Best SEO sources to follow and SEO tools to use in 2019

First thing’s first. Let’s give credit to Tugce Durmusoglu for gathering all these sources and tools together. She is one of the youngest SEO professionals in Turkey, yet she may be the one who is working her butt off the most.

 

There are five segments if you’d like to improve SEO skills:

 

1. Learn SEO
2. Data Visualization
3. User Intent / Keyword Research
4. Google Search Console and Google Analytics
5. Tools

 

 

Learn SEO

a) Let’s start with the basics:

• https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo : This was the first website I consumed its content about SEO, trying to figure out what is what.
• https://ahrefs.com/blog/learn-seo/ : Cody West has shared some smooth comfort to beginners while pointing out the importance of learning philosophy “There’s no substitute for getting your hands dirty.” So true.
• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-guide/ : This has been updated for 2019. Yes!
• https://backlinko.com/learn-seo-fast : The “fast” part is like a clickbait, I’d admit. It would be wiser to call it “easily” because Brian Dean shares the definitions of SEO pillars such as technical SEO, link building, etc.
• https://www.semrush.com/blog/learning-technical-seo/ : Kevin Indig is a name that you’ll likely to see on a bunch of content on how to improve your SEO skills.
• https://mangools.com/blog/learn-seo/ : This one has illustrations that are so cute, you won’t get bored while reading mind filling info on SEO.
• https://moz.com/blog/checklist-strange-technical-seo-problems : Sometimes you’ll come accross strange technical problems that you may not figure out why they happen right away. Dominic Woodman shares a checklist to fasten you up!
• https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf : This is golden. This is the document that Google shares for its quality raters to rate the websites they audit accordingly. This – is – golden. Read it.
• https://www.ampproject.org/ : AMP is a web component framework to easily create user-first websites. AMP is the short form of “accelerated mobile pages”.
• https://dynomapper.com/blog/21-sitemaps-and-seo/420-where-to-learn-seo-online : If all these sources to learn SEO basics is not enough for you, then check out this list that contains 43 websites that you can learn SEO online.

 

 

b) Learn HTML and learn HTML fast:

 

During the good old days, when hiring an SEO beginner majority would not ask for HTML knowledge. But now, it’s like telling that you are not able to write and send e-mails when you say you are not capable of reading HTML.

 

Lucky you, there are great sources out there where you can learn HTML fast and easy, like a walk in the park.

 

• https://hallanalysis.com/html-for-seo/
• https://ilovecoding.org/courses/
• https://www.udemy.com/html-and-css-for-beginners-crash-course-learn-fast-easy/
• https://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp

 

 

c) Learn that frickin’ regex:

 

A regular expression, according to Wikipedia, regex or regexp is a sequence of characters that define a search pattern. Usually, this pattern is used by string searching algorithms for “find” or “find and replace” operations on strings, or for input validation.

 

For a 4-year-old, regex will help you to find things faster.

 

• https://regexone.com/
• https://seo-hacker.com/regular-expression-affects-seo/
• https://www.onely.com/blog/principles-regular-expressions-seo/
• https://searchengineland.com/using-regular-expressions-seo-193146
• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/regex-seo-website-data-extraction/234999/

 

d) Improve your Excel skills to become a better SEO:

 

You neither don’t have to be an Excel expert nor learn just to save the day. There is a huge opportunity for us, SEOs to improve ourself meanwhile dig for Excel alternatives such as PowerBI.

 

• https://www.distilled.net/excel-for-seo/
• https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-sheets-formulas-seo/
• https://www.conductor.com/blog/2015/08/seo-excel-formulas/
• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/10-excel-functions-every-seo-professional-should-know/65531/

 

 

e) Learn how to approach to content, aka content audit:

 

Performing a content audit may take days if it’s your first time and there’s no shame in that. After gazing through these sources, you’ll definitely feel a lot more confident even if it may still take days to perform your first.

 

• http://www.curata.com/blog/content-audit-template/
• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/content-audit-checklist/237731/
• https://coschedule.com/blog/content-audit-template/
• https://blog.bufferapp.com/content-audit

 

Data Visualization

 

This is a hot topic not only for SEO or digital marketing but for all jobs that include reporting. If you are new in this field or you want to seek opportunities to join this business, sharpen your data visualization skills.

 

• https://venngage.com/blog/best-pitch-decks/
• https://infogram.com/
• https://www.amcharts.com/
• https://livegap.com/charts/
• https://moz.com/blog/seo-reports-next-level

 

 

User Intent / Keyword Research

 

Keyword research is one of the primary steps when starting your first SEO journey with a website. It may take up to hours when doing it for the first time and doing it right.

