Table of contents

Introduction 1

1. Choose your niche 2

2. Get WordPress hosting 3

3. Choose a domain name 4

4. Install WordPress 5

5. Choose a theme 6

6. Install essential plugins 7

7. Site architecture 8

8. Keyword research 9
8.1 Keyword competition 10
8.2 Keyword traffic 11
8.3 Google Alphabet Soup 12
8.4 Infinite keyword ideas 13
8.5 Utilizing YouTube 14
8.6 Utilizing Quora 15
8.7 Find more keywords 16

9. Content structure 17
9.1 Headings 18
9.2 Table of contents 19
9.3 Answer targets 20
9.4 Image SEO 21
9.5 People also ask 22
9.6 The perfect blog post 23
9.7 How to write fast 24
9.8 URL slugs 25
9.9 Best content types 26

10. Ranking on Google 27

10.1 The Google Sandbox 28
10.2 Speed up indexing 29
10.3 Check your rankings 30

11. Off-page SEO 31

11.1 Social Media 32
11.2 Link building 33
12. Monetization 34
12.1 Display ads 35
12.2 Google AdSense 36
12.3 Ezoic 37
12.4 Mediavine 38
12.5 AdThrive 39
12.6 Increasing your RPM 40

13. E-A-T & Google updates 41

13.1 How to improve E-A-T 42
13.2 Specific guidelines 43

14. Blogging timeline 44

15. Tools 46
Introduction

About the author

Lim How Wei is a blogger and a YouTuber based in Singapore. In 2020, he

started his first blog and grew it to 2 million monthly visitors in 2 years.
During that period, he has written over 600 articles with an average ranking
position of 9 and obtained over 230 million impressions on Google.

As of early 2022, his site is at a 7-figure valuation with an initial investment of

$300. He accomplished this without hiring a single writer or outsourcing
anything. In addition to his blog, he frequently shares SEO tips on Twitter
that benefit thousands of people every month.

1
1. Choose your niche

Before starting a blog, you need to choose your niche. Niche selection is
important because it determines how high your RPM (estimated earnings
per 1000 ad impressions) will be if you decide to run ads on your site.

According to Ezoic, the top-earning niches (in 2020) are home & garden,
automotive, and family. However, I highly recommend choosing a niche that
you’re passionate about or experienced in. For example, if you enjoy playing
games, you can start a gaming blog.

That said, YMYL (your money or life) niches (e.g., health, law, and finance) are
more competitive than other niches, so it’s best to avoid them. In the
beginning stages of your blog, you need to find keywords in your niche that
the larger publishers missed out on (more on how to do this later).

If you want to cover a lot of topics, you can also start a multi-niche blog. The
most successful blogs in the world cover a huge range of topics—not just one.
Some examples are WikiHow, Lifewire, and Business Insider. That said, I
recommend focusing on a niche first, then slowly expanding to more topics.

Make sure to choose a niche that is family-friendly (adheres to the Google

Publisher Policies) so that you can run ads on your site.

2
2. Get WordPress hosting

To get your blog up and running, you need a web host and a content
management system (CMS). The gold-standard CMS for bloggers is
WordPress(.org) because of its functionality, plugins, and themes.

If you don’t know what web hosting service to use, I recommend using
SiteGround. There will be 3 plans that you can choose from including
“StartUp”, “GrowBig”, and “GoGeek”.

If you’re just starting a blog, you won’t get much traffic in the first 3 to 6
months. Hence, I recommend getting the “StartUp” plan.

3
3. Choose a domain name

Ideally, you should choose a branded domain name instead of an exact-match

one. For example, you should choose “techland.com” instead of
“bestkeyboards.com”. This is because a branded domain name is less spammy,
you can cover more topics, and it sells for more.

The .com domain extension is recommended because people will naturally

type yourwebsite.com instead of yourwebsite.org. However, .org, .net, or
other domain extensions are fine too. This is because your domain extension
does not affect search rankings.

If you’re lacking domain name ideas, a simple way to come up with a good
domain name is to combine “your niche” + “a related word” together. For
example, if your niche is technology, your domain name can be “tech” + “land”
= techland.com.

I recommend choosing a domain name that is as “broad” as possible. This will

allow you to expand your blog to multiple topics. In a nutshell, you should
choose a domain name that is branded, “broad”, and ends with .com.

4
4. Install WordPress

Installing WordPress on SiteGround is easy. Simply log in to your SiteGround

account > Websites > Site Tools > WordPress > Install & Manage.

After you’ve installed WordPress, you can access your WordPress dashboard
at any time by logging in to your SiteGround account > Websites >
WordPress Admin or yourwebsite.com/wp-admin. The first thing that you
need to do after installing WordPress is to add an SSL certificate to your site.

To add an SSL certificate to your site, log in to your SiteGround account >
Websites > Site Tools > Security > SSL Manager > Let’s Encrypt > Get. The
final step is to configure WordPress to work through HTTPS.

Using the SiteGround optimizer plugin, navigate to SG Optimizer on your

WordPress dashboard > Environment > HTTPS Enforce. This will ensure that
your site traffic is always redirected to HTTPS. If you’re lost, you can always
contact SiteGround support for help.

In 2014, Google announced that HTTPS is a ranking signal, so you have to add
it to your site if you want to rank higher.

