Best Way To Learn SEO & Technical SEO

TL;DR

• SEO is a very in-demand skill right now, Americaneagle.com is hiring!
• There are so many resources out there that may be overwhelming for some.
• Below I list my favorite resources (articles, websites, Twitter) that can help anyone curious to learn SEO.

I’ve been asked by clients and friends about how they can learn SEO. It’s a great skill to have and is very in demand right now for numerous companies. Through this post, I want to document my process and some of the great resources I have found over the years.

There are many ways to learn a new skill. One way doesn’t work for everyone, but I wanted to show how I started in SEO and the different ways I have continued to grow my skill set. One thing I recommend for anyone is setting up another Twitter account and following industry experts in that field. As bad as some parts of social media may be, there is a ton of knowledge shared there. SEO Twitter is actually a pretty interesting corner of the internet. My experience has been only positive which is rare for that social media platform. There are a ton of experts that I will share later on who are constantly publishing amazing work that can help anyone grow. The SEO industry is great because of the people, follow some that I list below and you will see why.

In addition to having a Twitter account following experts in your field, I recommend using Mailbrew which aggregates your news feed and prioritizes the top news articles. This is a great way to start the workday and learn what is hot in the industry.

Can I Learn SEO On My Own?

I strongly believe you can learn anything on your own if you put your mind to it. Having said that I also think it’s better to try and learn with someone. Have someone that can keep you accountable, but also pushes you to compete. It’s easy to procrastinate or take things slow if you are on your own.

There are a lot of different resources that I will include in this post and on social media that can help anyone learn SEO on their own. All that is needed is a passion to learn.

Where to Start Learning SEO?

1. LearningSEO.io – This website basically makes this post useless! It has everything you need to learn everything about SEO. Logically broken down into sections so even the most experienced SEOs can find something to learn. It also has a super helpful spreadsheet you can export so you can track your progress.
2. Moz: Beginners Guide to SEO – This is the resource I share with anyone that is curious to learn more about SEO. It is broken down into easily digestible chapters that range from 101 basics to more advanced technical SEO. I’ve always liked Moz for its thought leadership through White Board Friday videos as well as its numerous SEO resources.
3. Backlinko: How To Learn SEO – Brian Dean is a wizard. There are a ton of great articles on his site that break down SEO of all kinds. Similar to the Moz beginners guide, this article is broken into chapters that lead to in-depth articles. It starts with the fundamentals and takes you all the way through UX. The best part of Brian Dean’s articles is that they are always backed with data. He truly practices what he preaches.
4. Backlinko: SEO in 2021 – SEO is always changing and the past year has been a volatile one. 2021 won’t be any different. Brian Dean again does an amazing job breaking down the hot topics in SEO like Core Web Vitals which is planned to hit us in May. With SEO, definitely walk before you run. Start with the basics, then move on to the hot topics.
5. Onely: How To Do Keyword Research – The team at Onely pretty much saved my life when I started working on a very technically advanced website with major technical SEO issues (I’ll cover that later). Their keyword research breakdown is one of the best out there. When anyone not familiar with SEO describes our industry, they only think of keywords. Obviously, there’s way more than that, but keywords are very important. This guide will help anyone that needs some additional ideas on how to scrape for keyword ideas.
6. Kevin Indig: Cyrus Shepard presents the best articles to learn SEO – This article is great because it combines two of the best follows on Twitter, Cyrus Shepard & Kevin Indig. These two share a ton that is all backed by data and experience. This article does exactly that, 7 of Cyrus Shepard’s best articles to learn SEO. #6 Technical SEO Renaissance by Mike King is my favorite.

How To Learn Technical SEO?

