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First day doing SEO, any tips?

I've configured Google Search Console, added a sitemap, and updated robots.txt.

Is it worth paying for tools?
Are there any good sources for learning?


Right now, you can skip the expensive tools until you learn the basics. There are SO many free tools, and I'll come back and update this later.

Here are some good places to start learning:
- ahrefs.com/seo
- moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
- developers.google.com/search/…

Here's a great vault with a TON of resources. They call it the Netflex of SEO (and I have to agree).

Here's my affiliate link where you can get 10 days for free to poke around: gr3f.co/c/54884/2Hi4X

It'll be really helpful to know your goals with SEO and what outcomes you're looking for. I've been in this game since 2008, so I'd be happy to help however I can. :)

Thanks for your awesome response! I'm on the Semrush trial but need cheaper tools.

Launching two projects per month and I want SEO to be the #1 traffic acquisition

Will check everything tomorrow. :)

That's what I help clients with. :)

Semrush is extremely expensive, as is Ahref's, and you could easily get by using their free tools. I'll make you a list of tools and processes that I do for my clients and drop the link here.

I'm suuuuper slammed with deadlines right now, so it won't be til mid-week next week.

(Btw I work with SaaS, marketing agencies, and service providers, so if you're doing any of these, it'll be hyper-relevant.)

My goal rn is to get the domain authority of designroaster.com to be ≠ 0

Just starting SEO on a new domain myself, so this is fresh in my mind. Just tweeted about it actually 😀

IMO there are plenty of free tools out there to start with before you need to pay. Once you get into SEO and realize what you need, then start looking for paid tools.

I'd also recommend signing up for a free Ahrefs account so you can track your progress with number of referring domains, domain rating, etc. The free version also shows a ton of opportunities, site issues, etc.

Two of the most impactful things you can do at this point is get backlinks and do basic keyword research for the content you publish on the site. You could spend years on just these two things and get a ton of benefit from each before doing anything else.

Good luck!

If you are serious about SEO, there's a lot to learn. I recommend visiting this website, where you'll find a wealth of free learning material: learningseo.io/

My goal is to get the domain authority of designroaster.com to be ≠ 0

It depends on what kind of SEO you are doing and what your goal is. Technical SEO you can use free tools, but if you go into content focused SEO you will at some point need a tool, many have free starting options. I used this as a starter not too expensive keysearch.co and I later switched to KWFinder but its a little more pricey. For learning ahref and moz or even jus a 1h youtube tutorial and then start trying.

I think it really depends on what kind of SEO you're doing. I.e local SEO is a whole different game to SEO that's highly competitive competing against huge domains.

For the latter, I've loosely followed Glen since his Viper Chill days when I was living in BKK. It's changed name since to Detailed and the course is great. He also has a free browser extension that's really useful for quick page analysis to check the structure (I use it in Firefox).

His blog posts I find the only thing in SEO that doesn't make me want to turn my laptop off immediately - and make me realize it's all pretty futile when you're at that level!

detailed.com
detailed.com/extension/

You can get started with fixing your on-page SEO as that's the easiest and fastest thing you can do. Once you do that, you can start working on your off page SEO, which is checking for backlinks, finding keywords, etc.. Do checkout SEO Stuff as it's pricing is better and also is credit based.

For checking the on-page SEO, you can use my FREE chrome extension Meta Explorer