SEO for Beginners: Rank #1 In Google in 2022

00:00
hey are you an seo beginner well perfect
00:02
because in this video i’m going to show
00:03
you exactly how to rank on the first
00:06
page of google step by step and watch
00:08
until the end because i’m going to prove
00:10
that 99.9
00:12
of people do this one seo action
00:14
completely backward so if you’re excited
00:17
about this free seo training then drop a
00:19
comment below with let’s do this and
00:21
let’s dive right in hey so i’m nathan
00:23
gotch the founder of gotcha seo and i’ve
00:25
personally led hundreds of successful
00:27
seo campaigns in my agency and i’ve
00:29
trained thousands of seo professionals
00:31
in my program gotcha seo academy so in
00:34
this free seo training i’m going to walk
00:36
you through my proven in-house seo
00:38
process so you can rank on the first
00:40
page of google every time now before we
00:42
dive in please subscribe to the semrush
00:45
youtube channel below and hit the bell
00:47
button because you’ll get notified when
00:49
i publish the next video in this series
00:52
so the first question i need to tackle
00:53
is what is seo seo is an acronym for
00:57
search engine optimization which simply
00:59
is the process of improving rankings in
01:02
google’s organic search engine and
01:04
there’s one reason why seo is by far the
01:07
best inbound marketing channel and
01:09
that’s intent when someone searches sem
01:12
rush free trial the intent is clear
01:14
they’re towards the bottom of the sales
01:16
funnel and they’re getting closer to
01:17
becoming a customer more on that in a
01:19
second but intent is why seo is the most
01:22
popular inbound marketing channel and
01:24
the data proves this to be true for
01:26
example the keyword seo gets double the
01:29
amount of searches compared to other
01:31
marketing channels like facebook ads or
01:33
even social media marketing but that’s
01:35
not all according to sem rush rank three
01:38
out of the top five most popular
01:40
websites in the world are search driven
01:43
youtube is the most popular video search
01:45
engine amazon is the most popular
01:47
e-commerce search engine and as you know
01:50
google is by far the most popular
01:53
traditional search engine in fact
01:55
according to statista google owns 87 of
01:58
the search market share as of 2021. so
02:01
now that you know the opportunity that
02:03
exists with seo how do you actually do
02:05
it well let’s dive into it so the proven
02:07
seo process i’m going to show you can be
02:09
broken down into four pillars number one
02:12
keywords number two technical number
02:14
three content and number four backlinks
02:17
let’s start with pillar one which are
02:19
keywords so keywords are the foundation
02:21
of any successful seo campaign because
02:23
they are what searchers use to find
02:24
solutions and answers to their problems
02:27
and the goal is for your website to show
02:29
up for keywords that your ideal
02:31
customers are searching for so with that
02:33
said the first part of the keyword
02:34
research process is to find keyword
02:37
opportunities now how you go about doing
02:39
this will depend on if your website has
02:41
existing organic search traffic or not
02:43
so here’s how to find out open scm rush
02:46
enter your domain into the search bar go
02:48
to organic research and look under
02:51
keywords if you have existing keywords
02:53
then that’s where you want to start
02:55
because it indicates that you’re already
02:57
doing something right in this case what
02:59
you’ll want to do is identify what i
03:00
call low hanging fruits and these are
03:02
keywords ranking from positions number
03:04
two to number 15. so while in sem rush
03:07
click on the positions tab and then the
03:09
positions drop down and enter 2 and 15
03:13
into the custom range and now you’ll
03:14
have access to all of your low hanging
03:17
fruit keywords and these are the
03:18
keywords that you need to prioritize
03:20
because with some simple optimization
03:22
and possibly some backlinks you can push
03:25
those rankings up and you’ll see a big
03:27
spike in organic search traffic in fact
03:29
according to a study conducted by
03:31
backlinko the number one spot gets
03:33
approximately 31
03:35
of the total clicks for a keyword while
03:37
the number five spot only gets nine
03:39
percent of those clicks that means if
03:41
you go from position number five to
03:43
number one it will produce huge traffic
03:45
gains and that’s why you should focus
03:47
all of your initial effort on these
03:48
low-hanging fruits now you might be
03:50
wondering how do you improve the
03:52
rankings for these keywords well i’ll be
03:55
tackling that in a second now what do
03:57
you do if you have no organic keywords
03:59
because you haven’t done seo or you have
04:01
a brand new website well here’s what you
04:03
need to do go to semrush and go to the
04:06
seo section and click on keyword gaap
04:09
enter your domain and then enter a few
04:11
of your top organic search competitors
04:13
domains if you aren’t sure who your top
04:15
competitors are in organic search then
04:16
go to keyword research and keyword
04:18
overview and then enter a keyword
04:20
related to your industry in this example
04:22
i’ll use seo tools then scroll down to
04:25
