Intro Post!

Hey!

First off this is very exciting! I want to thank you personally for your support and welcome you to Dad’s SEO Toolbox. I plan on sharing actionable SEO tips from my toolbox with you. These are tips and tricks that I actually do. No gimmicks. No bull. If you are at all interested in learning SEO and increasing organic revenue, then this newsletter is for you.

Dad Joke:

What’s brown and sticky? A stick.

I don’t know why this made me laugh so much but it did. My wife is definitely rolling her eyes right now beside me…

SEO Tip #1

Now to what you are here for. One actionable tip straight from my toolbox.

SEO can be complex and there are so many tasks that take FOREVER that are actually not the best thing to be focusing on. My personal favorite task and the first thing I always start working on right away is finding keywords that rank on page 2 and optimizing them.

I’ve talked about this on my TikTok but let me walk you through this step by step.

Open Google Search Console.

Click Search Results under Performance.

Now you will see the data for the last 3 months. You’ll want to click average position to add that to your graph.

You’ll want to sort the position on the far right by lowest to highest. This is where you’ll see your average rank on Google for the last 3 months (unless you changed the date filter).

Usually, Google shows 1-10 on page one of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). For this particular exercise, we will focus on 11-21.

Click one of the search terms that you are working on (I start with 11 and work my way down).

Click that query and it will load a new screen.

Now you see the ranking for that particular keyword.

Click pages to see all the pages that are currently ranking for this keyword.

If you see more than one URL here this is called cannibalization! ← very dangerous for your site's SEO health!!

Let’s assume there is just one page ranking here.

This is the page you are going to focus on now.

What you are going to do is open an incognito window and search for that query. Look at everyone in the top 3 spots. Then ask yourself these three questions:

1. What do they have in common?

2. What do you see you are missing?

3. How can you do it better?

Outline what you can do better than your competitors here. Build a plan to optimize this page based on the 3 questions you asked earlier.

Once you have implemented changes, the not-so-fun part comes next.

Link building.

For this exercise, we are going to focus only on internal links. External link building is a whole other beast that we’ll break down in another newsletter.

Now go back to Google Search Console and find pages that are ranked higher, preferably 1-3. And you are going to link those pages back to this page.

Be sure to do it organically. Don’t just put link here and think that’s good enough.

It is no different than having a conversation.

If we are talking about hats and you want to bring up dad hats, you don’t just say dad hats.

You’ll start talking about the types of hats you own. Maybe some of your favorite brands and then you’ll say something like one of my new favorite hats I’ve come across is this dad hat from XYZ company.

Your internal link-building is the same.

If it doesn’t flow in a normal conversation, then you are doing it wrong.

Once you’ve done this with 1-3 pages, you’re done.

What I do is write this URL and keyword down in my notebook. This way I remember which ones are done.

Then I wait.

This is the most important part to remember.

All good SEO takes time.

I try and give it a minimum of 45 days.

Then come back to Google Search Console and check the ranking. You’ll want to change the date filter to the span of time waited.

How did your page perform?

The goal is to see movement. If there is no movement, maybe you didn’t wait long enough. Give it some more time.

If you see movement, then keep watching those rankings increase.

If no movement occurs. Back to the drawing board. Try doing more internal links. Try changing the copy more.

This is my first strategy with every company I work with and for. It has driven some serious results and huge revenue increases in the shortest amount of time. Most SEO takes 6+ months to see any movement, but this is usually faster.

Like all things with SEO, the results depend on domain age, site health, and other factors, but it is a great process to start.

That’s it. My first SEO tip in the bag.

If you’ve made it this far, awesome! Welcome to the end! You’ll hopefully be all the better with SEO because of it.

If you aren’t already following me on TikTok, please give me a follow! I try to share tips like this in short form with video and want to help as many people as possible. Share the videos, comment questions, or just pop in and say hi from the newsletter!