So, you’ve finally decided you want to learn all you can about SEO. Now what? Where do you go? How do you know that where you are is the right place to be? The last thing you want to do is waste your time and money buying into a bunch of SEO bull. So… where do you go to get the real low down? You find a a room full of SEO and patent geeks! Of course, when you first step in, it’s going to sound like a foreign language. You might hear things like:
“…it can be a pain in the rear, but it’s good for sessionized data. Log data – not so good.”
“Splice that keyword data into declines and trends; you can see what new words peeps are looking for and get some kind of direction…”
“…like the source, internal, external… whether or not it was an apparent query refinement…”
You’ll spend a lot of time with a puzzled look on your face but, eventually, the light bulb comes on and it all starts to make sense. Because, you see, the only way to really learn SEO is to pick the brains of the warriors…
SEO Reading: Lots of Meals, but It’s Mostly Just Chicken
In SEO Fast Food: I’ll Take #1 Ranking with That, but Hold the Fries, Gabriella wrote about the various types of SEO companies in relation to the ratings of restaurants. As informavores on the hunt for bite-sized snacks of information, you’re looking for steak. Yet, a lot of blogs and articles out there, no matter how they’re dressed up to look like steak, are really just… chicken.
A few bring out the good meals and fine wine when it comes to information for beginners, such as the Google Webmaster Central Blog and Bing Webmaster Center Blog, but what about when you’ve read all you can? Where do you go next? Where ARE the rooms of conversating search professionals, geeks and pundits, filled with prodigious commentary unintelligible to the common mortal?
Where’s the Beef? Where the SEO Experts Go
If asked where the experts go to get industry news, discuss topics, read about search patents and so on, you’ll get a list of places to visit. What you’ll also have is an (almost) absolute guarantee that these places will only be serving the tastiest, most filling meals for your informational taste buds. When taking the advice of the experts on where to go, however, keep a few things in mind:
- Don’t mind the mess – these sites aren’t always going to be pretty. Some search geeks are so obsessed with search; they’re completely lost when it comes to design. They’re like the absent-minded professors of the search world.
- Carry a dictionary – or, at the very least, have search up and ready. If you think “long-tail” refers to a species of animal, you’ll be wearing out your search engine of choice before you’re through the first article.
- Take small bites – you WILL get overwhelmed if you try to digest years’ worth of accumulated knowledge on optimization. Read a little every day and chew slowly.
- Ask questions – because you’ll need the answers to gain further understanding. Questions are your saving grace, and most (if not all) are willing to answer them.
With that said, here’s a short list of sites for beginning to advanced optimization learning:
Search Engine Land – Without a doubt, SEL is a top notch online publication. Here, you can find tons of information and news on the extremely broad topic of internet marketing. Categories include: SEM, SEO, PPC, Social Media, How-To’s, Google & Search and Indepth Analysis. SEL is well worth the bookmarking and daily intake.
SEO Book – Created, managed, and mostly written by Aaron Wall, SEOBook is a comprehensive blog full of search geekiness. You may not always agree with what Aaron has to say, but he’ll always make you think. Warning – he fills his posts up with handy, informative links. You could, quite possibly, get lost in the reading.
SEO By the Sea – Owner/Author Bill Slawski is a true search patent geek. He’s the guy optimizers go to when they don’t have the time to search the patents themselves. The amount of pure information found on this site -in terms of search and SEO – is nothing less than phenomenal. When you’re ready to advance in SEO, this is the place to bookmark.
Webmaster World – The tagline says “News and Discussion for the Web Professional”, and it doesn’t lie. Code, content, presentation, hardware and OS technologies, analytics, ecommerce… Webmaster World has it all. Best of all, it’s a heavily moderated forum, and you’ll always find someone in there to talk shop with.
Once you go down the rabbit hole, you’ll eventually find yourself ready to take on SEO like a true warrior. Enjoy!
13 Responses
Wow loved the way how you associated seo with food haha ! Awesome and creative post !
Hehehe that’s what happens when you grow up in the food & hospitality industry 😉 thanks Amanda!!
Great list, Gabriella ! I’m also a big Fan of Bill Slawski & have him (and you) in my RSS folder for SEO. SEO needs it’s patent geeks and Bill is the absolute best. And what about SEOMoz ? I almost never miss “Whiteboard Fridays”
What about SEOmoz? LOL everyone knows about them and they certainly don’t need our blessing. To be honest with you, we joined for a while, and didn’t really gain much from using their tools.
My friend shared this link and i’m quite impress with your post. Most bloggers post generic advised with regard to SEO and i’m so glad that i visited this. I’m still new with online business and i’d like to learn SEO and i’d like to do it myself rather than hiring a SEO Company. They usually cost you a fortune and there’s no assurance that they will build quality backlinks. I will visit the blogs you suggested and hopefully it will help me understand how SEO works. Thanks a lot.
Brian, welcome. I’m glad you’ve decided to learn SEO rather than go about it blindly. I can assure you the resources in this post are very valuable, regardless of your SEO knowledge. Have fun 😉
Hey Doc! :* You know sometimes I go in the Skype room and just listen…some of the conversations are fascinating and truly educational. I’ll admit I have my favorites in there 😉 LOL but I know whenever I need information about ANYTHING that has to do with SEO I have a hot line thanks to guys like you!
Thank you very much for your kind words, Gabriella.
I consider seobythesea.com to be my workbook where I try to offer some thoughts on recent patents and white papers from the search engines, as well as questions and comments about them. By putting those up there and out to the search community, I’m hoping that it might help others get some different insights into search as well as providing a place for people to discuss them.
Bill, please don’t stop what you do at SEObythesea – It’s on my RSS feed and part of my morning routine, with a couple of cups of hot coffee. Don’t ruin a good thing. 🙂
Thanks, Gabriella
No intention of stopping at this point. There’s still so much to learn, and I find I learn best by trying to put what I’m learning into language that others can understand.
I know what you mean about that morning routine. Mine seems to get a little longer everyday. 🙂
Good point of information inside your content. Yes it is all true and correct about the basic SEO, I’ve been there before and still now I’m on it. This information really helps for other and in fact i get some of its ideas that I may use for. Good Day.
This is a great resource of information. For all those considering delving into SEO and haven’t the faintest idea where to start, the information provided here is a fantastic way to introduce yourself into what can be, and regularly is, a very complicated and crowded market.
My main little piece of advice would be that once you have started to build up a basic knowledge, make sure you implement these ideas you’ve accumulated into one usable list. This way, you can really ensure you focus your SEO rather than randomly throw things at your site and hope for the best.
Indeed, now if we can only get SOMEONE to put their $ where their mouth is and give us the most basic SEO standards. lol Thanks for your input David. Enjoy your week.