SEO for Beginners: Rank #1 In Google Search in 2024

Summary

In this comprehensive SEO tutorial, Nathan Gotch from Gotcha SEO Academy outlines a step-by-step process to rank on Google's first page. He emphasizes the importance of SEO, driven by user intent, and breaks down the strategy into four key pillars: keyword research, technical SEO, content optimization, and backlink acquisition. Gotch provides actionable tips using SEMrush tools, such as identifying low-hanging fruit keywords, optimizing site architecture, and prioritizing quality backlinks to boost search rankings.

Takeaways

• 😀 SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of improving rankings in Google's organic search results and is considered the best inbound marketing channel due to the high intent of searchers.
• 🔍 Nathan Gotch, founder of Gotch SEO, shares his in-house SEO process to rank on the first page of Google, emphasizing the importance of SEO with data showing Google's dominance in the search market.
• 🔑 The SEO process is divided into four pillars: Keywords, Technical, Content, and Backlinks, each playing a crucial role in achieving high rankings.
• 🔍 Keywords are the foundation of SEO campaigns, with the goal of targeting keywords that ideal customers are searching for, focusing on 'low-hanging fruit' for quick traffic gains.
• 📈 The importance of targeting keywords with transactional intent is highlighted, as these are closer to the bottom of the sales funnel and more likely to convert.
• 🛠️ Technical SEO is compared to the foundation of a house, necessary for achieving first-page rankings, with quick wins including site audits and optimizing for crawlability and indexability.
• 🚀 User Experience (UX) is a critical factor in technical SEO, with page loading speed being a significant part of Google's ranking factors through Core Web Vitals.
• 🏗️ Site architecture is essential for internal linking, affecting crawlability and indexability, with pages ideally not being more than three clicks deep.
• 📝 Content optimization involves avoiding keyword cannibalization, ensuring pages are unique and not competing with each other for the same keyword.
• 🔄 The use of SEMrush's tools is recommended for identifying keyword opportunities, auditing technical SEO, and optimizing content and backlinks.
• 🔗 Backlinks remain the number one ranking factor, with the quality of backlinks being more important than quantity, and the need to avoid toxic backlinks.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the video by Nathan Gotch from Gotch SEO?

The main focus of the video is to provide a step-by-step guide on how to rank on the first page of Google using SEO strategies.

Why is SEO considered the best inbound marketing channel according to the video?

SEO is considered the best inbound marketing channel because of the high intent of searchers, who are often closer to becoming customers when they search for specific terms.

What are the four pillars of SEO mentioned in the video?

The four pillars of SEO mentioned are keywords, technical SEO, content, and backlinks.

How can one identify low-hanging fruit keywords for their SEO campaign?

Low-hanging fruit keywords can be identified by using SEMrush to find keywords that are already ranking between positions 2 to 15, which have the potential to be optimized for higher rankings with minimal effort.

What is the significance of targeting keywords with transactional intent in an SEO campaign?

Targeting keywords with transactional intent is significant because these keywords are towards the bottom of the sales funnel, indicating that the searcher is closer to making a purchase decision.

How can SEMrush's keyword difficulty tool help in keyword prioritization?

SEMrush's keyword difficulty tool helps in prioritizing keywords by filtering them based on competition level, allowing one to focus on easier-to-rank keywords first.

What are some quick wins for optimizing technical SEO performance mentioned in the video?

Quick wins for optimizing technical SEO performance include ensuring the website is crawlable and indexable, improving page loading speed and user experience, and optimizing site architecture through proper internal linking.

Why is it important to avoid keyword cannibalization in content optimization?

Keyword cannibalization, where multiple pages target the same keyword, is detrimental to SEO performance because it forces Google to choose which page is best for that keyword, leading to potential confusion and diluted rankings.

How can SEMrush's On-Page SEO Checker assist in content optimization?

SEMrush's On-Page SEO Checker provides recommendations on how to optimize a target page from various perspectives, including strategy, content, semantic, technical, and UX, ensuring that the page is fully optimized for search engines.

What are the three characteristics of a good backlink according to the video?

A good backlink should be from a website that is relevant to your own, has real organic traffic, and is authoritative with a high-quality backlink profile.

