Search Engine Optimization

Improving SEO without knowing where to start is great read. SerpBear is interesting.

Notes

• Make sure Google can crawl and index all your pages and content easily, and that you're not using any tech, awkward (or missing) internal link structures, or content practices (e.g. video/animations with no parse-able text, interactive content w/ no parse-able text, etc) that stops Googlebot from accessing your work.
• Create content that... a) Addresses real problems that people are searching Google for. b) Truly solves the searcher's problem, and takes them all the way through the solution (i.e. it can't just be "marketing" for your product). c) Intelligently employs the words and phrases searchers actually type into Google (so do your keyword research and match your topics + headlines to the words + phrases they use). d) Doesn't annoy or piss off users such that they click the back button and choose someone else's link instead of yours. e) Earns links and amplification (see point below).
• Have a great answer to the question: "Who will help amplify/link to this and WHY?" If you can nail that, and then get what you create in front of those right people/organizations, your ability to earn amplification, engagement, and links will be vastly better than simply trying to make stuff, then put it in front of likely linkers. Craft content the way Amazon crafts products - write the press release first. List the people who will want to share it/tweet it/post about it/write about it/link to it/etc. and then explain their motivations. Now you've got content that has the potential to earn the ranking signals you need.
• SEO strategy, I really like:
  1. Find a topic that is growing using ExplodingTopics
  2. Find existing keywords with some volume, where that topic can be substituted in to make a new keyword with no volume (but also no competition).
  3. Wait for the new keyword to grow.
  4. Profit.
• Lots of blog posts (no links) and see what sticks is the wrong game for SEO. Be deliberate: you prioritize (not algo), bottom up, promote/get links, design structure.

Links

• Next.js SEO Course
• The Google SEO Bible: Everything a Startup Needs to Know (2018)
• 3 Essential Tools to Boost your React App’s SEO (2019)
• Understand the JavaScript SEO basics
• The missing guide of SEO with Gatsby (2019)
• I wrote 1 blog post every day for 2 years. Here's 5 things I learned about SEO (2020) (HN)
• On-Page SEO Checklist for New Websites
• Easy SEO Wins (2020)
• Nozzle - Enterprise keyword rank tracker tool.
• How SEO Ruined the Internet (HN)
• SEO is Not Hard — A step-by-step SEO Tutorial for beginners that will get you ranked every single time (2016)
• SEO that anyone can handle (2020)
• SEOBrowse - Google search for SEO professionals.
• Ahrefs - SEO Tools & Resources To Grow Your Search Traffic.
• How MasterClass used SEO to grow (2020) (HN)
• Jekyll SEO Tag - Add metadata tags for search engines and social networks to better index and display your site's content.
• My best SEO tactic so far (2020) (HN)
• SEO Doesn't Matter Anymore (2020)
• Some Things I’ve Learned About SEO (Tweet)
• SEO tips for indie hackers (2020)
• SEO mistakes I've made and how I fixed them (2020) (HN)
• Understanding SEO - A Systematic Approach to Search Engine Optimization book (2020)
• TypeScript playground SEO improvement (2020)
• Good SEO tools that aren't expensive (2020)
• Improving Performance and Search Rankings with Cloudflare for Fun and Profit (2020)
• Effortless SEO Testing - Track the changes you make to pages and websites, to see if they have an effect on Google rankings and clicks.
• Lean SEO - Our Framework For SEO Traction.
• Getting started with SEO 101 (2020)
• Greenflare SEO Web Crawler - Open-Source Python Based SEO Web Crawler. (Web)
• Top SEO myths to kiss goodbye in 2020
• Demystifying SEO with experiments (2015)
• My Google Traffic Has Fallen to Zero (2020) (HN)
• Google SEO General Guidelines (2020)
• Robots.txt Tester & Validator
• Tell HN: A case of negative SEO I caught on my service and how I dealt with it (2021)
• SEO, Performance, and Image Codecs (2021)
• GetKeywords - Intent-Focused Keyword Research Simplified.
• Backlink Checker - Check and analyze any site’s backlinks.
• Content Marketing for Bootstrappers (2021)
• How Buffer built many backlinks for their business (2021)
• 6 SEO strategies
• Those who built a custom ecommerce with over 1k products, how did you handle SEO? (2021)
• A reminder on qualifying links and our link spam update (2021)
• SEO for Devs Course
• Boring SEO - SEO guide for non lazy people. (HN)
• How to prioritize pages for content promotion and link building (2021)
• Are you making SEO Strategically Important? (2021)
• Introduction to Keywords via Understanding Searcher Psychology (2021)
• seolint - Robust and configurable SEO linter.
• Search engines and SEO spam (2022) (HN)
• Python SEO Analyzer - SEO tool that analyzes the structure of a site, crawls the site, counts words in the body of the site and warns of any technical SEO issues.
• React SEO: Best Practices to Make It SEO-Friendly (2022)
• A Simple to Follow 6 Month SEO Plan (HN)
• MarketRank: Anti-SEO Ranking Algorithm (2022) (HN)
• Search Candy - E-commerce SEO Consultancy.
• Almost all searches on my independent search engine are now from SEO spam bots (2022) (HN)
• Improving SEO without knowing where to start (2022)
• SerpBear - Search Engine Position Rank Tracking App.
• How I Ruined My SEO (2023) (HN)
• Next.js SEO Playbook: Ranking higher with Next.js on Vercel (2023)