5
5. Choose a theme

WordPress has thousands of themes that you can choose from. There are
free and paid themes—but I highly recommend investing your money in a
premium theme as they have more features and email support.

Ideally, you should use a theme that is fast, minimal, and modern. Some
examples of great themes are GeneratePress, Divi, and Astra. You can find
and buy WordPress themes on ThemeForest.

To upload a theme, navigate to your WordPress dashboard > Appearance >

Themes > Upload Theme. To customize your theme, navigate to your website
and click on “Customize” on the WordPress admin bar. You can also
customize it via the WordPress dashboard.

6
6. Install essential plugins

• Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is an all-in-one SEO plugin for WordPress. I mainly use it to add an
XML sitemap to Google Search Console and to enable breadcrumbs on my
site.

• Google Site Kit

This is Google’s official WordPress plugin where you can easily connect your
site to Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and more (please do this!).

• Autoptimize / Jetpack

Site speed is a ranking factor on Google. My site’s speed went up dramatically

after I installed Autoptimize and turned on the recommended settings like
optimizing JavaScript and CSS files. Jetpack is mainly for security.

7
7. Site architecture

Having a simple site architecture (like the image above) will make it easier for
search engine crawlers to index all the pages on your site. Any page on your
site should be accessible in under 4 clicks.

To achieve this, you need to add main categories to your site and support
them with subcategories. An example of a category is “Sports” and an
example of a subcategory is “Basketball”. This will allow Google to
understand the context of individual pages on your site.

To add categories on WordPress, navigate to your WordPress dashboard >

Posts > Categories > Add New Category. Next, add the category to your
menu by navigating to Appearance > Menus. Lastly, add the menu to the
header of your site by customizing your theme.

Here are some sites with excellent categories and subcategories: Wirecutter,
The Spruce Pets, and The Verge.

8
8. Keyword research

Keyword research is the bread and butter of SEO. The goal is to find
underserved keywords in your niche that people are searching for. If no one is
searching for the keyword that you’re targeting, you won’t get any search
traffic.

If I could summarize keyword research in one sentence, it would be to find

low-competition + high-traffic keywords (more on how to do this in the next
section).

Generally, the keyword that you’re targeting should be in the title of your
article. For example, if your desired keyword is “download YouTube videos”,
the title of your article should be “How to Download YouTube Videos”.

To begin with, I recommend creating a Word doc (or Google sheet) of

keyword ideas. Organize them from least to highest priority based on traffic
and competition so that you have a clear direction on what to target first.
Each time you come across a keyword idea, write it down in the Word doc so
you won’t forget it!

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8.1 Keyword competition

Before writing an article, you need to check the competition of the keyword
that you’re targeting on the Google search result pages. You should only
target low-competition keywords. If your desired keyword is too high in
competition, your article will never rank on Google (no matter how good it is).

High-competition keywords: Large publications like Forbes (94 DR),

Wikipedia (86 DR), and Shopify (95 DR) are ranking on the first page of
Google. DR = Domain Rating. It refers to the strength of a domain. You can
check a site’s DR for free on Ahrefs. Keywords like “How to make money”.

Low-competition keywords: Small publications (<30 DR), forums like Quora

or Reddit, and articles that do not fulfill the searcher’s intent are ranking on
the first page of Google. Keywords like “Why do spiders stay so still?”.

10
8.2 Keyword traffic

The easiest way to check the traffic of a keyword for free is to use the Google
Keyword Planner. Here are 5 easy steps on how to do this:

1. Go to the Google Keyword Planner website and click on the “Go to

Keyword Planner” button.
2. Click on “Switch to Expert Mode” at the bottom of the page.
3. Search for your desired keyword (e.g. how to start a blog).
4. Click on the location icon and add US, CA, and the UK.
5. Check the traffic of the keyword under “Avg. monthly searches”.

Ideally, you should aim for keywords that have at least 100-1K avg. monthly
searches. Low searches = little to no traffic (and they aren't worth your time).
You can also check the traffic of a keyword using YouTube (section 8.5).

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8.3 Google Alphabet Soup

The first keyword research method that you should learn is the Google
Alphabet Soup method. Simply type in a keyword on Google and click your
mouse on different points of the query to autocomplete your search.

An example of a keyword to type is, “How to create a __ in Microsoft Word”

(you can try doing this on Google now). Click your mouse in the middle of “a”
and “in”. Google will then autocomplete the blank space with the most
relevant keywords (that people are commonly searching for).

Once you’ve found a keyword, check the competition and traffic of it by

following sections 8.1 and 8.2. If it’s low in competition and has a decent
search volume, you can write an article about it. If it’s too high in competition
or it has a very low search volume, you can skip it.

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8.4 Infinite keyword ideas

Using the Google Alphabet Soup method in section 8.3, you can come up with
hundreds of content ideas in seconds. For example, you can start with a query
like “How to clean x” and replace “x” with anything.

Here are some keyword ideas:

● Best names for x (e.g. Best names for dogs)

● How to x (e.g. How to fix x)
● Why is x so expensive? (e.g. Why is Starbucks so expensive?)
● Richest x in the world (e.g. Richest boxers in the world)
● X net worth (e.g. Jake Paul's net worth)
● What is the difference between x and y?
● Is x safe to use?

