How To Learn SEO Fast – Part 1

I wish I had known how to learn SEO fast back when I started out. I remember when I created my first business website way back when you connected to the internet using a modem and it made really weird loud bonging and screeching sounds when trying to connect (which took forever!).

It was a rude awakening.

I’d done my market research. The consumer need was strong, the product was great, and I thought I was the bees-knees.

So after telling all my friends and family about it, adding some spammy posts on classified sites and creating some even spammier links (which would later come back and bite me in the ass, but that’s another story), I was unbelievably making a few hundred pounds a week (which was mind-blowing and very exciting back then).

But most importantly, I saw the enormous potential of online marketing and I wanted more! Lots more! This time next year I’ll be a millionaire!!

So I started researching about digital marketing strategies and came across search engine optimisation.

And after days of learning, the main thing I came away with is that SEO is the key to natural and scalable growth, but I was a busy guy making a few hundred quid a week. Time was money. So I did what all entrepreneurs are supposed to do.

I hired a cheap SEO agency based in India (or was it the Philippines,  I can’t remember?) who promised top of Google page one ranking for less than fish and chips for two people. I was sold on the cheap price, placed the order, ticked that off the box and got back to running my empire on the information super highway (Does anyone call it that any more?).

Two weeks later, the SEO agency disappeared and I was left out of pocket and angry (TBH, it was more about my pride being hurt that I could be so gullible. As I got older and wiser, I quickly realised that cheaper is rarely better).

So I thought to myself ‘How to learn SEO fast?’ I mean how hard can it be.

Pretty hard, as it turned out. I spent a lot of time and money honing my skills, learning from my mistakes and my successes.

Fast-forward 20 years and I’ve now ranked hundreds of websites (Both my own and for clients) to the the top of the search results getting thousands of visitors, leads and customers.

Because let’s be honest, that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day. You can have the coolest and prettiest website in town, but if you’re stuck over in the wastelands of page 2 of Google or beyond, you might as well not even exist as far as people searching online for the services you provide are concerned, as less than 5% of people ever go there (and most of them are digital marketers doing research).

Here’s a quick SEO joke for you: Where do you hide a dead body where no one will find it? On page 2 of Google!

20 years is a long time to be doing SEO, and I’m always learning new strategies and techniques as Google evolves and changes the goal posts every now and again, but the fundamentals that get the results have always stayed the same.

So in this series of How To Learn SEO Fast, I’m going to share with you how I would do things differently if I was starting out today so you can get a shortcut to higher rankings, more traffic, more leads and more customers.

Stay tuned and I’ll catch you in the next post where you’ll discover how to learn SEO quickly. See you over there 🙂