Why is backlink auditing important before acquiring new backlinks?

Backlink auditing is important to identify and address any toxic or low-quality backlinks that could harm your website's rankings and SEO performance.

Outlines

00:00

😀 Introduction to SEO Training

Nathan Gotch, founder of Gotch SEO, introduces a step-by-step SEO training aimed at beginners. He emphasizes the importance of SEO, backed by data showing its popularity and effectiveness in driving traffic and sales. Nathan offers a four-pillar SEO process covering keywords, technical SEO, content, and backlinks. He encourages viewers to subscribe for updates and hints at revealing common SEO mistakes in future videos.

05:00

🔍 Mastering Keyword Research for SEO

This section delves into the first pillar of SEO: keyword research. It explains the significance of keywords in attracting ideal customers and how to find keyword opportunities using SEMrush. Nathan details how to identify 'low-hanging fruit' keywords for quick ranking improvements and discusses the importance of intent in keyword selection. He also previews further keyword research techniques to be covered in upcoming videos.

10:01

🛠️ Technical SEO: Foundational Optimization

The third paragraph focuses on the second pillar, technical SEO, which is likened to the foundation of a house. Nathan outlines steps to audit a website's technical performance using SEMrush, emphasizing the importance of crawlability, indexability, and user experience. He discusses core web vitals as a ranking factor and provides a method to check and improve site architecture through internal linking.

15:02

📝 Content Optimization: Enhancing Page Relevance

The fourth paragraph discusses content optimization, which is crucial after addressing technical SEO. Nathan outlines a process for ensuring content is keyword-focused and not cannibalized across multiple pages. He advises on upgrading pages, optimizing on-page elements, and ensuring sufficient internal link coverage to build topical authority.

🔗 Backlinks: The Core of SEO Ranking Factors

In the final paragraph, Nathan discusses the importance of backlinks as a primary ranking factor in SEO. He warns against the risks of toxic backlinks and advises on auditing existing backlinks with SEMrush. Nathan also stresses the need for acquiring high-quality, relevant backlinks from authoritative websites to improve SEO performance.

Keywords

💡SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which is the process of improving a website's visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs) through organic, non-paid means. In the video, SEO is the central theme, as the speaker discusses strategies for ranking on the first page of Google, highlighting its importance as an inbound marketing channel due to the high intent of searchers.

💡Intent

Intent in the context of SEO refers to the purpose behind a user's search query. The video emphasizes the significance of intent, explaining that it is a key reason why SEO is effective, as users with transactional intent are closer to becoming customers. The speaker uses the example of searching for 'SEMRush free trial' to illustrate a user with clear intent towards the bottom of the sales funnel.

💡Backlinks

Backlinks, also known as inbound links, are incoming links from one website to another. The video describes backlinks as a crucial ranking factor in SEO, with the number and quality of backlinks influencing a website's position on SERPs. The speaker advises auditing existing backlinks for toxicity and emphasizes the importance of acquiring high-quality backlinks from relevant, authoritative sources.

💡Keyword Research

Keyword research is the process of identifying the terms and phrases that users enter into search engines. In the video, the speaker outlines the importance of finding keyword opportunities and prioritizing those with transactional intent. The script provides a step-by-step guide on using SEMRush to find 'low-hanging fruit' keywords that can be optimized for better rankings.

💡Technical SEO

Technical SEO involves optimizing the technical aspects of a website to make it search engine friendly. The video discusses the importance of technical SEO as a foundational element for achieving first-page rankings. It includes optimizing website architecture, ensuring crawlability and indexability, and improving user experience through factors like page loading speed.

💡Crawlability

Crawlability refers to how easily search engine bots can navigate and index a website's content. The video script mentions crawlability as a critical factor in technical SEO, suggesting that issues affecting crawlability, such as website architecture and the use of 'no index' tags, can prevent pages from being indexed by Google.

💡Indexability

Indexability is the likelihood of a webpage being included in a search engine's index. The video explains that optimizing for indexability is essential for SEO, as pages that are not indexed cannot rank in search results. The speaker recommends using SEMRush's site audit tool to identify and fix issues that could hurt a page's indexability.