Once you’ve found a keyword, check its competition and traffic by following
sections 8.1 and 8.2. Only write an article about it if it’s low in competition.

13
8.5 Utilizing YouTube

My favorite keyword research strategy to use is by utilizing YouTube to find

content ideas. This is the secret sauce that I used to grow my blog to over 1
million monthly visitors without spending money on keyword tools.

To use this strategy, you need to find a popular YouTube channel in your
niche. Here are 4 easy steps on how to do this:

1. Let’s say that you’re in the tech niche. Search for a keyword like “How
to get Microsoft Office for free”.
2. Visit a channel that is ranking well for the keyword.
3. Click on Videos > Sort by > Most Popular.

By using this strategy, you can find a ton of high-traffic keywords to publish
articles on. But before you do, make sure to check the competition of the
keyword by following section 8.1 first. If the keyword is too high in
competition, avoid it at all costs! If the keyword is low in competition, it’s a
perfect opportunity to convert it into a blog post.

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8.6 Utilizing Quora

This keyword research strategy is similar to the previous one. But instead of
using YouTube, we’ll be using Quora. Typically, the answers on Quora that
have a ton of views are most likely ranking on the first page of Google.

Quora is easy to outrank because it has user-generated content, so if you

come across a question with a lot of views, you can write a blog post about it.
Here are 4 easy steps to find a popular question on Quora:

1. Let’s say that you’re in the fishkeeping niche. Search for a question like
“How do I grow aquarium fish?”.
2. Visit a person’s profile that has a lot of answer views.
3. Click on Most recent > All-time views.

Now, you’ll be able to see the person’s most-viewed answers. Next, check the
competition of each question by following section 8.1 (you should be familiar
with this by now!) and write a blog post about it if it’s low in competition. If
it’s too high in competition, skip it!

15
8.7 Find more keywords

• SimilarWeb

A great way to analyze your competitors’ keywords (for free) is to search for
their website on SimilarWeb and view their top 5 keywords under "Organic
search" (see screenshot above).

• Moz Domain Analysis

Enter a website in the tool to see its top pages and ranking keywords. Keep in
mind that there’s a limit of 3 reports per day (so make them count!).

• Keyword Sheeter

Keyword Sheeter pulls an unlimited number of autocomplete suggestions

from Google. Simply enter one or more keywords (e.g. how to x) and click on
“Sheet Keywords”.

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9. Content structure

Now that you’ve found some keyword ideas, it’s time to write the actual
content! In this section, you’ll learn how to structure your articles to rank
higher on Google. To begin with, navigate to your WordPress dashboard >
Posts > Add New. After you’ve clicked on “Add New”, you’ll land on the
WordPress editor (also known as Gutenberg). In the editor, the 3 most
common blocks that you need to use are headings, spaces, and images (more
on how to use them effectively later).

As a blogger, you’re essentially answering queries that people are searching

for on Google. Hence, if you want to rank higher, you need to make sure that
your content has exactly what the searcher is looking for.

This brings me to my next point—how many words should you write? My

answer is to stop writing once you’ve completely fulfilled the searcher’s
intent (whether it’s 500, 1k, or 2k+ words). Never add unnecessary sentences
just to make your article longer. To give you an idea, the articles that I write
have an average of 1k words.

17
9.1 Headings

Headings are one of the most important elements in an article. Your headings
should always be relevant to the keyword that you’re targeting. If they are
not, Google will “think” that you’re going out of topic, which can hurt your
rankings.

In most cases, you should only be using a couple of heading tags—H2 for
headings and H3 for subheadings. The H1 tag is the title of your article (make
sure to follow the capitalization rules). For listicles (e.g. 20 Healthy Fruits)
and how-to guides (e.g. How to Start a Blog), you should always include
numbered headers.

When you number your headers, your article can rank as a

“numbered/bulleted list” featured snippet on Google. For unnumbered
headers, there's no chance to. A featured snippet on Google is a piece of text
on top of Google's search results (like this). More on how to optimize for
featured snippets later).

Let’s say that you’re writing an article about “Healthy fruits''. If so, your
headers should be “1. Apple, 2. Blueberries, 3. Bananas” and so on. If you’re
writing an article about “How to start a blog”, your headers should be “1.
Choose a domain name, 2. Get hosting, 3. Customize your blog” and so on.

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9.2 Table of contents

Adding a table of contents to your articles helps to improve readability. They

can also appear on the Google search result pages as jump links (see example
here). Jump links will improve click-through rates as the searcher can go to a
specific section of your article directly on the Google search result page.

To add a table of contents on WordPress, you can either use anchor links or a
plugin. Here’s how to add a table of contents using anchor links:

1. Click on a header.
2. Click on “Advanced” in the block settings.
3. Enter a number (e.g. 1) into the “HTML anchor” field.
4. Copy the header’s text and paste it into a numbered/bulleted list.
5. Hyperlink the header’s text using “#1”.
6. Repeat this process for the rest of your headers.

In most cases, your table of contents should include all of your H2 headers.
The image above is an example of a good table of contents for a guide on how
to start a dropshipping business. For step-by-step guides or listicles, your
table of contents should be a numbered list. Otherwise, it should be a
bulleted list.