serp analysis and refresh the metrics so
04:27
you can see which domains have the most
04:29
search traffic while keeping this tab
04:31
open go to the competitive research
04:34
section open keyword gaap in another tab
04:36
enter your domain first and then copy
04:39
and paste one to four competitors from
04:40
the previous section into the keyword
04:42
gaap tool then click on the position
04:44
drop down click on competitors and
04:46
select top 10 then scroll down and look
04:49
under all keyword details for you can
04:51
then sort these keywords based on a few
04:53
different criteria and the two you
04:55
should be most interested in are missing
04:57
and untapped which both mean that one or
05:00
both of your competitors are ranking for
05:02
these keywords but your website is not
05:03
so now that you know how to find keyword
05:05
opportunities in both scenarios let me
05:07
tell you the truth anyone can find
05:09
keywords but the real magic happens when
05:11
you know how to filter through these
05:13
keywords and select which ones are
05:15
actually worth targeting and in the next
05:17
video in this training series i’m going
05:18
to dive deep into the second and third
05:21
parts of keyword research however here
05:23
are two things to consider when trying
05:25
to select keywords number one what is
05:27
the intent you should always prioritize
05:29
keywords with transactional intent that
05:31
are towards the bottom of the funnel and
05:33
the best way to understand this is to
05:34
know the five main categories of intent
05:36
which are informational investigative
05:38
comparison transactional and
05:40
navigational and every strong seo
05:42
campaign will target keywords at each
05:44
stage of the funnel so let’s say you’re
05:46
building a keyword strategy for semrush
05:48
so at the top of the funnel scrmes would
05:50
want to target keywords with
05:51
informational intent like learn seo or
05:53
how to build backlinks these keywords
05:55
are broad and will drive the most
05:57
traffic the next phase of the search
05:59
journey is to target keywords with
06:01
investigative intent like seo tools or
06:04
best seo tools now notice that this is
06:07
much more relevant to what sem rush
06:09
offers so now at this point the searcher
06:11
is likely brand aware which means they
06:13
know about the big players in the seo
06:16
tool market like sem rush and that means
06:18
they’ll likely begin searching keywords
06:20
with comparison intent like sem rush
06:23
versus moz and as you can tell the
06:25
searcher is getting very close to making
06:27
a decision and they’re weighing their
06:29
options and now we’ve arrived at
06:31
keywords with transactional intent which
06:34
in this case would be sem rush free
06:36
trial and the conversion rate for a
06:38
keyword like this will be sky high and
06:40
the final type of intent is navigational
06:42
which is just sem rush or sem rush login
06:46
and you won’t need to spend too much
06:47
time on these because the brand should
06:49
automatically rank so with that said you
06:51
should always start at the bottom of the
06:53
sales funnel and work your way up i’ll
06:55
help you much more with this in the next
06:57
video in this series so make sure you
06:59
subscribe below and hit the bell icon to
07:01
get first access when the next video
07:03
goes live now the next question you need
07:05
to ask about your keywords is number two
07:08
can you actually compete for this
07:10
keyword now the good news is that you
07:12
can use scmrush’s keyword difficulty
07:14
tool to quickly filter through all of
07:16
your keyword opportunities so just enter
07:18
your target domain or a competitor’s
07:20
domain into the search bar and go to
07:22
organic research then click on positions
07:25
and go to the kd filter start with very
07:28
easy and work your way up these are the
07:30
keywords you want to attack first
07:32
because they won’t require as many
07:33
resources to rank so just to review
07:36
prioritize keywords with high
07:37
transactional intent and low competition
07:40
first now there are many more steps that
07:42
go into keyword qualification and
07:44
prioritization but i’ll share those in
07:46
great detail in the upcoming video now
07:48
let’s move on to the second pillar which
07:50
is technical so you may have found some
07:52
awesome keywords but your site won’t
07:54
rank without optimizing for technical
07:56
performance think of technical as the
07:58
foundation of a house it alone likely
08:01
won’t help you achieve first page
08:02
rankings but it’s a requirement to get
08:04
there and i’ll be diving deep into seo
08:06
audits in a later video in the series
08:07
however let’s cover some quick wins
08:09
right now so first go into scm rush and
08:11
look under on page and tech seo and
08:13
click on site audit click add new
08:15
project and enter your domain and the
08:17
project name now before you change the
08:19
site audit settings open up google in
08:21
another tab enter sitecolon
08:24
yourdomain.com in this example i’ll use
08:26
semrush.com they have roughly 55 000
08:29
pages indexed so i’ll select a hundred
08:31
thousand from the limit of checked pages
08:34
drop down you can keep all of the other
08:36
settings the same and click start site
08:38
audit now once the audit is complete you
08:41