💡User Experience (UX)

User Experience, or UX, is the measure of how easy and enjoyable it is for users to interact with a website. The video script highlights page loading speed and core web vitals as key components of UX that can impact SEO performance. Google considers core web vitals as a ranking factor, emphasizing the need for websites to provide a positive user experience.

💡Content Optimization

Content optimization involves enhancing web content to improve its visibility and ranking in search engines. The video discusses the importance of avoiding keyword cannibalization, ensuring pages are optimized with the primary keyword in key positions, and using tools like SEMRush's on-page SEO checker to improve content strategy and semantic SEO.

💡Internal Linking

Internal linking is the practice of linking one page of a website to another page on the same website. The video script explains that optimizing site architecture through internal linking is essential for SEO, as it affects crawlability, indexability, and the distribution of link equity. The speaker advises using SEMRush's internal link rank to identify pages with poor internal link coverage.

💡Keyword Cannibalization

Keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages on a website target the same keyword, leading to confusion for search engines about which page to rank for that keyword. The video script warns against this practice, stating that it can dilute a website's SEO efforts and recommends using SEMRush's position tracking tool to identify and address instances of cannibalization.

💡Topical Authority

Topical authority refers to a website's perceived expertise on a particular subject, often indicated by the quality and quantity of internal and external links to relevant content. The video script suggests that pages with poor internal link coverage likely lack topical authority, and creating more keyword-driven content can help build this authority and support primary assets.

Highlights

Nathan Gotch, founder of Gotch SEO, shares his proven in-house SEO process for ranking on the first page of Google.

SEO is defined as the process of improving rankings in Google's organic search engine, emphasizing the importance of user intent in SEO strategy.

SEO is the most popular inbound marketing channel due to its alignment with user intent and sales funnel positioning.

Data shows that search-driven websites like YouTube, Amazon, and Google dominate the top five most popular websites globally.

Google holds 87% of the search market share as of 2021, indicating the vast opportunity for SEO.

The four pillars of SEO are identified as Keywords, Technical, Content, and Backlinks.

Keyword research is foundational, focusing on finding low-hanging fruit keywords that can be optimized for higher rankings.

Semrush's keyword gap tool helps identify missed opportunities and untapped keywords for SEO campaigns.

Understanding user intent is crucial for selecting the right keywords to target in an SEO campaign.

Technical SEO involves optimizing website architecture, crawlability, indexability, and user experience for better rankings.

Site audit tools in Semrush can identify technical issues affecting SEO performance.

Content optimization requires avoiding keyword cannibalization and ensuring pages are unique and superior to existing content.

Semrush's On-Page SEO Checker provides recommendations for content and technical optimization.

Internal link coverage and topical authority are key for content to perform well in search engine rankings.

Backlinks remain the number one ranking factor in SEO, with quality being more important than quantity.

Semrush's Backlink Audit tool helps evaluate the health of a website's backlink profile and identify toxic backlinks.

A strategic approach to acquiring high-quality, relevant backlinks is essential for SEO success.

The video promises a deep dive into advanced keyword research techniques in the next installment of the SEO training series.

