neVeNasil.com – A Self-Taught SEO Journey
✅ Overview
Nevenasil.com was my first-ever SEO project — a passion-driven site where I dove headfirst into every corner of search engine optimization. With zero budget and only curiosity as my compass, I launched this project to learn SEO by doing. Over time, it became a testbed for experimenting with content, optimizing technical factors, and learning to grow traffic from scratch.
⚙️On-Page SEO and Technical Health
From day one, I approached the site with the mindset of experimentation. I began by structuring the website around clean, semantic HTML and made sure the fundamentals of on-page SEO were implemented properly — well-crafted meta titles, organized header tags, descriptive image alt attributes, and internally linked articles. I also paid close attention to page speed and mobile usability. These efforts paid off quickly: the site earned a Google Lighthouse SEO score of 92, with equally high scores for best practices and accessibility.
One of my biggest takeaways from the project was the importance of technical health. I used Ahrefs to audit the site regularly and was proud to maintain a Health Score of 99, with almost all URLs error-free. I learned how to identify crawl issues, fix broken links, and minimize warnings, all of which helped improve indexability and visibility over time.
📌Keyword Research and Content Strategy
The content strategy was entirely driven by keyword research. I analyzed SERPs, studied competitors, and used tools like Ubersuggest to find low-competition keywords with solid search intent. I coordinated with voluntary writers to create consistent content, and I wrote many articles myself — some of which ended up performing extremely well in organic search. It was incredibly rewarding to see my own content attract thousands of visitors, purely through SEO.
💼Internal Linking and Backlink Outreach
But I didn’t stop at on-page SEO. I knew that backlinks played a critical role in boosting authority, so I began reaching out to niche sites and blogs, pitching relevant articles in the hope of earning links. This wasn’t easy, but persistence paid off. Over time, I secured several backlinks from external domains while also building a solid internal linking structure to support topic clusters and pillar content. These off-page efforts helped push many of my target keywords onto the first page of Google.
📈Real Growth from Organic Search
The results were beyond anything I initially expected. The site achieved over 22,000 organic clicks, with 265,000+ impressions and an impressive 8.3% click-through rate. My average keyword position hovered around 8, with 13 keywords ranking in the top 3 and many others between positions 4–20. For a project that started as a personal experiment, these numbers felt like a major win. At its peak, nevenasil.com reached nearly 2,000 organic visitors in a single month — entirely unpaid, driven by smart SEO and consistent effort.
🎉From Curious Beginner to Confident SEO Specialist
Looking back, nevenasil.com wasn’t just a website. It was my training ground. Through hands-on experience, I taught myself how SEO really works — not just in theory, but in practice. It gave me the confidence and skill set to take on more complex SEO projects later in my career, and it continues to be a proud example of what’s possible when curiosity meets execution.
Case Information
Clients
:
Self Project
Location
:
Turkey-Germany
Date
:
Nov 2020 – Oct 2021
website
:
nevenasil.com
Budget
:
None