 

User intent is relatively new when compared to keyword research. It is as important as keyword research though.

 

• https://www.kevin-indig.com/user-intent-mapping-steroids/
• https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-to-identify-intent-in-search/
• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-101/how-people-search/
• https://backlinko.com/commercial-intent
• https://www.fatrank.com/best-keyword-research-techniques/
• https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research
• https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/keywords-research-tools-comparison/
• https://getstat.com/blog/search-intent-conversion-optimization/
• https://detailed.com/advanced-keyword-research/
• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/keyword-research-maximum-traffic/283247/
• https://backlinko.com/keyword-research

 

 

Google Search Console and Google Analytics

 

This is a no brainer. If you aim to increase organic traffic, you have to be able to track it in the first place. Yet Google serves a console for you to help you find how Google sees your website and what errors it finds when crawling your website.

 

Google Search Console (GSC):

 

• https://support.google.com/webmasters#topic=9128571
• https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/google-search-console
• https://elitesem.com/blog/google-search-console-for-seo/
• https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/google-search-console-ultimate-guide/
• https://www.shivarweb.com/11889/using-search-analytics-effectively/
• https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/using-google-data-studio-actionable-search-console-performance-report/
• https://www.mrjonathanjones.com/2018/12/20/google-data-studio-alternative-report-to-google-search-console/

 

Google Analytics (GA):

 

• https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/course/6 : Get that certificate!
• https://yoast.com/beginners-guide-to-google-search-console/
• https://medium.com/analytics-for-humans/google-analytics-is-the-only-seo-analytics-tool-you-need-heres-how-to-use-it-part-1-of-2-451e66ff102
• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/use-google-analytics-improve-seo/276103/
• https://geoffkenyon.com/free-template-google-data-studio-seo-dashboard/
• https://webris.org/seo-report/
• https://www.morevisibility.com/blogs/analytics/google-data-studio-and-seo-reporting.html
• https://ignitevisibility.com/google-data-studio/

 

SEO Tools

 

There are premium SEO tools that you need to pay in order to use and these all 100% free SEO tools that you can toy with.

 

• https://heedzy.com/ : You’ll be able to extract mobile app comments.
• https://www.wordclouds.com/ : You can use this to form word clouds.
• https://tagcrowd.com/ : Or this one that can form word clouds. You can choose whichever you fancy f your presentations.
• https://smallseotools.com/keyword-density-checker/ : Keyword frequency may sometimes be a parameter for SEO friendly content. (It depends, but it may be.) You can check the density of a specific keyword via this tool.
• https://moz.com/mozcast/features : Follow up SERP feature changes.
• https://varvy.com/ : This is a free tool that performs a number of tricks. Definitely worth to check out.
• http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html : You can view how the title and description you wrote would appear on search engine result page.
• https://serpsim.com/ : You can do the same thing mentioned above with Serpsim as well. Choose whichever you fancy.
• https://www.aleydasolis.com/english/international-seo-tools/hreflang-tags-generator/ : Aleyda Solis is not only an SEO professional but also like a global brand when it comes to international SEO. You can also follow her on Twitter.
• https://testmysite.withgoogle.com/intl/tr-tr : Speed test.
• https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly : Mobile friendly test.
• https://zeo.org/seo-tools/mfi/ : Mobile first index test. By the way Zeo has just released a new free tool which can be added to this list. It is called Carbon.
• https://tools.zeo.org/carbon : I didn’t test it out myself, but I trust SEO collegues of mine when they say it is a great tool. Carbon is the URL mapping tool for your landing pages.
• https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/u/0/ : Test your structured data.
• https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ : Google speed test tool, pretty self explanatory.
• https://search.google.com/test/amp : Google AMP test tool.
• https://technicalseo.com/seo-tools/amp/ : Another AMP test tool at your service.
• https://technicalseo.com/seo-tools/fetch-render/ : Fetch and render tool.
• http://keywordpro.net/ : Keyword research.
• https://kwfinder.com/# : Another keyword research tool.
• https://www.keywordtooldominator.com/ : Another keyword research tool for you to choose whichever you fancy.
• https://soovle.com/ : Another keyword research tool, because no keyword research tool is enough for SEO.
• https://gtmetrix.com/ : Speed test tool.
• https://www.webpagetest.org/ : Speed test tool. (My personal favourite within its competitors by the way)
• https://support.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905 : Remove your content from Google search results.

 

Hope you’d follow up all these. It would be wise to follow genuine SEO people on Twitter after you have a grasp of what are the basics and most common tools relating to SEO.

 

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Best!