Transcripts

hey are you an seo beginner well perfect

because in this video i'm going to show

you exactly how to rank on the first

page of google step by step and watch

until the end because i'm going to prove

that 99.9

of people do this one seo action

completely backward so if you're excited

about this free seo training then drop a

comment below with let's do this and

let's dive right in hey so i'm nathan

gotch the founder of gotcha seo and i've

personally led hundreds of successful

seo campaigns in my agency and i've

trained thousands of seo professionals

in my program gotcha seo academy so in

this free seo training i'm going to walk

you through my proven in-house seo

process so you can rank on the first

page of google every time now before we

dive in please subscribe to the semrush

youtube channel below and hit the bell

button because you'll get notified when

i publish the next video in this series

so the first question i need to tackle

is what is seo seo is an acronym for

search engine optimization which simply

is the process of improving rankings in

google's organic search engine and

there's one reason why seo is by far the

best inbound marketing channel and

that's intent when someone searches sem

rush free trial the intent is clear

they're towards the bottom of the sales

funnel and they're getting closer to

becoming a customer more on that in a

second but intent is why seo is the most

popular inbound marketing channel and

the data proves this to be true for

example the keyword seo gets double the

amount of searches compared to other

marketing channels like facebook ads or

even social media marketing but that's

not all according to sem rush rank three

out of the top five most popular

websites in the world are search driven

youtube is the most popular video search

engine amazon is the most popular

e-commerce search engine and as you know

google is by far the most popular

traditional search engine in fact

according to statista google owns 87 of

the search market share as of 2021. so

now that you know the opportunity that

exists with seo how do you actually do

it well let's dive into it so the proven

seo process i'm going to show you can be

broken down into four pillars number one

keywords number two technical number

three content and number four backlinks

let's start with pillar one which are

keywords so keywords are the foundation

of any successful seo campaign because

they are what searchers use to find

solutions and answers to their problems

and the goal is for your website to show

up for keywords that your ideal

customers are searching for so with that

said the first part of the keyword

research process is to find keyword

opportunities now how you go about doing

this will depend on if your website has

existing organic search traffic or not

so here's how to find out open scm rush

enter your domain into the search bar go

to organic research and look under

keywords if you have existing keywords

then that's where you want to start

because it indicates that you're already

doing something right in this case what

you'll want to do is identify what i

call low hanging fruits and these are

keywords ranking from positions number

two to number 15. so while in sem rush

click on the positions tab and then the

positions drop down and enter 2 and 15

into the custom range and now you'll

have access to all of your low hanging

fruit keywords and these are the

keywords that you need to prioritize

because with some simple optimization

and possibly some backlinks you can push

those rankings up and you'll see a big

spike in organic search traffic in fact

according to a study conducted by

backlinko the number one spot gets

approximately 31

of the total clicks for a keyword while

the number five spot only gets nine

percent of those clicks that means if

you go from position number five to

number one it will produce huge traffic

gains and that's why you should focus

all of your initial effort on these

low-hanging fruits now you might be

wondering how do you improve the

rankings for these keywords well i'll be

tackling that in a second now what do

you do if you have no organic keywords

because you haven't done seo or you have

a brand new website well here's what you

need to do go to semrush and go to the

seo section and click on keyword gaap

enter your domain and then enter a few

of your top organic search competitors

domains if you aren't sure who your top

competitors are in organic search then

go to keyword research and keyword

overview and then enter a keyword

related to your industry in this example

i'll use seo tools then scroll down to

serp analysis and refresh the metrics so

you can see which domains have the most

search traffic while keeping this tab

open go to the competitive research

section open keyword gaap in another tab

enter your domain first and then copy

and paste one to four competitors from

the previous section into the keyword

gaap tool then click on the position

drop down click on competitors and

select top 10 then scroll down and look

under all keyword details for you can

then sort these keywords based on a few

different criteria and the two you

should be most interested in are missing

and untapped which both mean that one or

both of your competitors are ranking for

these keywords but your website is not

so now that you know how to find keyword

opportunities in both scenarios let me

tell you the truth anyone can find

keywords but the real magic happens when

you know how to filter through these

keywords and select which ones are

actually worth targeting and in the next

video in this training series i'm going

to dive deep into the second and third

parts of keyword research however here

are two things to consider when trying

to select keywords number one what is

the intent you should always prioritize

keywords with transactional intent that

are towards the bottom of the funnel and

the best way to understand this is to

know the five main categories of intent

which are informational investigative

comparison transactional and

navigational and every strong seo

campaign will target keywords at each

stage of the funnel so let's say you're

building a keyword strategy for semrush

