At the end of 2018, I put together a list of 35 great posts written in 2018. It was popular, so I decided to make the same in 2019. But this time I also asked the SEO community which resources they would recommend.
By the way, there will not only be posts here… but also videos, podcasts… and a game. So stay with me till the end!
BRANDS VS ADS – SEOBOOK
Recommended by @JulieJoyce ‘because it really made me think differently about Google.’
HOW GOOGLE SEARCH RANKING WORKS – DARWINISM IN SEARCH
Recommended by Bill Slawski (@bill_slawski), “This post on how Google search Rankings work by @jasonmbarnard described that differently than I had seen it before, using an informative reference’
SEO GUIDE TO ANGULAR: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW – SEJ
Recommended by Lily Ray (@lilyraynyc): ‘I thought @Jammer_Volts guide to SEO for Angular was extremely valuable.’
QUERY SYNTAX – BLIND FIVE YEAR OLD
Author – AJ Kohn (@ajkohn)
Recommended by Andrew (@Optimisey): ‘This one is pre much of the ML and BERT hoo-ha of late 2019 was a bit of a corker. ?’
REDDIT RESEARCH – FOUNDATION
Recommended by Tiffany Da Silva (@bellastone): ‘Reddit is one of those channels that we never think of when marketing a product, but Ross is the master at using it to find ideas for content, test them, and promote them.’
LINK MIGRATION PROGRESS – DEJANMARKETING
Recommended by Alex Dealy (@ADealyVidal): ‘I’d probably say DejanSEO’s domain migration and link startover case study after they got hit by a manual penalty is worth reading’. This Twitter thread is also interesting:
PAGINATION SEO: A BEST PRACTICE GUIDE – DEEPCRAWL
Author – Adam Gent (@Adoubleagent)
Recommended by Orit Sidi Mutznik (@OritSiMu): ‘Hard yes on this one for making my year’
THE SEO’S GUIDE TO HTTP STATUS CODES – CONTENTKING
Recommended by Roxana Stingu (@RoxanaStingu): Here’s an evergreen resource for HTTP codes – it keeps getting better and better each year and it is the go-to place for new starters to get their basics right.
THE ULTIMATE SEO GUIDE TO MAGENTO 2 – CONTENTKING
Magento is one of the leading e-commerce platforms. So this post by ContentKing (@contentking) is worth reading. Recommended by Steven van Vessum (@Stevenvvessum).
HOW SEO FOR NEWS CAN HELP ALL WEBSITES – POLEMICDIGITAL
Recommended by Mary Wilson: ‘News SEO was once a joke, but really beefed up over the past year and a half, watching what they do with it is has been super cool ‘
These were the posts recommended by the SEO community. And now I’ll share the posts that are worth reading from my point of view.
A DEEP DIVE INTO BERT – SEARCH ENGINE LAND
Author – Dawn Anderson (@dawnieando)
BERT made lots of noise in the SEO industry in 2019. Machine learning, natural language processing and so many new things to learn. This advanced post on BERT will give you many valuable insights (and the big thing that it was written by Dawn Anderson who was an expert in the topic before it became mainstream).
LEVERAGING E-A-T FOR SEO SUCCESS – PATHINTERACTIVE
This is a PDF based on Lily Ray’s (@lilyraynyc) talk on BrightonSEO. If you still don’t consider E-A-T when optimizing your website, you need to check out this PDF right now! Plus Lily gives great tips on how to increase website expertise, authority and trustworthiness.
HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE .HTACCESS FILE Author – Roxana Stingu (@RoxanaStingu)
One more resource based on the BrightonSEO talk! Roxana does a really great job explaining this advanced topic – .htaccess. She also mentioned an awesome evergreen guide – .htaccess for SEO by @dancmorell (ok, it’s now one of my go-to resources).
WAYS TO OVERCOME IMPOSTER SYNDROME – EVERYONE HATES MARKETERS PODCAST
I couldn’t help, this topic is so important and powerful! Tiffany Da Silva (@bellastone) has helped a lot of people to find the way back to their confidence. It’s important for everyone! Also, check out Tiff’s full talk on overcoming imposter syndrome.
GOOGLE RANKING FACTORS 2019 – SPARKTORO
Rand Fishkin (@randfish) put together this post based on his survey on Google Ranking Factors. There are many interesting findings there including the increasing importance of page speed and decreasing value of anchor text.
GOOGLE WEBMASTER TRENDS ANALYSTS Q&A INTERVIEW – CRAWLING MONDAYS
Oh, this is one of my favourite videos (and I’m not a fan of video content in general!). Aleyda Solis (@aleyda) interviewed Google Webmaster Trends Analysts: John Mueller (@JohnMu), Martin Splitt (@g33konaut), Gary Illyes (@methode), Daniel Waisberg (@danielwaisberg) and Lizzi Harvey (@LizziHarvey) about SEO. Trust me, you need to check out this video as the questions Aleyda asks and the answers she gets are awesome!
