Learning SEO

[Alcopup]

Hi

for those not given to outsourcing their SEO - or for those that have made this their profession/hobby - is there a good starting point (or set of resources) that people would recommend a novice begin with.

I have done some google searching and have purchased one or two reference books (eg Art of SEO) but if people have a set of foundation building 'likes' then I would really appreciate you sharing.

(I ask as it is a subject that has really quite caught my interest and I would like to see if it something I could be good at and perhaps eventually turn my hand to professionally)

Cheers

Alco

[hooperman]

highrankings used to be good, but I've not been there for years now so I can't vouch for current quality.

[grynge]

Trial and Error is by far the best learning source. Most SEO's have an agenda they wanna sell you something. You need to work out if you wanna go by googles guidelines or your own. If you want to run by googles agenda then their seo page along with being w3c compliant and 501 compliant with some great content and great links is about all you need. If you want to set your own then if you don't know how to code I would suggest learning how to. Making tools to automate mass schemes can need a bunch of different languages. .net c# php mysql perl and knowing something about lamp is also very helpful.

[Slowdive]

It also bares mentioning that unless you are tackling one of the super competitive niches. Solid Seo and compliance with content and good links will put you head and shoulders above most.
The big money niches have big competition and probably should not be tackled without a more than average knowledge of Seo. Localized and niche markets however are still ripe for the picking. You will also be amazed as you look over your competitors how few sites actually practice solid seo.

As always forward planning is your friend. Traffic, what do you need a lot of it or targeted traffic or does your market require target traffic.
As example an add sense site needs feet on the ground, click through, go, go and click a link to get out of dodge. A site selling stamps, well I would rather have 40 interested stamp collectors than 2000 people who were doing a research paper on queen Elizabeth or the US postal system. The same principles apply but the methods can vary greatly.
One of many examples, Squidoo will do about sweet blow all for your serp ranking but if you have a unique item to sell? Well it may bring in 20 clicks a month from people looking for such an item.


Take a long hard look at your website and then define who is your competition. Note what they are doing and then begin back tracking and look for what they are not doing. Submit articles to places they have not thought of, join their twitter and facebook and begin leeching clicks while building up your own base.

Then,your biggest challenge is always attracting quality links, assuming your good at what you write and keep the site content dynamic. Study your intended market and begin to assess how you can attract quality links. Perhaps you may have to buy them, perhaps you can offer them something in exchange or perhaps its a good natured market where reciprocal linking is common practice. What ever the case plan ahead for how you intend to attract links and keep experimenting with new ideas.

As you have likely deduced my style leans far more toward attracting target traffic than blitzing a site with 10k hits and profiting from click through. Its next on my agenda to learn that skill though . These are such simple fundamentals that a google search would reveal them but they are a good base to begin playing with getting a site listed well.
The biggest tip pay attention to what those in the know are saying and keep experimenting there is no perfect strategy or one way ticket to great SERP.

[JJMcClure]

I would recommend the SEO Moz site, cheap and filled with good tools. I would also recommend that you go down the 'make Google happy' route because the alternative can be very vunerable to algo changes ('deserved' rankings are more resilient) and it also requires much more technical knowledge.

Use Google's so called SEO guide to build a search engine friendly site but then acquire good quality backlinks to get the rankings, easier said than done but it's the safest way to go. Find keyword phrases that get searches but don't have too much competition and target those. If you were to invest any time in learning a new SEO skill I'd say learn how to get good backlinks, but... if your content is good enough, you'll naturally get those.

Also, post on SEO forums and swap opinions with people, it's the best way to cut through all the crap that pervades the SEO industry. There are a lot of myths in SEO, like there being an optimal keyword density.......

[Clinton]

if your content is good enough, you'll naturally get those.

While that used to be the case many years ago, I don't believe that you can count on it nowadays. Webmasters are now very tight with links. I'm a rare exception as you'll see from that article in my signature, but I have alerts setup for some of my best content - including that article below - and I don't get free organic links from one month to the next.

[Slowdive]

http://outspokenmedia.com/seo/link-building-interview/
I know this was posted in another topic in the same forum, however in case one misses it. This is a really great read, take what you like, disagree with the rest but its worth ones time to read and absorb it. Links are a massive part of SEO and even if this article only serves to give one some new terms to research, great.
I am busy assimilating it all this moment, but I can heartily recommend it.

[Edo]

Fantastic resource by Slowdive imo. Make sure you read one of the imbedded links in the article by Rae Hoffman.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum12/3047.htm

It kind of scares me HOW much she is on the money given that she wrote that piece FIVE years ago. There's a helluva lot of people - me included - not taking her advice even in the present day, but I've no doubt she's right. The ONLY way (apologies for all these capitals) to make money from the Net in 10 years time I think will be through quality. The brands are going to squeeze nearly everyone and only the quality sites who provide quality facilities or info for people will survive.

Ed

[grynge]

Fantastic resource by Slowdive imo. Make sure you read one of the imbedded links in the article by Rae Hoffman.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum12/3047.htm

It kind of scares me HOW much she is on the money given that she wrote that piece FIVE years ago.

I can't see it, new technologies come into play every day, all the brands can do is buy the emerging technologies. They are never at the front of technology, look at every big company, which one actually develops its own new technologies. I can't really think of one they all play the buy it game. Unless Google changes the algo linking will always be the way to get to the top even if its only for a few days weeks. They change the algo we change the way we get to the top. When there is enough money at stake people will always find a way of getting it. I think the big worry on the SE's should be the new wave of Operations out of China/India/Russia these guys have 100's if not 1000's of intelligent (and very cheap) people working for them all trying to beat the system and they are winning. The SE's knock out 1 site they put up 100 more to take its spot. I really can't see quality winning unless the algo changes significantly (and rely less on links) and I doubt they are about to do that anytime soon.

[grynge]

If you think about it when the world changes from ip v4 to ip v6, it is going to be even easier for the large players to game the system. When the big players can come in and buy 100,000 oe even 100million ip addresses with only the country being the major identifier spam will hit a massive new level.