might be a little overwhelmed because
08:42
semrush provides an enormous amount of
08:45
data and different opportunities now in
08:47
a perfect world you could pursue fixing
08:49
everything and long term you probably
08:51
should however you need to prioritize
08:54
because some opportunities will have a
08:56
far bigger impact on performance than
08:58
others and at a high level you need to
09:00
optimize three core categories to
09:03
achieve optimal technical seo
09:05
performance first you need to make sure
09:07
your website is crawlable and indexable
09:10
and there are many factors that impact
09:11
crawlability and indexability but some
09:13
of the biggest include your website
09:15
architecture more on this in a second
09:17
your page experience your robots.txt
09:20
file and tags like no index which could
09:22
prevent google from crawling pages on
09:25
your website now while in the sem rush
09:27
audit section click on issues look for
09:29
the category drop-down and then select
09:31
crawlability scm rush will then show you
09:33
all the possible issues that could
09:35
negatively affect crawlability then
09:37
repeat this same exact process except
09:39
change the category to indexability once
09:42
again you can see exactly what could
09:44
hurt your indexation tackle these items
09:47
asap because if google can’t crawl your
09:49
pages then they won’t be indexed and if
09:51
they’re not indexed it’s impossible to
09:53
rank second you need to optimize for
09:56
user experience or ux for short one of
09:58
the most important ux factors is page
10:01
loading speed in fact google recently
10:03
stated that core web vitals is a ranking
10:05
factor so you need to do everything in
10:07
your power to improve loading speed and
10:09
page experience so while in the overview
10:12
tab on the audit you’ll see the new core
10:14
web vital score from scm rush click view
10:16
details and you’ll see the exact pages
10:18
you need to improve and the cool part
10:20
about optimizing your site for core web
10:22
vitals is that most changes will have
10:24
positive effects on a site-wide basis
10:27
meaning you won’t need to go page by
10:29
page optimizing for core web vitals for
10:32
most of your pages and now the third
10:34
technical pillar you need to optimize
10:36
for is your site architecture or in
10:38
other words internal linking now there
10:40
are a few core tenets of internal
10:42
linking first your pages shouldn’t be
10:44
more than three clicks deep into the
10:46
architecture otherwise it could
10:48
potentially hurt crawlability and
10:50
indexability so go to the crawled pages
10:52
tab in the semrush audit click on more
10:54
filters select crawl depth from the drop
10:57
down and then select four plus clicks
10:59
from the second drop down and now you’ll
11:01
know what pages you need to push further
11:04
up into the architecture the second part
11:06
of optimizing your site architecture is
11:08
to identify pages with poor internal
11:10
link coverage and the fastest way to
11:12
find these pages is to use semrush’s
11:14
internal link rank in the audit so first
11:18
while still in the crawled pages tab
11:20
click on the drop down and select
11:21
internal link rank this is a proprietary
11:23
score mechanism created by scm rush
11:26
which gauges how much authority and link
11:28
equity a particular page has so if a
11:31
page has many internal links from pages
11:33
with many backlinks the ilr score will
11:36
be high and a low score is an indication
11:38
of poor internal link coverage so on the
11:41
second drop down you can select less
11:43
than 10 and then you can see some pages
11:45
that need more internal link love so
11:47
that is just a preview of how to
11:48
optimize for technical seo once again
11:51
i’ll be going deeper into this in a
11:52
later training video so let’s move on to
11:54
pillar number three which is content so
11:56
you’ve identified solid keywords and
11:58
your technical performance is now on
12:00
point now you need to optimize your
12:02
content so i follow a simple process
12:04
when trying to optimize a page and here
12:06
it is number one is there keyword
12:08
cannibalization so keyword
12:10
cannibalization is when you have two or
12:11
more pages targeting the same exact
12:14
keyword phrase and it’s detrimental to
12:16
your seo performance because it forces
12:18
google to decide which page is best for
12:21
that keyword and you don’t want google
12:23
making those decisions it’s our job to
12:25
direct google in fact john mueller the
12:27
search advocate at google said this
12:29
about keyword cannibalization we just
12:31
rank the content as we get it and if you
12:33
have a bunch of pages with roughly the
12:35
same content it’s going to compete with
12:37
each other kind of like a bunch of kids
12:39
wanting to be first in line and
12:41
ultimately someone else slips in ahead
12:43
of them personally i prefer fewer
12:45
stronger pages over lots of weaker ones
12:48
don’t water your site’s value down so
12:49
the quickest way to identify keyword
12:51
cannibalization is to use semrush’s
12:53
position tracking tool go to keyword
12:55
research and click on position tracking
12:57
then click on new position tracking to
12:59
start a new project enter your target
13:01
keywords and once the scan is complete
13:03