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9.3 Answer targets

The single most impactful on-page SEO tip is to include an answer target in
each article (see the image above). This can increase your ranking position as
Google can display your answer as a featured snippet (a piece of text on top
of Google's search results like this).

An answer target is writing one to three sentences answering the searcher's

query in full, directly under a question header. Here are some tips to get the
featured snippet on Google:

Tip #1: Write your answer directly under the header (see the image above).
Tip #2: Try to be as direct and as specific as possible.
Tip #3: Include the main keyword in the first sentence.
Tip #4: Add a second sentence expanding on the first.
Tip #5: Try to answer the query in the first 500 words of the article.
Tip #6: Bold the text(s) in your answer.
Tip #7: Use a status word (e.g. is, are).

For example, if the question is, “What is a prime number?” you should start
your answer with “A prime number is…”. If the question is “How do I scan a QR
code?”, you should start your answer with “To scan a QR code…”.

20
9.4 Image SEO

Always try to add original images to your articles. When you do, make sure to
add an appropriate alt text to each one. To add an alt text on WordPress, click
on the image > Block > Image settings > Alt text. Alt text will help your images
rank on Google images, which can increase your search traffic.

Let’s say that you’re writing an article on “How to delete an iPhone app”. If so,
you can screenshot the steps on your iPhone and add them to your content.
Here’s an example of an article (by WikiHow) with good images.

Editing images: Make sure to add arrows, circles, rectangles into your images
to point out what the person should do. I highly recommend using Pixlr to
edit your images because it’s free and packed with features. Here are some
golden rules to follow for images:

• For image filenames, instead of “IMG00023.JPG”, use “black-kitten”.

• For alt texts, instead of “Puppy” use “Golden Retriever Puppy”.
• Don’t stuff keywords in your alt texts like “puppy dog baby dog”.
• Always place images near relevant text.

Bonus: A neat trick that I like to do is to add a “Click to see more” text at the
bottom of my images (like this), especially for listicles. This will improve your
image click-through rates.

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9.5 People also ask

“People also ask” is a Google snippet that displays the most commonly asked
questions from a query (see the image above). The snippet is typically shown
directly under the first Google search result.

For example, if you’re searching for “How to start a blog”, the “People also
ask” snippet will show related questions like “How do bloggers get paid?”,
“How do I start a blog with no money”, and more.

If you don’t know what headers to use in your blog post, you can use the
“People also ask” questions as your H2 headers and provide answers to them.
You can also use them to give your blog post more depth. Additionally, if your
answers are good, they can rank in the “People also ask” snippet.

Let’s say that you’re writing a blog post about “How to start a blog”. If so, your
H2 headers should be “1. Choose your niche”, “2. Choose a domain name”, and
so on. You can also add the “People also ask” questions as additional H2
headers like “How do bloggers get paid?”. This will make your blog post more
relevant and informative to users.

22
9.6 The perfect blog post

The perfect blog post is optimized for both search engines and humans. To do
so, structure your content progressively and write like you’re talking to a
good friend.

To improve readability, always keep your paragraphs and sentences

short—no one likes reading a huge chunk of text! In addition, add spacing in
between your headers, images, and each section to break up your content.

If you don’t know how to structure your content, take a look at your
competitors’ content that is ranking well on Google and see how they
structure theirs. Here’s a summary of writing the perfect blog post:

• Your post has an answer target (section 9.3).

• Keep your paragraphs and sentences short (max. 2 sentences per
paragraph).
• Include a table of contents.
• Add H2 headings that are relevant to your keyword.
• Add original and relevant images with alt texts.
• Use the “Spacer” block on WordPress and add spacing in between each
section (40px) and your images (20px).
• Add internal links (hyperlinks to your other blog posts) and external links
(hyperlinks to other websites) when necessary.

Note: Try not to link to another article that targets the same keyword as
yours. Otherwise, you may not outrank them. If you’re unsure, you can mark
the link as “nofollow” (you can do this with the Yoast plugin) so that PageRank
is not transferred.

Here are some examples of great blog posts: How to Code a Website, Best
Fish Names, and How Long is a Soccer Game?.

23
9.7 How to write fast

• Yoast Duplicate Post

Install the Yoast Duplicate Post plugin on WordPress. Write an article

template (add headers, spacings, etc.) and clone it by clicking on “Clone”. Each
time you want to write an article, you can use your premade template.

• Short-form content

Focus on writing short-form content (500 to 1k+ words) instead of long-form

content (1k words and above). I highly recommend writing 3 short blog posts
instead of 1 long blog post. This is because if you write long-form content and
they rank poorly on Google, you’ll be wasting a lot of time and effort.

• Typeracer

As a blogger, you need to have a fast typing speed so that you can produce
content faster. The goal is to be a content writing machine. A great way to
improve your typing speed is to practice it on Typeracer. Treat typing like a
mini-game.

24
9.8 URL slugs

The URL slug is the last part of a URL. For example, if your URL is
“example.com/about-us”, the URL slug is “/about-us”. Google recommends
keeping your URL structure as simple as possible for user-friendliness.
Instead of “example.com/18-resume-examples-for-students-with-templates”,
use “example.com/resume-examples.

To begin with, navigate to your WordPress dashboard > Settings >

Permalinks > Post name > Save changes. By doing this, your URL slug will
automatically be set to your posts’ names.