so at the top of the funnel scrmes would

want to target keywords with

informational intent like learn seo or

how to build backlinks these keywords

are broad and will drive the most

traffic the next phase of the search

journey is to target keywords with

investigative intent like seo tools or

best seo tools now notice that this is

much more relevant to what sem rush

offers so now at this point the searcher

is likely brand aware which means they

know about the big players in the seo

tool market like sem rush and that means

they'll likely begin searching keywords

with comparison intent like sem rush

versus moz and as you can tell the

searcher is getting very close to making

a decision and they're weighing their

options and now we've arrived at

keywords with transactional intent which

in this case would be sem rush free

trial and the conversion rate for a

keyword like this will be sky high and

the final type of intent is navigational

which is just sem rush or sem rush login

and you won't need to spend too much

time on these because the brand should

automatically rank so with that said you

should always start at the bottom of the

sales funnel and work your way up i'll

help you much more with this in the next

video in this series so make sure you

subscribe below and hit the bell icon to

get first access when the next video

goes live now the next question you need

to ask about your keywords is number two

can you actually compete for this

keyword now the good news is that you

can use scmrush's keyword difficulty

tool to quickly filter through all of

your keyword opportunities so just enter

your target domain or a competitor's

domain into the search bar and go to

organic research then click on positions

and go to the kd filter start with very

easy and work your way up these are the

keywords you want to attack first

because they won't require as many

resources to rank so just to review

prioritize keywords with high

transactional intent and low competition

first now there are many more steps that

go into keyword qualification and

prioritization but i'll share those in

great detail in the upcoming video now

let's move on to the second pillar which

is technical so you may have found some

awesome keywords but your site won't

rank without optimizing for technical

performance think of technical as the

foundation of a house it alone likely

won't help you achieve first page

rankings but it's a requirement to get

there and i'll be diving deep into seo

audits in a later video in the series

however let's cover some quick wins

right now so first go into scm rush and

look under on page and tech seo and

click on site audit click add new

project and enter your domain and the

project name now before you change the

site audit settings open up google in

another tab enter sitecolon

yourdomain.com in this example i'll use

semrush.com they have roughly 55 000

pages indexed so i'll select a hundred

thousand from the limit of checked pages

drop down you can keep all of the other

settings the same and click start site

audit now once the audit is complete you

might be a little overwhelmed because

semrush provides an enormous amount of

data and different opportunities now in

a perfect world you could pursue fixing

everything and long term you probably

should however you need to prioritize

because some opportunities will have a

far bigger impact on performance than

others and at a high level you need to

optimize three core categories to

achieve optimal technical seo

performance first you need to make sure

your website is crawlable and indexable

and there are many factors that impact

crawlability and indexability but some

of the biggest include your website

architecture more on this in a second

your page experience your robots.txt

file and tags like no index which could

prevent google from crawling pages on

your website now while in the sem rush

audit section click on issues look for

the category drop-down and then select

crawlability scm rush will then show you

all the possible issues that could

negatively affect crawlability then

repeat this same exact process except

change the category to indexability once

again you can see exactly what could

hurt your indexation tackle these items

asap because if google can't crawl your

pages then they won't be indexed and if

they're not indexed it's impossible to

rank second you need to optimize for

user experience or ux for short one of

the most important ux factors is page

loading speed in fact google recently

stated that core web vitals is a ranking

factor so you need to do everything in

your power to improve loading speed and

page experience so while in the overview

tab on the audit you'll see the new core

web vital score from scm rush click view

details and you'll see the exact pages

you need to improve and the cool part

about optimizing your site for core web

vitals is that most changes will have

positive effects on a site-wide basis

meaning you won't need to go page by

page optimizing for core web vitals for

most of your pages and now the third

technical pillar you need to optimize

for is your site architecture or in

other words internal linking now there

are a few core tenets of internal

linking first your pages shouldn't be

more than three clicks deep into the

architecture otherwise it could

potentially hurt crawlability and

indexability so go to the crawled pages

tab in the semrush audit click on more

filters select crawl depth from the drop

down and then select four plus clicks

from the second drop down and now you'll

know what pages you need to push further

up into the architecture the second part

of optimizing your site architecture is

to identify pages with poor internal

link coverage and the fastest way to

find these pages is to use semrush's

internal link rank in the audit so first

while still in the crawled pages tab

click on the drop down and select

internal link rank this is a proprietary

score mechanism created by scm rush

which gauges how much authority and link

equity a particular page has so if a

page has many internal links from pages

with many backlinks the ilr score will

be high and a low score is an indication

of poor internal link coverage so on the

second drop down you can select less