1. Onely: The Ultimate Guide to JavaScript SEO – As I mentioned before, this team saved me when I started to work on a Single Page Application (SPA) full of JS & technical SEO issues. They specialize in technical SEO and are a great resource to learn advanced tactics. Their guide to SEO crawlers is also a great reference.
2. Moz: The Technical SEO Renaissance: The Whys and Hows of SEO’s Forgotten Role in the Mechanics of the Web – Shared above in Cyrus Shepard’s article, Mike King (IPullRank) crazy in-depth breaks down multiple areas of technical SEO that get forgotten because SEO is all keywords and content. Knowing how the web/Google works aren’t 100% required to be a good SEO, but it is if you want to be great!
3.  Onely: The Ultimate Guide on Crawl Budget – Similar to the article above, knowing how Google crawls/renders/indexes are super important if you want to dominate SEO. The budget itself may not be something important unless you are dealing with a massive site, but understanding what goes into it will help you learn what is important to the crawlers. The XML sitemap, internal linking metrics, log files and internal crawl errors (redirects and 404s) all come into play with crawling.
4. Areej AbuAli: Getting Tech SEO Implemented – A new post that is changing how I am documenting/prioritizing my tickets to developers. I’ve found the more advanced you get in SEO, the less you actually get to change on-site. Most of the sites I work on need all changes to go through developers. If you depend on someone else to make on-site changes, they need to either understand SEO to prioritize tickets, or you need to prioritize for them. Areej AbuAli does an amazing job to lay out how to Recommend, Prioritize & Implement technical SEO tickets. This is a must-have as you become more and more advanced in SEO.
5. Portent: A Developer’s Guide To SEO – When you start to document and prioritize tickets for your developers, they may have questions on why and how to do certain things. Ian Lurie breaks down everything they need to know and more. Knowledge for the developers and clients is so important to be successful. If everyone is on the same page, it is much easier to get tactics approved and implemented.

How To Learn SEO Writing?

1. Backlinko: SEO Copywriting: The Definitive Guide – Brian Dean is back at it again with a great guide on all things content SEO. All of this is backed by his own experience and data. Content is not easy, nor is it quick. You will notice this in all of his articles. If you skimp on content it will show in the organic results.
2. Path Interactive: What Does It Mean to Have Good E-A-T? – Lily Ray is another must-follow on Twitter. She shares so many great tactics and is always someone I’m following closely when an algorithm update comes out. Expertise, Authority, and Trust (E-A-T) is a very hot topic in SEO and has been for the past year or so. It is not something that can really be measured, but it is more of a thought process to force quality in content. You can’t put a number on expertise, but you can strive for it by having someone knowledgeable in creating content.
3. Orbit Media: Updating Content for SEO – How to Teach Your Old Blog New Tricks – One of my favorite things to do in SEO is updating content that is either out of date or fell flat when it was published. There is so much competition on the internet today so the rankings are always changing. If you have a topic that was ranked once but isn’t anymore, it may need to be refreshed with more relevant information. Andy Crestodina teaches you how to do just that.

Best SEO Learning Resources

1. YouTube Channels
   1. SEO Video Show: Paul Andre de Vera – This is one of my new favorites in SEO. Paul interviews well-known experts in the industry and asks them about their lives, how they got started, their interests and more. I really love these videos because it helps drive me to see how others do things, their tactics and get to know them a bit more.
   2. MeasureSchool: Julian Juenemann – Steps outside the traditional SEO a bit into analytics and tracking. All the SEO tactics and strategies are great, but they are essentially worthless if you are not adequately tracking them. Julian has videos for almost all tracking platforms that will walk you through anything you need to know.
   3. SEO Fight Club – First rule of SEO Fight Club…
2. Twitter Accounts
   1. https://twitter.com/glenngabe
   2. https://twitter.com/lilyraynyc
   3. https://twitter.com/aleyda
   4. https://twitter.com/MattWoodwardUK
   5. https://twitter.com/crestodina
   6. https://twitter.com/azarchick
   7. https://twitter.com/Kevin_Indig
   8. https://twitter.com/Kammie_Jenkins
   9. https://twitter.com/areej_abuali
   10. https://twitter.com/GregBernhardt4
   11. https://twitter.com/jackiecchu
   12. https://twitter.com/rvtheverett
3. Websites
   1. https://www.seroundtable.com/
   2. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/
   3. https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/
   4. https://www.onely.com/blog/
   5. https://backlinko.com/hub/seo
   6. https://www.stateofdigital.com/
   7. https://www.jcchouinard.com/
   8. https://www.kevin-indig.com/
   9. https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/
   10. https://fuckingseotips.com/
4. Newsletters
   1. SEO FOMO Newsletter – This is a must-have for all SEOs! Aleyda Solis gathers all the best SEO articles and sends them to your inbox on Sunday. Great way to start the week.
   2. Growth Memo – Kevin Indig shares some very in-depth digital strategy articles that can apply to all websites.
   3. The Weekly SEO – Similar to the others, another great compilation of SEO articles from Andrew Charlton that can help anyone who’s curious about SEO. Take out the guesswork in figuring out what articles to trust. Let the experts do it for you.

There are so many great resources out there and I will try to update this as I find them. All I can recommend is that you get started in whatever way works best for you. The worst thing you can do is nothing.