With the Yoast plugin, you can easily change your URL slug by scrolling to the
bottom of your post > Yoast SEO > Slug. You can also add a meta description
(a summary of what your blog post is about) into the “Meta description” field.
The meta description of your article will be shown on the Google search
result page.

Here’s a quote from Google themselves on writing meta descriptions, “They

are like a pitch that convinces the user that the page is exactly what they're
looking for”.

25
9.9 Best content types

I’ve written more than 600 blog posts in my blogging journey so far—here are
the content types that get the most search traffic:

• How-to guides

E.g., How to Meditate for Beginners, How to Keep Pets off the Furniture,
How to Find a Low‐Cost Hobby, How to Repair Perm Damaged Hair, How to
Photograph the Moon, How to Create a Rooftop Garden.

• Problem-solution

E.g., How to Fix a Lighter, How to Fix a Treadmill, How to Fix a Slinky, How to
Fix a Broken Zipper, How to Fix a Scratched DVD, How to Fix Brakes on a
Bike, How to Fix Computer Speakers.

• Listicles

E.g., Best Cat Names, Business Name Ideas, Richest Countries in the World,
Oldest People in the World, Best NBA Players, Most Downloaded Apps, Most
Popular TV Shows of All Time, Most Expensive Cities in the World.

26
10. Ranking on Google

After you’ve published a blog post, you need to wait for it to rank naturally on
Google. To help you to better understand, this section contains frequently
asked questions on ranking on Google and my answers to them.

Q: How long does it take to rank on Google?

A: For new sites, it usually takes 3 to 6 months for your posts/pages (see
screenshot above) to rank on the first page of Google. For more established
sites, it usually takes a few weeks.

Q: Why are my posts/pages not ranking on Google?

A: Your posts/pages are not ranking on Google either because your site is too
new, your post/page is too new, or the keyword that you’re targeting is too
high in competition (see section 8.1).

Q: What should I do if my blog post doesn't rank on Google?

A: If your post is under 3 months old, you need to wait for Google to index
and rank it naturally. If it is 6 months old, try restructuring it. If it still doesn’t
rank well after restructuring, you can skip it.

Remember—SEO is a marathon and not a sprint. If you’re a new blogger, you

need to be prepared to wait for 6 to 8 months to see results from SEO.

27
10.1 The Google Sandbox

Expanding on the previous section, you need to familiarize yourself with the
Google Sandbox. In simple terms, the Google Sandbox is a period where your
site is quarantined and your posts/pages won’t rank that well on Google. This
means that your site will have minimal organic traffic in the first few months.

Google “confirmed” this in an office-hour hangout back in Dec 2020.

Unfortunately, there's nothing much you can do to improve the curve except
wait for Google to pick it up and to keep publishing quality content.

This is because it takes some time for Google to understand what is on a

page. This is especially so for newer websites. Once Google understands the
relevance of the new website and how important it is for the web, they will
start showing it for more queries.

For example, my site took 6 to 8 months (see screenshot above) before it

reached a stable ranking. After that, the traffic took off because my older
posts started to rank on the first page of Google. To quickly get out of the
Google Sandbox, I highly recommend publishing an article (targeting a
low-competition keyword) every day.

28
10.2 Speed up indexing

1. Request indexing on Google Search Console

After you've published a page/post, you can request indexing on Google

Search Console. This can speed up the indexing process (especially if your site
is new).

2. Submit your sitemap to Google

WordPress dashboard > Yoast plugin > General > Features > XML sitemaps >
? > see the XML sitemap > copy sitemap URL > Search Console > Sitemaps >
Enter sitemap URL > SUBMIT.

3. Add your site to the Google Publisher Center

Publisher Center > Sign In > Add publication. This is the secret sauce that I
used for my posts and pages to get instantly indexed on Google.

4. Add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing Webmaster Tools > Sign In > Google > Import site from Google Search
Console. You can rank faster on Bing than Google.

29
10.3 Check your rankings

After you’ve published an article, you can check its ranking position on
Google (once in a while) by using a free tool like SerpRobot. I personally use
SerpRobot to check my rankings and it's almost 100% accurate. Here’s how
to use it:

1. Go to serprobot.com and click on “Free Serp Checker”.

2. Choose your region, device, and enter your domain name.
3. Enter the keywords that you want to track and click on “Check Serp
now!”.

SerpRobot will then show you the ranking position of each keyword.
Alternatively, you can use the Google Search Console to check the average
position of your keywords in the Google search results. To do so, navigate to
Google Search Console > Performance > Search results > Average position >
Queries.

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11. Off-page SEO

In a nutshell, off-page SEO consists of things that you do outside of your

website to improve your rankings. On the other hand, on-page SEO is what
you’ve learned earlier in this book—site architecture, keyword research, and
content structure. The two main off-page SEO strategies are social media and
link building.

Social media is about creating a social media account for your blog on every
platform (every successful media company does this). This includes
Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, and many more. It also
involves promoting your blog posts on various social media platforms and
forums.

Link building is about acquiring links (also known as backlinks) from other
websites to your website (more on how to do this later). For example, if
Wikipedia links to your website, that’s a backlink. To Google, a link from
another website (especially authoritative sites like Wikipedia) to your
website is like a vote of confidence (similar to likes on a social media platform
like Instagram).

