1. Introduction
Nowadays, phrases like "doing SEO is too expensive", or "SEO is not convenient anymore because today you have to work on social media", or "SEO is deadā are becoming more and more popular.
Such phrases typically come from people who have never done SEO, or maybe have done it, but with negative results to such an extent that their perspective got so badly imprinted, just like the effect of a permanent tattoo.
My decision to write this book is fueled by the aim of debunking some myths and by the desire to give a little courage back to those who have worked in an SEO campaign, but without success.
So, first of all, I'd like to thank you for choosing this book, despite the fact that there are quite a wide variety of books, at least 50 of them, which approach this topic and have rather positive reviews.
This SEO guide, will help you discover the basics of doing Search Engine Optimization from the very beginning, understanding keywords, and choosing the right domain and the hosting.
We will continue with the structural elements of an effective website, we will go through the writing of SEO-friendly content and we will study various webpage optimization techniques (OnPage factors).
Further on, we'll talk about the real stuff like link building and the results' metrics by means of key performance indicators.
After that, we will devote ourselves to an effective website analysis from the SEO perspective and we will study the different SEO approaches: for e-commerce, for blogs, local businesses and for YouTube videos.
Finally, we will address the full topic of SEO penalties with their respective solutions in detail, particularly focusing on negative SEO, Google Sandbox and Black Hat tactics.
This is definitely not just another book on SEO, neither is it a trivial and aseptic reading of false myths or miraculous recipes, nor a reading of obsolete SEO content. On the contrary, this is a book that gets straight to the point without too much beating around the bush.
1.1 Why, and what is the definitive guide?
This book is a complete journey through the concept of SEO, an A to Z presentation, enriched with up-to-date, practical examples (which cannot be found elsewhere), faithfully drawn from my experience gained from the 100 websites I've built over the last 10 years.
If you decided to read this text, you are probably bored of the classic 'manuals', but also tired of those guides which promise magical solutions to all the problems of the world, or to all the SEO problems at least.
In order to avoid writing anything that falls into one of these categories, I've decided to aim for some content that cannot be classified either as a cold, academic "manual", nor as a "miraculous guide" with a variety of tricks and stratagems.
Please, rest assured that I did my best in order to deliver a clear text, written in a simple manner, dedicated to everyone who is taking their first steps in SEO, but also to the ones who are familiar with the subject and have known it for several years but now they want to perfect some useful techniques, for their own professional growth and development.
Let's start with two of my actual experiences that I've had in the field of SEO.
Figure 1.1 - Traffic Timeline.
This is a project developed in 2018. It is a 'book price comparison' with 250,000 indexed pages and prices updated in real time, thanks to a few partnerships with some major Italian publishers.
I've always considered that this website is a failure, until now. The figures are really ridiculous in terms of revenue, but it will probably improve in the coming months.
This example depicts a negative experience, but the field of SEO also brings great satisfaction. In fact, you can see below, a report of a website which I consider a huge success.
It is a report on a shopping niche, with a thousand indexed pages. The sales volume provided by this website went from ā¬ 10,027.24 in June 2018 to ā¬ 32,908.90 in January 2019, literally tripling sales after just one semester.
Figure 1.2 - Traffic results after optimization.
The tricks and the optimizations suggested in order to obtain a successful website will be explained within the next chapters of this book. Unfortunately, we can never know all the infinite variables of a project and that is why failure is sometimes a part of our work (in my opinion it should not be hidden, because it is precisely the failures that make us human and not artificial intelligence).
1.2 Who am I?
Don't worry, I will not tell you the whole story of my life, but only some salient aspects that will help us get a little bit familiar with each other, as we prepare for this journey we will take together, side by side.
I am Federico Magni, and I have been doing SEO every single day for the last 10 years. I specifically created and ranked around 100 sites, providing sales to Amazon, Google, eBay and other big companies.
I recently launched my new start-up company, in order to offer guides and tools for Search Engine Optimization. It's called GetSEOfix.com and it is an All-in-One platform characterized by SEO tools and training guides which help improve the ranking of websites on Google.
I don't like stereotyping, but if I had to label myself, I would call myself a digital entrepreneur, affiliate marketer and SEO Specialist, even if the professional path that I followed up to now has been very particular.
In 1995, I bought my first Personal Computer with Windows 95 and, bei...