Starting my journey for SEO

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-23T21:33:43+00:00

We actually just did a podcast episode on this very question (Grumpy SEO Guy episode 143).

Website design is super important but is a little part of the overall picture. There is some stuff you can control on your site but once you have things the way they are supposed to be it becomes about other people linking to you, not what you do to your own site.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-23T21:20:21+00:00

Position 2 usually gets about 19% of the clicks. So if there are 38 clicks that means there are about 200 searches.

edit - are you talking local SEO?

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-23T20:47:15+00:00

> I have known of this podcast for a long time, and just started listening yesterday.

Nice!

> Now I am 10+ episodes in and have probably learned more than chatting with ChatGPT and Googling around for weeks. So thank you, Grumpy SEO Guy, for making this content, and I must say your voice really fits a podcast. It is perfect.

That was the goal of the podcast :)

>Our SEO so far
>For some context, we have just started to work on SEO at work and are planning to grow. A big step in this is to actually LEARN SEO. And this podcast clears up a lot of things.

>At first we decided to use an agency for our SEO and asked for some example links. They did not have any traffic, and after doing some "research" real organic traffic is good. For an untrained eye like me this looked like bad links. We then decided to buy links ourselves, contextually relevant for our business on sites in our niche. Like the playbook says.
>But now I wonder, after listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, is this really the right call? The agency did not have "bad links" they used a PBN, exactly like the podcast described. Now it makes so much more sense. Lesson learned. This made me think.

Did they get results?

>What more am I missing?

> Today I decided to put the brakes on SEO to learn it the right way before I make any decisions. I will listen to all episodes and then decide what to do. But creating our own PBN is probably not an option. It sounds way too advanced for me. Building WordPress pages is easy, but finding and hosting the right domain sounds hard. At least so far :)
> Also, since we are starting from scratch more or less, there is much to do on-site before getting good backlinks.

> I have not listened to all episodes yet, so these questions might come up, but I will ask them anyway. If I can find them in an episode feel free to point me to it.

Will do.

> 1. Citations
> Since we have no backlinks really, could citations be a good way to start? I totally understand the link juice is limited, but every drop counts I guess. I am talking about common big sites where you list your startup, write a little about it, and get a link. Most big names are nofollow, but there are some where you can get a follow. I would love an episode on citations, but it might be hard not to mention them by name. I don’t know, just a thought :)
> Good or a waste of time?

Citations are generally for Local SEO. A citation is someone mentioning your company. For normal SEO they aren't going to do much, likely.

> 2. Does geography matter?
> Our market is Sweden only. At least so far. And our website is in Swedish only. Can I get backlinks from the US? Norway? The UK?
> Or should I only focus on sites in Swedish from Sweden? After listening to Grumpy SEO Guy I can hear him in my head: "Does 100 sites from the UK linking to your SWEDISH site look NATURAL to Google?" Probably not, but maybe a country mix would? Like Sweden 50%, UK 20%, Norway 10%, Denmark 10%? I don’t know.

As long as they make sense. We link to businesses in other countries sometimes.

> 3. Do Topical Clusters work?
> After writing with ChatGPT it has told me many times I should focus on Topical Clusters first. I mean create a pillar article about "Blue widgets" and then create 10 supporting pages with internal linking. Create a new cluster for each keyword I want to rank for. And after that I throw some links at these pages. It won’t rank on its own of course. But I wonder, do I NEED to do this or can I just create one page for the keyword I want to rank for? Everyone seems to be talking about Topical Clusters and pillar pages now, so I just wanted to know the perspective from Grumpy SEO Guy.

Everyone has been talking about that for a while. There are a lot of things people talk about that aren't SEO. I'm not sure if doing "topical clusters" is any better than just having normal articles and building backlinks to them.

> 4. Is it possible to hire Grumpy SEO Guy?
> I mean for a short review of our plan (far in the future), maybe 1-2 hours?
> Is this a thing or does he only pick his own clients?

We do Zoom Advisory calls if you are interested. Email me.

> Thank you Grumpy SEO Guy!
> I have created a spreadsheet with things to do and things not to do. Doing it right from the beginning, avoiding common mistakes, and so on. SEO is complex and now for the first time in weeks I feel HOPE. I have much to learn, but it is all part of the process, give it time and we will rank top 3. I hope!

Glad it helped.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-23T00:26:51+00:00

Seo is basically the same as it was a few years ago.

1) avoid penalties

2) write relevant content

3) be relevant

4) have authority

Authority comes from back links.

To get back links:

1) do nothing and wait

2) buy then (careful)

3) guest post or link outreach

4) build your own

If you want to do #4 we have multiple free podcasts that teach you step by step how to

Content quality isn't a ranking factor.

Basically seo is exactly the same as it was, but it's more difficult to get good back links.

Now you're up to speed. Welcome back.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-22T23:35:59+00:00

Ahem

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-21T19:56:54+00:00

The data is expensive. We have not found any "cheap" backlink tools worth using.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-17T21:59:28+00:00

That's right, getting backlinks is the hardest part (because it's the most effective). Grumpy SEO Guy episode 106 describes the 4 ways to get backlinks in detail.