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11.1 Social Media

I highly recommend creating a social media account for your website on

every social media platform. Here is a list of social media platforms that you
should invest your time in (based on the highest to lowest priority):

1. YouTube

Personally, I create videos of my best-performing blog posts and upload them

to YouTube. By doing so, you can rank on both the normal spot and the video
spot on Google. YouTube will become more valuable with the inevitable
removal of third-party cookies on Chrome.

2. Pinterest

If done right, Pinterest can drive a ton of traffic to your blog. Create a pin for
each blog post, schedule them using Tailwind, and upload them to Pinterest.
Here’s an example of a successful Pinterest account.

3. LinkedIn

Create an account for yourself and your blog. In your LinkedIn profile, add
your skills (make sure that they align with your blog’s niche).

4. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter

Create an account for your blog on these social media platforms and promote
your blog posts there. However, I don’t recommend spending too much time
on them because social promotion only gives a short-term traffic spike.

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11.2 Link building

If you’re targeting high-competition keywords like “How to make money

online” (which you should not do), you need to build links to outrank your
competitors on Google. However, if you’re targeting low-competition
keywords (which you should always be doing), you don’t need to build links.

In the early days of your site, you should focus more on publishing a lot of
high-quality content instead of building links. Personally, I do little to no link
building at all—so I’m going to keep this section short and sweet. That said,
here are a couple of link-building strategies that I use and recommend:

Link building strategy #1: To get your first links, share your website on
relevant forums, directories, and social media platforms (via section 11.1).
This includes Crunchbase, Reddit, Quora, and Hacker News.

Link building strategy #2: Write articles based on statistics (e.g. 10 Cat
Statistics to Know in 2022). You can write statistics on apps, products,
services, sports, games, companies, and more! This is the secret sauce that I
used to gain a lot of organic backlinks for my blog. Again, please check the
competition of any keyword before writing (via section 8.1).

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12. Monetization

• Display ads

Display advertising (more on this later) is one of the easiest and best ways to
monetize a site. You can expect to earn around $5 to $20 per 1,000 visitors
with it. Here’s an example of a site making money with display ads.

• Affiliate marketing

Amazon Associates is one of the most popular affiliate programs on the web.
Simply sign up for it and include links to products that you want to
recommend. If someone buys the product, you’ll gain a small commission.
Here’s an example of an article containing affiliate links.

• Info products

You can create and sell info products on your site. For example, if you have a
photography blog, you can create a course about basic photography and
promote it on your blog posts. Here’s an example of a site selling info
products.

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12.1 Display ads

Display advertising is the main monetization strategy that I use for my blog
(so I’ll be focusing more on it). Essentially, the more traffic you have, the
higher your revenue will be. However, you shouldn’t expect to earn much in
the first 6 to 8 months because it takes a long time to get search traffic (see
section 10.1).

To give you an idea, I got my first payment only after 8 months of blogging
consistently. In addition, ad companies will delay your payments (more on
this later). To get ads on your site, you need to apply to an ad company like
Google AdSense, Ezoic, Mediavine, or AdThrive (more on this later).

To get accepted by most ad companies, the majority of your traffic needs to

come from first-tier countries like the US, UK, and Canada. Secondly, the
majority of your content needs to be family-friendly and adhere to the
Google Publisher Policies (this is important!). Lastly, your site needs to have a
decent amount of traffic.

How much you can earn with ads depends on your RPM (estimated earnings
per 1000 ad impressions). For example, if your blog has 100k visitors per
month with a $20 RPM, you’ll earn $2,000 per month. Some niches like
business and finance have a higher RPM while other niches like gaming and
entertainment have a lower RPM. But this doesn’t mean that you should start
a business or finance blog. Instead, you should choose a niche that you’re
passionate about or experienced in (via section 1).

One final thing to note—your ad revenue will fluctuate every month. In

simple terms—your revenue will be the lowest in Jan because advertising
spending is low. On the other hand, your RPM will be the highest in Nov and
Dec because advertising spending is high (due to events like Black Friday and
Cyber Monday). You can download this calendar to know the highest and
lowest earning months.

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12.2 Google AdSense

Google AdSense is the first ad network that most bloggers join. This is
because there are no traffic requirements. In addition, most “premium” ad
companies require your site to get accepted to it before you can apply to
them.

Applying to Google AdSense is easy. Simply go to the Google AdSense

website, click on “Get Started”, and follow the on-screen instructions. I
recommend applying to it as soon as you have some traffic coming to your
site (e.g. 1k visitors per month).

Before you apply, ensure that your site has a logo, about us page, footer, and
some blog posts so that you’re more likely to get accepted. It also needs to
follow the Google Publisher Policies. My site was rejected thrice before I was
accepted. If you happen to get rejected, try making improvements to your
site and apply a week later.

In terms of how much you can earn, Google AdSense pays the least among all
the ad companies. To give you an idea, I was only making around $1 a day.
This is why you should move on to other ad companies (my recommendations
in the next sections) as soon as you hit their traffic requirement.

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12.3 Ezoic

Requirements
Your content needs to adhere to the Google Publisher Policies. There are no
traffic requirements. You can apply to Ezoic here.

