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I'm An SEO Newbie: Advice On How To Learn?
Hello everyone! Just wanted to quickly introduce myself as I am a newbie to the SEM/SEO world and there are a lot of great minds here so I am excited to join the community. My name is Jesse DaCosta and I recently started working at High Rankings along with Jill Whalen and Co. and it has been great thus far as I have gained an immense amount of knowledge and experience already! Since I am new to the industry (though I had some very basic knowledge) she has been wonderful to learn from, and she has also pointed me to other places where I can increase my knowledge, such as Search Engine Land, etc.
Just was curious as to what recommendations, advice, guidance, thoughts or ideas any of you had for someone starting out in this industry. The idea for this post stems from the recent "Training a New SEO" article at Search Engine Watch and I thought well lets expand on this. There was a time when all of you were a "newbie" and were just starting out and I thought it would be fun for people to share their experiences and stories not just for myself, but for anyone looking to reminisce or provide some suggestions for all of us who are just getting in motion. So much to learn and I look forward to learning and sharing with all of you!
8 Comments
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http://www.searchengineguide.com/mintz/010272.html from Search Engine Guide was a recent look at ways to get started.
http://searchengineland.com/marketing.php has lots of archived info you might review.
Others?
If your boss will dish out for it get SEO Book by Aaron Wall. Also you can get other basics with "Search Marketing Inc." here on Sphinn and SEL, you'll be able to keep up to date with everything SEO.
Good luck!
Jill has been in the industry long enough to probably write her own book. He has a good teacher to learn from, just remember Jesse this industry changes and adapts a lot, you need to be able to do the same. Digital Point, WebproWorld and also the High Rankings forum will contain a huge amount of information for you read through and learn in your spare time. Welcome to the community and I wish you the best of luck.
Steve
Just read Sphinn everyday. So many are vying to get their posts to the top, that they give away all the best SEO secrets in the process. Sit back, take it all in, and enjoy the feast!
Thanks everyone for your all of your advice and support, I appreciate it! This industry certainly does change a lot as I have found out first-hand in only 3 months. We were working on a recent report for a client and had just finished up a long discussion on supplemental results as it related to their site and the next day it was gone! I have certainly tried to keep up on all of the different forums, blogs, sites, etc. and look forward to more.
read read read - and read some more. I started 2 years ago with no working knowledge of internet advertising. I read about 20 blogs (ty ty google reader) and various forums every day. Some days I just skim, but some days I find nuggets of gold here and there.
My #1 rule - I learned this the hard way - If you read it and it sounds interesting, test it, don't take someone else's word as gospel until there is corroborating evidence.
Good Luck and welcome!
~Carrie
Basically, just reading every article that you can learn from is the best way to go. This will take time, but eventually you'll learn the stuff. It involves reading not only forums, but SEO blogs, pages they link to and so on. And reading Sphinn stories, too.
However, you need to remember a couple of things:
- don't try to cheat people and the search engines. If someone tells you a 'trick' to go with, think twice about using it. A way to improve experience is one thing, cheating and losing customers is another
- don't believe 100% you read. Use your common sense, experience and test what you think should work for you
Another great forum that isn't often mentioned is www.Cre8asiteForums/forums. It has plenty of well educated people, including Bill Slawski, the search engine patent guru, who writes for SEL.
For example, you can read this Quick Kick Start Guide to SEO (largely contributed by another Internet marketing guru, Ammon Johns):
http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1267
You can read more about learning SEO here:
http://www.improvetheweb.com/learn-website-optimization-efficiently
There are a great many forums to learn from. Some publish things that are risky, and some also give no warning of the risks. Others offer solid credible advice that you can't go wrong with. Once you have reviewed 30 or 40 forums it should be obvious which ones have things you can generally trust, and which ones you might want to be more careful with.