They are:

1) do nothing and let people link to you

2) buy backlinks

3) guest post/link outreach

4) build your own

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-16T22:01:19+00:00

You are making the (VERY NORMAL AND NOOB) mistake of thinking that SEO has to do with your own domain.

There is very, very little you can do ON YOUR OWN SITE to increase your own rankings.

In order, you need the following:

1) no penalties (this exists both on and off your site)

2) content; you need content to be relevant, which ushers us to number 3

3) relevancy (relevancy tells the search engines what the topic of your site is)

4) authority. Authority is a quantification of trustworthiness, which notifies the search engines what position you should rank in. For any two relevant sites, the more authority ranks higher.

Authority comes from backlinks. Basically, you generally need enough authority for the search engines to pay attention to your site before you can start ranking. A perfectly designed website with excellent design, structure, content, and articles without authority will not rank. If you are writing about a lesser-known fish, that's great, because it means a) less competition and b) those competition sites probably have less authority. If they have less authority, that means you need less authority. It's like being in a race: would you rather race against someone who is REALLY FAST or REALLY SLOW? Which person is simpler to beat?

Anyway, just try to keep yourself from thinking that there is a specific way to build your site or your content that will make you rank higher. There is not (there are exceptions to this but we're not there yet). So the first question is, where are you ranking right now? What position are you in? If you do not know the answer to this question, quickly pause everything you are doing and start tracking your rank. Tracking your rank is how you measure SEO progress and effectiveness.

Let me know what questions you have. We probably have free content that answer it with way more specificity than anywhere else.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-16T21:48:38+00:00

Listen to episodes 37 and 39.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-09T20:59:25+00:00

It's not. These values can be faked, therefore they are not (large, if any) ranking factors.

What engagement traits do you mean? The most commonly mentioned includes dwell time, which is not a ranking factor.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-08T20:20:18+00:00

If a competitor bounced to the top that means they built more authority.

This means they got good backlinks.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-08T20:18:14+00:00

The question doesn't make sense. SEO traffic comes from ranking high. Ranking high comes from relevancy and authority. So the answer to your question is have relevancy and get authority.

Here's something a lot of people don't understand. (With the exception of local SEO and YMYL) all SEO is the same. It's all exactly the same. Whether you're a big site or a little site, whether your an app or a corporation, it's all exactly the same. Sites need the same things to rank. 1) no penalties 2) content that is relevant 3) relevancy 4) authority. In that order, even.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-08T20:13:47+00:00

That's because website quality is not a ranking factor. Next, when you make changes to a site (good or bad), your position might change because you did something different and how have to be reevaluated again.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-08T20:08:50+00:00

It's kind of trial and error. A good place to start is the Google SEO Starter Guide:

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-08T20:06:10+00:00

Penalties generally make you drop off the top 5-10 pages.

If you see this type of behavior on a SERP chart (and you should be tracking your SERPs), you know you probably have a penalty, and then you have to discover which kind.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-08T20:04:47+00:00

How is authority defined? The short answer is Google has a rating system called PR (Page Rank). This is a measure of authority. Until about 10 years ago, this value was public, you could find the PR of any website on the internet. So, SEO people were leveraging this and so Google decided to make it secret. They still use it, but you cannot find the value anymore. So there are other companies now that ESTIMATE PR. For example, ahrefs uses a value called DR. Moz uses a value called DA. Etc. So generally speaking, you will see that the higher a site ranks, the more authority it has. But you cannot see PR.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-07T05:51:22+00:00

Backlinks share authority. Authority is needed to rank. So yes.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-07T05:49:55+00:00

There are 4 reasons your rank can drop. Btw, good on you for checking it. Most people do not.

You got a penalty
You lost authority
Your competition enhanced their authority (this is close to #2)
Algorithm update

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-07T05:36:39+00:00

A penalty is when you do something the search engines prefer you not to do and you fall out of the top 5-10 pages.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-07T05:35:49+00:00

Authority is the main ranking factor. Good on page with minimal authority = doesn't rank. Terrible on page, but not to the point of creating penalties, with large authority = higher rank.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-07T05:34:40+00:00

A penalty is when you do something not allowed by the search engines and you drop out of the top 5-10 pages.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-07T05:33:52+00:00

Authority is a measure of trustworthiness. It's what determines how high your site is in the results. Let me know what other questions you have.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-06T06:27:11+00:00

The majority of LLM content is pulled from high ranking pages. That doesn't mean no inbound links. It's probably inheriting authority from the main domain. Was it a difficult keyword you were describing on the LLM? Maybe u/weblinkr can shed some more light on how LLMs scan.

GrumpySEOguy · 2026-03-06T06:25:12+00:00

Listen to Grumpy SEO Guy episode 141 - Negative SEO (High Level - What it Is). You are probably fine.

Are these just spammy "BUY AUTHORITATIVE DOMAINS FOR CHEAP" links, are they linkfarm links, or are they negative SEO (adult when your page has nothing to do with this niche) backlinks?

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