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There are a fundamental rules and building blocks of SEO. From simple things such as definitions to page rank and beyond, it's important to find a way to grasp
by RBr 16y ago
There are a fundamental rules and building blocks of SEO. From simple things such as definitions to page rank and beyond, it's important to find a way to grasp the basics. SEOmoz and other online tutorials are a great way to start.
Personally, I learn with a "hands on and explain it to me" approach. Combining a seminar series like this http://www.seomoz.org/seminar/series http://www.seomoz.org/seminar/series with lessons about what works, what doesn't and why can teach you the basics.
Beyond the basics, it's about experience. The folks who are the best at SEO have a wide base of experience gearing content toward diverse audiences. A combination of knowing what people want and being able to deliver the right message to those people at the right time is as much a part of traditional marketing as it is SEO. After you learn the technical building blocks of optimization, increasing rank, exposure is more about user interaction and traffic.
Experiment with your own content using the help of excellent tutorials like those found on SEOmoz and you'll be well on your way to successfully optimizing pages. You don't necessarily need to pay for subscriptions, but sometimes it will save you time to have everything assembled in one place and presented in one style.
Just remember... it's not about tricking search engines... it's about helping users find the best of whatever they're looking for and for search engines identify and categorize your content properly.
- leftnode 16y ago>> Just remember... it's not about tricking search engines... it's about helping users find the best of whatever they're looking for and search engines identify and categorize your content properly. I really like that line, thanks. I normally dislike the term SEO because it can be associated with so many unethical or spammy tactics, but that's a really good way of putting legitimate SEO practices. I see Rand Fishkin from SEOMoz commented on here which is neat. I've thought about becoming a member of his site, question is, is it worth it? I'd love some feedback from people that use SEOMoz's tools.
- enjo 16y agoI just wish that particular line was actually true. It's not about content. It's about finding the right word combination to convince Google (and friends) that your site is the most relevant one for a keyword and then finding lots of folks to link to it. I hope that one day it'll be as simple as "the best content wins" but anybody who searches for nearly anything on the internet knows that's not true today. The About.com's of the world don't have the best content, but my god do they have link-farming and keyword targeting down to a science.
- RBr 16y agoI guess it comes down to how you think about it... For example: I use a variety of synonyms and phrase combinations when writing copy not to trick SE's but to help people who are searching realize that my content will answer their question or solve their problem. At the end of the day, I truly believe that it is about content. If I create, distribute, optimize (etc), the best content, that has a huge positive effect. People recommend my content, trust that I'm a valuable source, etc. All things that are important in our new social internet. About.com, Mahalo, etc rely on the lowest common denominator of content and spreading as much as quickly as they can. It's working right now, but I'm quite confidant that won't work for long.
- petewailes 16y agoDisclosure: I've known Rand a fair while and have used the tools a lot. They're the only paid toolset that I use (for SEO). That's about as good a recommendation as I can give. That said, if you're not running a fairly serious site, I'd give it a miss. It's not a toolset for just playing around with (hence the price).