrus.
But I have one question.
You write this:
"Brand names and unique descriptive information is okay, but making every title as unique as possible is the rule of the day."
Under "20. Title Tags - Two Quick Tips".
But what if your brand name is a money keyword - for example www.cheapest-broadband.com - and you want your name to the end of the title tag? What would you recommend?
That you wrote Cheapest-Broadband.com or what?
Practice what you preach. A job well done Cyrus. You rank #1 for „how to rank" (in Google.be). Thrilled to share this post at the office.
Awesome post, great job Cyrus!
The graph showing the correlation between longer articles and links was new for me. Personally I wouldn't have expected that correlation. I prefer the quick reads but that is good to know!
Great article! Today was report day, and it's really easy to look at our client's summary reports and tell who is creating keyword theme content and who is not, or rarely does. Those that do, get to rise up Google SERP, and those that don't get to watch the rest. Personally, I don't like taking on a SEO client who refuses to implement a content strategy. It's really a waste of my time.
nice article
great articel bro!. i like u post
Hey Cyrus, really enjoyed this epic post! We recently discussed the entire blog post on our podcast the Daily Blogcast for Internet Marketing. This was epic and I hope I did a good job covering this one! Thanks again and I will put the link below to the post and audio file if you would like to listen!
http://dailyblogcast.net/2013/12/19/034-epic-discussion-on-25-step-seo-blueprint-and-thats-about-it/
Thanks! Added a hard link to the page. Cheers.
thank you for such a detailed post
Impressive, however it takes 5 hours to read this post:). One should surely follow these seo rules.
Cyrus, Hi. Thanks for posting. It's a great resource.
Just a point of clarification on web standards, the discussion is on a Title element; “title tag” is a colloquialism. Using the the term “tag” when referencing a Title element is ambiguous and open to confusion with a title attribute. Please see the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) documents below.
HTML 4.01 Specification
W3C Recommendation 24 December 1999
The global structure of an HTML document
7.4.2 The TITLE element
http://goo.gl/o2htI
7.4.3 The TITLE attribute
http://goo.gl/xJnN0
and
12 Links
12.1.4 Link titles
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/links.html#h-12.1.4
http://goo.gl/wI52U
12.3.3 Links and search engines
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/links.html#h-12.3.3
http://goo.gl/vDN5g
or if you’d prefer:
HTML5
A vocabulary and associated APIs for HTML and XHTML
W3C Candidate Recommendation 17 December 2012
4.2.2 The title element
http://goo.gl/k8VI8
Wonderful Post...!
Great post Cyrus, some really fantastic information to help people get websites ranked.
Now this will be a good starting point but theirs always a whole heap of other things you need to consider with SEO projects these days =)
Also for some additional information and "how to guide" on Keyword Research I did a huge post here on SEOmoz - http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/advanced-seo-keyword-research-tips-and-ideas-14216
I think it is quite in-depth and its much better than a 'starting point'. In fact, I'd say it is in-line with most of the high-end strategies out there.
What other things should we consider besides your post?
Kudos to Cyrus. I really enjoyed this read.
I second that.
This is a great framework for all manners of hats.
Really Cyrus, You done a great job. Very impresive and informative post it is. Well researched and well explained.Yousuf
Totally agree with you Yousuf.
Great Post Cyrus! At the end of the day every SEO campaign yields quality results when the following are done consistently - Quality content, User engagement to gain user trust, build brand authority & credibility online, reputation management, being socially active to create brand awareness.
I recently used this article and the link of advance SEO keywords to show my client how they can rank their website. It helped me in satisfying them and they hired me as their consultant for all their online sites. Thanks Cyrus for t his article :)