open up the project and then click on
13:05
the cannibalization tab this will show
13:07
you instances of keyword cannibalization
13:09
for the keywords you’ve specifically
13:10
entered the next content check is simple
13:13
number two does the page need to be
13:15
upgraded your seo driven pages should be
13:18
different and better than what exists
13:20
plain and simple number three is the
13:22
page optimized well at the most basic
13:25
level your primary keyword should be in
13:27
your url title h1 tag first sentence and
13:31
last sentence but to take things up
13:33
another notch i recommend using scm
13:35
rush’s on-page seo checker go to the
13:37
on-page and tech seo section click on
13:40
the on-page seo checker and start a new
13:42
project click on import keywords and
13:44
pages and then select your preferred
13:46
option in this example i’ll use manually
13:48
enter your target url and the exact
13:51
keyword phrase you want to rank for and
13:53
then click collect ideas scmrush will
13:55
then show you how to optimize the target
13:57
page from a strategy content semantic
14:00
technical ux and even link building
14:03
perspective so make sure you benchmark
14:05
your performance today and then execute
14:07
on these recommendations the next point
14:09
to tackle is number four does the page
14:12
have enough internal link coverage so go
14:14
back to the audit and see if your target
14:16
page is getting enough internal link
14:18
coverage and the final checkpoint is
14:20
number five does the page need more
14:22
topical authority if you find that the
14:24
page doesn’t have much internal link
14:26
coverage then it likely doesn’t have
14:28
much topical authority either in other
14:30
words you need to create more keyword
14:32
driven content to support that primary
14:35
asset and now moving on to the last and
14:37
fourth pillar of the seo process which
14:39
are backlinks so i’ve been doing seo
14:41
consistently since 2011 and one thing
14:44
has stayed the same backlinks are still
14:46
the number one ranking factor and this
14:49
isn’t just based on my experience alone
14:51
according to a ranking factor study
14:52
conducted by scm rush they found that
14:54
the more backlinks a domain has the
14:57
higher its position on the serp now the
14:59
key is to remember that not all
15:01
backlinks are created equal in fact some
15:03
backlinks can wreck your rankings and
15:06
get you penalized now before you attempt
15:07
to acquire new backlinks you first need
15:10
to audit your existing backlink profile
15:12
open up semrush go to the link building
15:14
section and click on backlink audit tool
15:16
create a project and then run the audit
15:19
schmush will then give you an overall
15:21
toxicity score and if you have a high
15:23
percentage of toxic domains there are a
15:25
couple ways to handle it first work to
15:27
acquire higher quality backlinks to
15:29
offset the low quality backlinks and
15:32
then second if the backlinks are really
15:34
nasty then you can attempt to get them
15:36
removed through outreach and if outreach
15:39
fails then disavowing with google should
15:41
be the final option now keep in mind
15:44
that disavowing backlinks can have a
15:46
negative impact on your seo performance
15:48
because you may decrease overall website
15:50
authority so that’s why you need to be
15:52
actively working to acquire new
15:54
backlinks so like other parts in this
15:56
seo process i’ll be diving deep into
15:59
effective backlink acquisition in a
16:01
dedicated video in this free training
16:03
series but for now you should aim to
16:05
acquire backlinks on websites that have
16:07
the following three characteristics
16:10
number one it’s relevant to your website
16:12
so if you own a coffee shop you should
16:15
try to get backlinks from coffee
16:16
websites food bloggers etc number two
16:19
it’s a real website with real organic
16:22
traffic so think about it if a website
16:24
has organic search traffic then google
16:26
probably trusts it and the opposite is
16:29
true as well if a website has no organic
16:31
search traffic then you should probably
16:33
be a little concerned number three it’s
16:34
authoritative and their backlinks are
16:36
high quality so aim to get backlinks on
16:39
websites with strong high quality
16:41
backlink profiles now there are many
16:43
more qualifying factors but for now
16:45
those three will work so the cool part
16:47
is that you can run any backlink
16:48
opportunity through semrush and quickly
16:50
see at a glance if it has organic search
16:52
traffic if it has authority and if the
16:55
backlink profile is high quality all
16:57
right so you made it all the way to the
16:58
end and we covered a ton of ground so at
17:00
this point you know the four pillars of
17:02
proper seo in the next video in this
17:04
free seo training series i’m going to
17:06
dive deep into keyword research in fact
17:08
you’ll learn advanced keyword research
17:10
techniques that 99.9 of your competitors
17:13
are not using i guarantee that so if you
17:16
got any value from this video please
17:18
like it subscribe and hit the bell
17:20
button because you’ll get notified when
17:22
we publish the next video in this series
17:24
thank you so much for watching and drop
17:26
your questions below this video i’ll see
17:28
you in the next video