Average RPM & payment

The average Ezoic RPM is $5 to $10. I did a comparison (on my site) and Ezoic
was almost 10x better than AdSense (see the image above). They pay on a
NET 30 basis (30 days delay).

My thoughts
I joined Ezoic shortly after I joined Google AdSense. I highly recommend
applying to Ezoic some time after you’re accepted to Google AdSense. This is
because they pay much higher and they have in-depth analytics. When I got
accepted to Ezoic, I had an account manager that help me set up everything.
Their support was fast and friendly. However, my site had caching issues and
my RPM wasn’t the best. That said, I recommend applying to Mediavine or
AdThrive once you hit their traffic requirements.

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12.4 Mediavine

Requirements
50,000 sessions in the last 30 days. Good standing with Google AdSense and
original content. Majority of US, UK, and CA traffic. You can apply to
Mediavine here.

Average RPM & payment

The average Mediavine RPM is $10 to $15. They pay on a NET-65 basis (65
days delay).

My thoughts
I got accepted to Mediavine a few months after I joined Ezoic. Mediavine is by
far the best ad management company that I’ve worked with. They deliver
industry-leading CPMs (the price of 1,000 ad impressions), their ads don’t
slow your site’s speed that much, and they have an amazing support team.
The best part is, your revenue share will increase as your traffic increases.
Along with their loyalty bonus, your revenue share has the potential to reach
90%. The only thing that I dislike is the 65 days payment delay. But after the
initial 65 days, your payments will arrive like clockwork. As soon as you hit
50,000 monthly sessions, I highly recommend applying to Mediavine.

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12.5 AdThrive

Requirements
100,000 pageviews in the last 30 days. Majority of US, UK, and CA traffic.
Unique and original content. You can apply to AdThrive here.

Average RPM & payment

The average AdThrive RPM is $10 to $15. They pay on a NET-45 basis (45
days delay).

My thoughts
Unfortunately, I got rejected from AdThrive for no specific reason. Their
application review process is as strict as Mediavine’s—the acceptance rate is
only 15%. That said, based on a study done by Income School, AdThrive’s and
Mediavine’s RPMs are pretty similar (see the image above). However, if
you’re a larger publisher getting 15 million ad impressions per month,
Mediavine is more suitable for you because your revenue share will be
increased to 85%.

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12.6 Increasing your RPM

Once you have ads up and running, you need to optimize your site to increase
your earnings. Here’s a checklist to increase your RPM:

1. Your font size needs to be at least 18px.

2. Your paragraphs should be broken up into 1 to 3 sentences.
3. Keep your sidebar simple with minimal widgets.
4. Add multiple images to your post.
5. Ideally, your blog post should be above 700 words.

If you’re using Ezoic, Mediavine, or AdThrive, you can turn on video ads.
Video ads can increase your RPM by 10% to 40%. If you’re using Mediavine,
make sure to enable the Universal Player. If you’re using AdThrive, make sure
to enable the Sticky Outstream Video Player. Both of these players allow you
to run video ads on your site without having to create your own videos.

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13. E-A-T & Google updates

E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google

uses it to evaluate the quality of a page. E-A-T is important for medical and
finance niches—also known as YMYL (your money or your life) sites.
However, it’s also applicable to other niches like technology, fashion,
entertainment, and more.

In terms of importance—E-A-T is mentioned more than a hundred times in

Google’s search quality evaluator guidelines. Currently, Google determines
the level of E-A-T largely from backlinks (section 11.2). For example, if
Wikipedia links to your site, it’s a good thing. However, there are ways to
improve E-A-T other than backlinks. This includes having an about us page
and author biographies (more in the next section).

Several times a year, Google also introduces updates to its search algorithms
and systems. These are known as “Core updates”. Some sites will experience a
drop in traffic while other sites will remain indifferent. In late 2018, the
Google medic update was introduced—which decimated sites in the medical,
health, and fitness niche. The sites that managed to recover from the update
made significant improvements to their E-A-T.

To stay updated on Google’s core updates—subscribe to the Google Search

Central Blog and make necessary changes/improvements to your site before
an update rolls out. You can also follow Google Search Central on Twitter. In
section 13.2, you’ll learn how to keep your site safe from core updates.

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13.1 How to improve E-A-T

Here are 8 practical ways to improve E-A-T on your site:

1. Add an “About Us” page that provides information about your site,
authors, and editorial guidelines (example).
2. Using the Yoast SEO plugin, enable author archives by going to Yoast >
Search Appearance > Archives > Author Archives > Enabled.
3. Use real author names instead of pseudonyms.
4. In each author’s bio, state their experience and provide their social
media links (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) (example).
5. Make sure that your articles have proper grammar, spelling, and
punctuation.
6. Limit the number of ads and pop-ups on your site.
7. Create a social media account for your website on every social media
platform (via section 11.1).
8. Using the Yoast SEO plugin, enable breadcrumbs by going to Yoast >
Search Appearance > Breadcrumbs > Posts (post) > Category.

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13.2 Specific guidelines

The first step in keeping your site safe from Google’s core updates is to avoid
using any black-hat SEO techniques. Black-hat SEO consists of techniques
that are used to “trick” Google into ranking your pages higher. This includes
automated content, link schemes, scraped content, and more (see the full list
here). In addition, you should never buy traffic because you’ll get banned
from advertising companies.