than 10 and then you can see some pages

that need more internal link love so

that is just a preview of how to

optimize for technical seo once again

i'll be going deeper into this in a

later training video so let's move on to

pillar number three which is content so

you've identified solid keywords and

your technical performance is now on

point now you need to optimize your

content so i follow a simple process

when trying to optimize a page and here

it is number one is there keyword

cannibalization so keyword

cannibalization is when you have two or

more pages targeting the same exact

keyword phrase and it's detrimental to

your seo performance because it forces

google to decide which page is best for

that keyword and you don't want google

making those decisions it's our job to

direct google in fact john mueller the

search advocate at google said this

about keyword cannibalization we just

rank the content as we get it and if you

have a bunch of pages with roughly the

same content it's going to compete with

each other kind of like a bunch of kids

wanting to be first in line and

ultimately someone else slips in ahead

of them personally i prefer fewer

stronger pages over lots of weaker ones

don't water your site's value down so

the quickest way to identify keyword

cannibalization is to use semrush's

position tracking tool go to keyword

research and click on position tracking

then click on new position tracking to

start a new project enter your target

keywords and once the scan is complete

open up the project and then click on

the cannibalization tab this will show

you instances of keyword cannibalization

for the keywords you've specifically

entered the next content check is simple

number two does the page need to be

upgraded your seo driven pages should be

different and better than what exists

plain and simple number three is the

page optimized well at the most basic

level your primary keyword should be in

your url title h1 tag first sentence and

last sentence but to take things up

another notch i recommend using scm

rush's on-page seo checker go to the

on-page and tech seo section click on

the on-page seo checker and start a new

project click on import keywords and

pages and then select your preferred

option in this example i'll use manually

enter your target url and the exact

keyword phrase you want to rank for and

then click collect ideas scmrush will

then show you how to optimize the target

page from a strategy content semantic

technical ux and even link building

perspective so make sure you benchmark

your performance today and then execute

on these recommendations the next point

to tackle is number four does the page

have enough internal link coverage so go

back to the audit and see if your target

page is getting enough internal link

coverage and the final checkpoint is

number five does the page need more

topical authority if you find that the

page doesn't have much internal link

coverage then it likely doesn't have

much topical authority either in other

words you need to create more keyword

driven content to support that primary

asset and now moving on to the last and

fourth pillar of the seo process which

are backlinks so i've been doing seo

consistently since 2011 and one thing

has stayed the same backlinks are still

the number one ranking factor and this

isn't just based on my experience alone

according to a ranking factor study

conducted by scm rush they found that

the more backlinks a domain has the

higher its position on the serp now the

key is to remember that not all

backlinks are created equal in fact some

backlinks can wreck your rankings and

get you penalized now before you attempt

to acquire new backlinks you first need

to audit your existing backlink profile

open up semrush go to the link building

section and click on backlink audit tool

create a project and then run the audit

schmush will then give you an overall

toxicity score and if you have a high

percentage of toxic domains there are a

couple ways to handle it first work to

acquire higher quality backlinks to

offset the low quality backlinks and

then second if the backlinks are really

nasty then you can attempt to get them

removed through outreach and if outreach

fails then disavowing with google should

be the final option now keep in mind

that disavowing backlinks can have a

negative impact on your seo performance

because you may decrease overall website

authority so that's why you need to be

actively working to acquire new

backlinks so like other parts in this

seo process i'll be diving deep into

effective backlink acquisition in a

dedicated video in this free training

series but for now you should aim to

acquire backlinks on websites that have

the following three characteristics

number one it's relevant to your website

so if you own a coffee shop you should

try to get backlinks from coffee

websites food bloggers etc number two

it's a real website with real organic

traffic so think about it if a website

has organic search traffic then google

probably trusts it and the opposite is

true as well if a website has no organic

search traffic then you should probably

be a little concerned number three it's

authoritative and their backlinks are

high quality so aim to get backlinks on

websites with strong high quality

backlink profiles now there are many

more qualifying factors but for now

those three will work so the cool part

is that you can run any backlink

opportunity through semrush and quickly

see at a glance if it has organic search

traffic if it has authority and if the

backlink profile is high quality all

right so you made it all the way to the

end and we covered a ton of ground so at

this point you know the four pillars of

proper seo in the next video in this

free seo training series i'm going to

dive deep into keyword research in fact

you'll learn advanced keyword research

techniques that 99.9 of your competitors

are not using i guarantee that so if you

got any value from this video please

like it subscribe and hit the bell

button because you'll get notified when

we publish the next video in this series

thank you so much for watching and drop

your questions below this video i'll see

you in the next video