HOW TO DO A TECHNICAL SEO AUDIT – OPTIMISEY
This is an awesome video where Barry Adams (@badams) gives no BS advice on technical SEO audits.
Btw, this talk was on one of the regular SEO meetups organized by Optimisey (@Optimisey) in Cambridge, UK. Check them out if you’re around!
AN SEO’S GUIDE TO SITE ARCHITECTURE – BUILTVISIBLE
A post by Richard Baxter (@richardbaxter) will help you better understand the importance of site architecture as well as give clear steps on how to analyze and improve it.
FIXING THE INDEXABILITY CHALLENGE: A DATA-BASED FRAMEWORK
This is a deck from MozCon talk by Areej AbuAli (@areej_abuali), and it’s AWESOME! Technical, packed with value and sprinkled with humour – I even saved screenshots of my favourite slides! Areej is also an organizer of Women in Tech SEO (@techseowomen).
8 TIPS TO WRITE MORE EFFECTIVE SEO REPORTS – SEERINTERACTIVE
In this post, Jordan Frank (@jordanfrank_) gives great tips on delivering better SEO reports. I especially liked the point about tenses, I’ve never thought about that before.
NOTES FROM GOOGLE’S WEBMASTER CONFERENCE MOUNTAIN VIEW: PRODUCT SUMMIT 2019
Jackie Chu (@jackiecchu) is a superhero: she made such a great job covering the webmaster conference! There are so many great insights inside, you need to check them out.
HOW TO TACKLE ADVANCED E-COMMERCE AND TECHNICAL SEO – EVOLVINGSEO
This is a podcast featuring Luke Carthy (@MrLukeCarthy) who shares tips on how to handle out of stock products from an SEO perspective, how to optimize category pages and more!
HOW TO MIGRATE A SITE WITHOUT SEO DROP. CASE STUDY – JETOCTOPUS
Website migration is one of the most complex and error-prone things. There are too many things that can go wrong and ruin SEO. This guide by Ann Yaroshenko (@ann_yaroshenko) will help you find your way around this complex task.
HOW WOULD GOOGLE ANSWER VAGUE QUESTIONS IN QUERIES? – SEO BY THE SEA ⚓
Bill Slawski (@bill_slawski) has always impressed me with his deep knowledge and understanding of Google Patents. I like many of his posts but this one is one of my favourite ones.
HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT IMAGE OPTIMIZATION FOR SEO – SEARCH ENGINE LAND
This post by Romain Damery (@RomainDamery) is a good reminder. It explains why image optimization is important and how to do it right.
SEO AUDITS THAT MAXIMIZE GROWTH
One more great resource by Aleyda Solis. She gives great tips on how to do and present a technical SEO audit as well as walks you through the typical mistakes such as focusing on issues without specifying the cause and solutions.
25 SEO EXPERTS SHARE THE SEO MISCONCEPTIONS THEY HAD WHEN STARTED – MARKETINGSYRUP
Yep, this is the post I wrote on this very blog (though technically it’s a roundup). I wanted to show that it’s ok not to get everything 100% from the first time. We all learn, try, fail, succeed. That’s just life.
I asked SEO experts to share the misconceptions they had at the beginning of their SEO journey. Check out the post to learn about them!
GOOGLE WEBMASTER HANGOUTS NOTES – MARKETINGSYRUP
This is not a post. This is a compilation of 30+ posts where I covered Google Webmaster Hangouts that happen every month (3-4 times a month to be exact). While watching these videos where John Mueller from Google answers SEO questions, I learned A LOT! I’m sure you will as well (reading the posts will take much less time though!).
THE BIGGEST ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE YEAR:
- Googlebot Becomes Evergreen
- Google Started Treating Nofollow as a Hint Rather Than a Strong Signal + Added rel=sponsored and rel=ugc
- Google Stopped Supporting rel=prev/next
NEW SEO GAME!
Alexis Sanders (@AlexisKSanders) created an SEO RPG where you can meet SEO industry folks, chickens and use Schema to fight monsters!
That’s it! Have anything to add? Post in the comments or ping me on Twitter (@azarchick).
Update: Thanks for your love, the SEO community!
After 10+ years in SEO, I founded MarketingSyrup Academy where I teach smart SEOs. Over 500+ people have gone through my courses, including SEO Challenge and Tech SEO Pro.
I’m also a creator of the SEO Pro extension with 30K active users worldwide.