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SEO Masterclass Brief I

blog SEO Masterclass Brief I: Real-World Ranking Strategies from Scratch Written by Alex L, founder of Inseomnia. I’m almost 7 years in my SEO journey and blessed to have cut through the SEO noise early on. It actually happened right at the beginning when I started working on my first website (https://www.apnosphere.com) and business venture. I had a limited budget for online marketing and a dislike (still do) for influencers. They can’t sell you BS if you don’t have the money to buy it and aren’t fond of the ones selling it. I quickly learned that a website can rank No.1 on Google without a single backlink. Mine did in less than a year. I also realized that paying for Google Ads had no impact on SEO. That Google doesn’t blindly flag duplicate content. And that Semrush’s data was often delayed, inaccurate, and their premium services were unnecessary. Up to today, I haven’t paid them a single dollar. Recently, as someone (who was previously exposed to the 50 dollars SEO guru knowledge) enrolled in an SEO course with me, I thought it would be fun to share some of our developments and how our team at Inseomnia approaches SEO education differently. Our SEO course is what I call a hands-on liveranking course, and I don’t think there are many (maybe just a handful) SEO experts who do it this way. We pick a slightly competitive industry and location, select targeted keywords with good traffic potential, build a website from scratch, and make it rank on the first page for at least one of the keywords within 6–12 months. For this project, we chose scubadiving as the industry and 3 locations in East Africa: South Africa, Seychelles, and Zanzibar. We ensured there were at least 10 existing scuba diving centres already indexed, otherwise it would be too easy. Our primary target keywords in each country include “diving”, “scuba diving”, “diving courses”, “diving centre”, “fun dives”, and “discover scuba diving”, among others. Although domain names are mostly irrelevant for SEO these days, we used the domains scubadivingsouthafrica.com, scubadivingseychelles.com, and scubadivingzanzibar.com as they were already part of our portfolio. We built the website template over the past 3 days, with content written using ChatGPT. I mention this because many SEO gurus teach that AI content doesn’t rank well. We’ll put this to test even though we already know the answer. We used the same template and content for all 3 websites, only changing the country names. As of yesterday 15th October 2024, all the websites are up, indexed, and starting to climb the rankings. Let the game begin!

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Save Money With Expert SEO Insights Before Hiring An Agency

blog Save Money With Expert SEO Insights Before Hiring An Agency Written by Alex L, founder of Inseomnia. Same Same But Different I have spent the past 15 years highly active in three distinct fields: wellness, diving, and SEO, acquiring what I believe to be expert insights regarding them. One interesting similarity all three industries have in common is self-proclaimed authorities who have managed to make people believe they can achieve expert knowledge in their fields by taking one of their 100-200 hour certification courses full of generic theoretical understanding. I’ve always believed in the power of genuine, real-life gained expertise over quickly or falsely given certifications, whether on the yoga mat, in the depths of the ocean, or navigating the complexities of search engine algorithms. My approach to SEO, much like my teaching in breathwork and freediving, is rooted in authenticity and a commitment to cutting through industry noise.  Last year, I launched Mindfulness Freediving, a program that not only challenges the industry’s image of breathwork and freediving but also serves as a testament to effective, no-nonsense SEO strategies. The success of this project across multiple countries and highly competitive keywords stands as proof of what’s possible when you combine deep industry knowledge with strategic SEO marketing. I’m not here to claim I have all the answers to search engine optimization. Instead, I’m sharing my experiences and insights in the hope that they might help others navigate the often confusing world of SEO. My goal is simple: to empower businesses and individuals with the knowledge to make informed decisions about their online presence, potentially saving them significant time and money in the process.  What I offer isn’t revolutionary – it’s a return to fundamentals, focused on quality, relevance, and genuine value. If you’re tired of the hype and ready for a more grounded approach to search engine optimization, I invite you to explore these insights drawn from real-world successes and challenges. Case Study: SEO Success Without The Use of Archaic Tactics In July 2023, I launched a website for my breathwork and freediving program, Mindfulness Freediving. The idea from the get-go was to use it as a proof of concept to illustrate what’s possible with actual expert SEO knowledge. Today, within just one year, the website achieved remarkable rankings across multiple countries. • For the keyword “breathwork” which according to Semrush is a Very Hard keyword to rank for, when typed with its targeted country, Mindfulness Freediving ranks on the first page on Google in 30 countries, namely Argentina Bahrain Brunei Brazil Cambodia Chile Colombia Croatia Dahab Hungary Kenya Kuwait Laos Malaysia Maldives Mauritius Nicaragua Oman Peru Philippines Qatar Romania Saudi Arabia Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Tunisia Vietnam Zanzibar. • For the keywords “breathwork training” which according to Semrush is a Possible but competitive keyword to rank for, when typed with its targeted country, Mindfulness Freediving ranks on the first page on Google in 50 countries, namely Argentina Bahrain Brunei Brazil Cambodia Chile Colombia Croatia Czechia Dahab Egypt Estonia Ethiopia Hungary Israel Italy Japan Kenya Kuwait Laos Luxembourg Malaysia Maldives Mauritius Morocco Nicaragua Nigeria Norway Oman Peru Philippines Portugal Qatar Romania Russia Saudi Arabia Serbia Seychelles Singapore Slovakia Slovenia South Korea Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Tunisia Turkey Vietnam Zanzibar. It also ranks on second page in 20 additional countries. • For the keywords “mindfulness meditation” which according to Semrush is another Very Hard keyword to rank for, when typed with its targeted country, Mindfulness Freediving ranks on the first page on Google in 20 countries, namely Argentina Bahrain Brunei Chile Colombia Dahab Ethiopia Hungary Kuwait Nicaragua Norway Oman Peru Romania Saudi Arabia Serbia Seychelles Slovakia Slovenia Zanzibar. It also ranks on second page in 20 additional countries. You are encouraged to cross-verify these rankings, keeping in mind that minor changes may occur due to IP address and location variations, but most of the rankings should be consistently close to what I mentioned. These results were achieved without your typical run-of-the-mill SEO agency practices: 1. No paid backlink strategies (except links from my blogs and websites) 2. No premium SEO tools (only the free version of Semrush was used) 3. No social media campaigns or use of influencers 4. No Google or any other social media platform Ads This success challenges many common SEO agency tactics that impose high fees for services that either fail to deliver results or could be achieved through simpler, more cost-effective means, and demonstrates that expert SEO doesn’t require substantial financial investment. Debunking SEO Agency Myths: An Expert’s Take & Tactic The Backlink Obsession  Apart from the links to a few blogs that I wrote myself, one of them ranking on the first page for the keywords “breathwork dangers”, a keyword that according to Semrush is difficult to rank for, I did not use any backlink strategy or pay for third-party backlink providers to rank these websites in multiple countries.  This won’t be news to true SEO experts, but it proves again that backlinks are often one of the least critical factors in ranking, yet they are frequently the most monetized by SEO agencies and SEO content creators, with many charging premium rates for backlink building.  While backlinks are important, paying for them can be as ineffective as buying social media followers. Often, these purchased backlinks are of low quality and can harm your site’s reputation. Organic backlinks from high-quality content are far more beneficial. This is what I did, I focused on creating high-quality, relevant content and made strategic use of my network. The Premium Tool Trap Semrush, a platform used by SEO professionals for keyword research, competitive analysis and other tasks, charges small agencies around $250 per month to have access to its pro features. When you hire an SEO agency or expert to take care of your website’s SEO strategy, even if they don’t mention it, most of the time they will be using Semrush for your campaign, and will include a “Semrush tax” in your quotation. The thing is, if you have a

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