Some of the best long form posts about SEO ever

A genuinely interesting (and huge) collection of SEO tools, of which even I (self-appointed SEO geek) had not seen. Excellent work from James Hubbard of James Hubbard Marketing in Brighton.

An excellent article of SEO tips by Joshua Hardwick in which he shows various ways of how to use the Ahrefs platform to improve Google rankings, as well as various other tools.

Some of the digital online marketing content that Ahrefs produce is triple-A quality, and this is no different.

Like Ahrefs, Kinsta are producing some excellent SEO content these days and Brian Jackson’s post about WordPress SEO in particular is one of the best of its type. Brian mentions interlinking content, which surprisingly, so few companies (including SEO agencies) do.

Matthew Woodward gets the power of content like very few other search engine ‘experts’. While I don’t always agree with some of the software and SEO tools that he promotes as an affiliate, there is no doubt that ‘Cat Head’ is a wonderful writer that informs many coming into the industry, and helps so many people to start making money online. Like most of his articles about making money online, this is a belter.

I’ll admit it, I do have a problem with this type of article as it tends to include many ‘mainstream’ people, but rarely any innovators – those doing the really daring stuff on the fringes of the industry.  I could list 20 SEO experts not on this list that are superior (and make more money) than the vast majority there. However, these posts are important to get a flavour of what mainstream SEO ideas currently are. And you cannot deny how good the content is here.

I’ve never seen a bad article by Brian Dean at Backlinko. It just doesn’t happen. This post about SEO tools (updated for 2019) is excellent, as you would expect, and contains some tools that I have since gone on to use myself. His recommendations are usually spot on, too. Tools covered are for things like technical SEO, keyword research, rank tracking, content optimisation, backlink analysis, video SEO, and of course, link building. Bravo, Mr. Dean.

I find Yoast content very hit and miss. It can be extremely good, such as this post about WordPress SEO, aimed to help with higher rankings for WordPress-based sites. But it can also miss the mark, and be written just for likes and shares.

This collection of experts revealing their favourite link building tools for SEO is well put together, and you can tell the graft and craft that went into the post. Ahrefs came in at #2, just below BuzzStream, which was a surprise for me.

The razzmatazz that surrounds Neil Patel is not something that I am a fan of, but he knows how to write ‘paint by numbers’ long-form content that beginner SEOs become fans of. In this respect, this post is excellent for people new to the world of search engine optimisation, but if you have been around for a few years, then the content is pretty ordinary.

Like Neil Patel, I find much of the content on ‘Moz’ to be too saccharine, too ‘safe’ for people to really learn about SEO – especially those who have been in the field for more than a year. This post, however, is very insightful indeed and an excellent read for search engine marketers of all ages and quality.

Christoph C. Cemper is the kind of ‘mad scientist’ SEO that I like. He’s been doing and saying things about building links for years that mainstream SEO ‘celebrities’ get the credit for some years later. He speaks the truth, and some don’t like it, but for me, he’s an excellent SEO and link building innovator that all new SEO executives should be forced to read before they are allowed near a keyboard.

This is a subject matter that almost all SEO types I know skirt over and simply hope for the best. I learned several really useful things from this blog post, and I can see why it has got so many links.

A blog about driving traffic that is very instructional, without being patronising, and is very useful for beginners and intermediate SEO geeks alike.

Probably the most technical SEO post in this list, and an excellent one at that. From useful SEO audit tools, to identifying crawl deficiencies, this is really useful for the more technical search engine optimiser.

A post from Razvan Gavrilas that helps to remind you to stay on the light side if you ever feel yourself veering to the wrong side of the SEO road. I feel this post would be especially useful in explaining what not to do for SEO people who are starting to gain in confidence in their SEO careers, but have yet to make a real big mistake.

Much like the Clambr post about link building tools favoured by SEO experts, this collection of keyword research tool data is very useful. SEMRush comes out on top, Google Keyword Planner in 2nd, and Ahrefs 3rd, which is probably expected.

I’m not sure how old this post from Bruce Clay about SEO siloing is, but it’s still very useful for today’s online marketers that want to rank larger sites in particular. Many a successful website will have been built using the information in this post.

This list of SEO statistics has several surprises, and some startling numbers. It’s something that you will read once, and then throw away, but should feel the benefit of for a long time. The number of links pointing toward the post show this clearly.

Another SEO basics long form post, but still a good one. I feel that this post would be useful to students who are doing SEO as part of a web course, rather than for active people in SEO or web development employment.

A very well-regarded post from Noah Kagan at OKDork that is part case study and part guide. Some of the tips here seem pretty normal, but when you add them all together, you realise just how much needs to go into content marketing for it to be a success.

Packed full of basic tips that coagulate into an excellent guide, especially for beginners, this Quick Sprout post is worth a read, even for experienced SEOs as a good refresher.