SEO Study Notes
Naval Ravikant once said in a podcast: "Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable". As a software engineer, I'm lucky: my job feels more like play. I code almost every day, and when I'm not coding, there's a good chance I'm still thinking about it. So: check on learn to build.
After building several products to scratch my own issues, I have decided to stop flirting with every idea that came into my mind and become loyal to my favorite one, a platform for visual thinking called NodeLand. This article is just a simple set of reflections + study notes of me trying to learn the basics of SEO and how to sell in the online world.
Keywords and Impressions
The current state of Nodeland's organic search performance is as follows:
The total number of impressions has been increasing, but not at the pace that I expected.
The first pique (July 2025) was due to an effort in PPC strategies, specifically Google Ads and Meta ads, which certainly led to an increase in Google searches as well. The average position of NodeLand's results is flattened around the 10th position. This might look good, but the truth is that I am probably competing for the wrong keywords. The platform was developed for students and professionals who want to create mind maps, presentations, brainstorming sessions, and basically anything that is better seen in an infinite canvas than in a traditional and linear document. But when we look at the main keywords appearing in the search results, it is clear that they are not targeting our ideal customer profile (ICP).
Backlinks
Acquiring backlinks requires a lot of effort. Of course, there is always the promise of a fast track, usually buying backlinks. But I am interested in high-quality ones, links with high domain authority (DA). Domain Authority is a measure of the relevance of a domain in its niche. In the past few weeks, I have submitted Nodeland to many SaaS directories. I have also written some guest posts on websites with high DA. It is pretty clear to me that this needs to be a constant. To acquire a DA > 40, I need to keep working on writing blog posts + contacting website owners + journalists to acquire as many backlinks as possible. I am curious to see how the traffic will follow this DA growth. Nodeland's current domain rating and referring domains
Actionable takeaways
These notes come from the book "SEO 2026", which is easy to read and gives a solid overview of SEO fundamentals. The list below is mainly written for future me. It may not apply to your project, but it captures what feels most relevant right now:- Review and create a list of targeted keywords.
- Register at Help a Reporter Out to be notified about PR opportunities.
- Build relationships with blog owners from my niche
- Implement structured data (JSON-LD) for rich results
- Review the mobile version of the blog posts
- Do not worry too much about AIO (AI Optimization)
This was my main mistake so far. I have been writing content on my niche, but have done zero research regarding keyword volume and competition.
I don't know what to expect from this action, but the idea of being contacted by reporters to be featured on press releases is at least interesting.
Multiple articles on a high-scoring blog seem to be more valuable than posting once on different websites.
If NodeLand can show up with richer snippets, it might stand out more on crowded SERPs.
The book highlights that Google often relies on the mobile version when crawling and evaluating pages.
The book suggests that optimizing for AI and optimizing for traditional SERPs are usually aligned. Okay, there are some techniques like LLMS.txt, but the core idea of both is the same: valuable content + multiple sources linking to your domain.