First of all, I want to start by saying I appreciate each of you that follow me, whether it is through the email list, a Facebook group, a forum, my YouTube channel, or in the Slack group. (I have known some of you for over 10 years now!)
I always love when I get messages from people who learned something from a tip I dropped or when they share with me the results they got for their website of a client’s site from an idea they got from me.
Every now and then someone asks me who do I follow to stay on top of SEO, learn new things, or get inspiration from.
So in today’s note, I’m going to share with you a few of the people and places I follow in the industry. These are not the only ones, but these are ones that when I see they shared something, I pay attention.
Semrush Blog – There are not many SEO related blogs that I read regularly or even give a second thought to, but I do find the Semrush Blog useful. One reason I find it worth reading is because they have access to more data than any of us individually do. That alone makes it worth paying attention to. You will find everything from simple guides to some more advanced concepts and ideas. For example, they have one of the better articles about keyword cannibalization I have come across.
Steve Toth – Steve has been a rapidly rising star in the SEO industry for a few years now.
You would be hard pressed to find someone more passionate or excited about SEO than he is. He has some incredible ideas, shortcuts, and strategies that he shares with his email list at SEO Notebook. I don’t like being on too many email lists, but this one is an absolute must.
What’s great about Steve’s tips is they tend to be bite-size and actionable. The type of things you can implement right away.
Kyle Roof – Kyle was popular in the industry for all of his SEO testing (he even has a U.S. patent on SEO testing), but really rose to fame when he ranked a site for Rhinoplasty Plano in an SEO challenge using content that was mostly lorem ipsum gibberish.
I’m not sure you will find an SEO who does more testing or collaborating with others on testing than Kyle does. You will often see him as a guest on podcasts and speaking at events.
Ahrefs Blog – Even though in the Semrush vs Ahrefs debate I come down squarely in the Semrush camp, there is no denying that Ahrefs publishes some great content on their blog. Like Semrush, they have access to a ton of data they have collected, which lets them put out posts with data-driven conclusions that none of us individually could match.
SEO by the Sea – The SEO community lost a great contributor this year when Bill Slawski passed away. His website, SEO by the Sea, lives on. When people ask me what his site was about, the best description I can give is that Bill patents related to search that Google had filed and translated them to English.
Now I think people go way overboard with the patents and forget that large corporations file tons of patents that they are not using and never do use. However, following Google’s patents can give you some insight into the direction they want to head in.
Aleyda Solis – I don’t know how Aleyda does everything she does. Speaking engagements, podcasts (Crawling Mondays), her weekly #SEOFOMO email (another list worth subscribing to), and putting together LearningSEO.io. You will also find her often collaborating on some great content with Semrush. If you want to learn more about technical SEO, Aleyda is a great resource.
CCarter – I don’t have a definitive link to give you for CCarter. I have followed them for probably about 10 years now going back to the days when the Wicked Fire forum was popular. CCarter has a very popular post on the Builder Society Forum that is well worth checking out where they outline their SEO Avalance Technique.
Anywhere you can find CCarter sharing SEO thoughts, you will probably learn something. Black hat, white hat, and everything in between.
Lyndon NA (Darth Autocrat) – The SEO community on Twitter is notorious for being a post apocalyptical wasteland, but there are a few bright spots if you dig. Lyndon is one of those few.