Secondly, you should focus more on publishing informational content (e.g.

how-to guides) rather than product reviews (e.g. best TVs under $200). In
December 2021, Google rolled out a product reviews update that aimed to
promote high-quality product reviews. Many low-quality review websites
faced a sharp drop in traffic. On the flip side, websites like Wirecutter and
RTINGS benefited from the update because they buy and test each product
that they review. In addition, they have clear comparisons, categories, author
biographies, and much more. That said, publishing product reviews is very
demanding and not suitable for beginners with a low budget.

If your site happens to get negatively affected by a Google core update, my

advice is to keep publishing high-quality content and improve your E-A-T (via
section 13.1). In fact, Google released a blog post that recommends focusing
on content. It also provides multiple questions that you can ask yourself
about your content. Keep in mind that your rankings can recover in the next
core update(s) (as Google improves its ranking systems) even if you didn’t
make any significant changes to your site.

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14. Blogging timeline

Below is a table of my results after blogging for 2 years. You can use it as a
benchmark on how many posts you should publish each month—but don’t be
discouraged if your organic sessions are lower. This is because every niche is
different and some take a longer time to get traction.

Date Posts published Organic sessions

Jan 2020 6 186

Feb 2020 0 300

Mar 2020 6 510

Apr 2020 3 1,159

May 2020 7 2,643

Jun 2020 20 7,188

July 2020 23 23,605

Aug 2020 22 40,996

Sep 2020 22 49,112

Oct 2020 25 83,662

Nov 2020 28 129,714

Dec 2020 30 253,116

Jan 2021 26 379,866

Feb 2021 23 406,625

Mar 2021 32 589,253

Apr 2021 30 727,361

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May 2021 31 1,136,304

Jun 2021 27 1,502,304

Jul 2021 34 1,580,493

Aug 2021 37 1,326,724

Sep 2021 35 1,176,837

Oct 2021 32 1,645,976

Nov 2021 33 1,793,962

Dec 2021 37 1,814,507

Jan 2022 37 2,182,778

Total number of articles: 606

Word count: 713,507
Average word count: 1,177

As you can see from the table above, I started taking blogging seriously in
June 2020 and set a goal of publishing an article every day. By doing this, my
site’s traffic soared from July 2020 onwards. Because I targeted
low-competition (section 8.1) and high-traffic (section 8.2) keywords, I was
able to grow my site to over 1 million monthly visitors without building any
backlinks (section 11.2).

If you’re a new blogger, my best piece of advice is to publish an article every

day and let them rank naturally on Google (section 10). This might seem
challenging, but all you need is 1 to 2 hours of undistracted work per day.
Once you manage to rank a keyword in the first position on Google, you can
rank for hundreds more. Don’t hire any writers or outsource your content
creation until you’ve written a ton of articles yourself first. SEO is a long
game—so you’ll have to be prepared to push out content for at least half a
year before you can see decent results.

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15. Tools

Web hosting
Siteground – I personally use Siteground for my site. They have a fast loading
speed, quick support, and high uptime.

Keyword tools
Google Keyword Planner – Check the traffic of a keyword for free.
SimilarWeb – Analyze the top 5 keywords of a site.
Moz Domain Analysis – See a site’s top ranking keywords (limited to 3
reports per day).
Keyword Sheeter – Generate unlimited keyword ideas.
Keywords Everywhere – A Chrome extension that displays the authority and
traffic of a site directly on the Google search result page.

Display ads
Ezoic – No traffic requirements.
Mediavine – Your site needs to have at least 50k monthly sessions and mainly
US/UK/CA traffic. I currently use Mediavine for my site.
AdThrive – Your site needs to have at least 100k monthly pageviews and
mainly US/UK/CA traffic.

SEO resources
r/JustStart – SEO case studies from people around the world.
r/Blogging – If you have any blogging or SEO-related questions, you can ask
them in the bi-weekly thread.

Image editing
Pixlr – Pixlr is by far the best free image editor I’ve ever used. You can add
text, elements, shapes, and more.

Video editing
Kapwing – A free and simple video editor with no watermark.

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YouTube channels to subscribe to
These are the channels that I subscribed to when I first started learning SEO.
Income School – Learn internet marketing, blogging, SEO, and Youtube.
Passive Income Geek – Morten is an online marketer since 2007 who owns
multiple niche sites.
Carl Broadbent – Carl is a full-time affiliate marketer from the UK.
Shaun Marrs – Shaun is a UK blogger.
Emilia Gardner – Emilia shares income reports from her niche sites.
Ficks – Income reports and site updates.
Chris - Niche Safari – Creating an income from building website properties.
Passive Income Phil – Building a blogging empire and paying the bills.
Shane Dutka – Full-time government accountant turned digital entrepreneur.
Create and Go – All about starting a blog and making money.
Google Search Central – Information and tools to help you understand and
improve your site in Google Search.

Twitter accounts to follow

I recommend following these Twitter accounts to stay updated on Google news.
@notlhw – My official Twitter account where I share SEO tips.
@JohnMu – Search Advocate at Google.
@googlesearchc – News and resources from Google Search.
@searchliaison – Official tweets from Google's public liaison of search.
@rustybrick – SEM news (Google updates, news, SEO, and more).

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