Blogging Success Tips From Brent Custoras
#1 Learn some basic coding
In 2019 and beyond, every SEO has to start gaining some level of familiarity with coding. Even Google has recently started recommending more companies focus on technical SEO and that means HTTPS, APIs, Schema, Pagespeed, Mobile Friendly… all of which really require some level of coding experience to truly understand, direct, and implement.
Even if you are not the implementer, you need to be able to understand when things don’t work and how to make them work.
#2 Find content that works and make it better
Google, and other search engines, do not want all your content. In fact, they probably want about 5% to 10% of what we are giving them.
If you were to check your analytics, you would likely see that less than 10% of your content or products are responsible for about 100% of your traffic, sales, and conversions. Even if you have an e-commerce site, you are likely to see that your highest traffic and conversion pages are category pages and not individual products.
Focus on select, high-quality content, that assists a user through their education, conversion or buying process.
1. Adapt to the changes
Be flexible and adaptable. I’m cheating with this answer because I suggest that a person that’s new to a field like SEO should be willing to adapt to a changing landscape so that’ll apply to many areas.
SEO moves fast, and since a Google algorithm update can make traffic grow or nose dive, an SEO beginner should be ready to go with the flow and be eager to learn and test.
On a secondary level, an SEO beginner can make money in several ways. The options can be overwhelming once you develop a core set of skills. That said, you can adapt your skills of SEO to other areas.
For example, if you start with affiliate sites, you may discover that you prefer to help small, local businesses. So you can shift from one business model to another (affiliate marketing to local SEO), using your general SEO skills.
2. Keyword Golden Ratio
The Keyword Golden Ratio is the best way to find ultra-long-tail keywords that are under-served on the internet. The Keyword Golden Ratio is a keyword research concept I developed after combining ideas from some very smart people.
The idea is simple, but I made the formula accessible by making it simple and nearly foolproof.
It’s a data-driven way to find keywords that you can rank for in the top 25 results in Google, usually within hours after the page is indexed.
The ratio is this:
The number of Google results that have the keyword phrase in the title divided by the local monthly search volume, where the LMS is less than 250.
If the KGR is less than 0.25, then you should rank in the top 100 when your page is indexed.
You should still rank in the top 250 when the KGR is between 0.25 and 1. And it should be pretty fast.
It works for any industry or niche, and I get emails every week about people seeing success with the KGR.