How to learn SEO

This is not a tutorial giving you advices regarding SEO methods or tips & tricks to use on your sites. The aim of this short thread is to maybe help you a bit put some order in the way you learn SEO.

I know many ( me included ) sometimes get lost in the huge "ocean" of resources available on the web and at some point they loose a lot of time reading everything they come across. So, here are a few points that you may find useful:

1) Choose 2-3 trustworthy resources ( forums/blogs ) and try to visit/read/maybe post on them as frequently as possible - this will keep you up to date with the latest news regarding SEO;

2) Try to post whenever you feel you have something to say. Even if you're not sure about what you want to post, posting it will help you clear things up - if you're right, you'll get good feedback and you'll see others appreciation; if not, be sure you'll get busted up - don't worry about that, being wrong is not bad, it's actually good if you know how to get it ;). One last thing here - don't get addicted to posting on boards though, that won't pay your bills itself

3) Don't limit yourself to theory only. Just reading won't get you anywhere. Experience is what gives you confidence and strength. After applying what you've read and seeing the results, than you'll be able to say you're not wasting your time. Don't forget, you're looking to make money by optimizing your sites, you need results.

4) Don't get stiff. Be creative. In my opinion, SEO is a lot about creativity and innovation. Don't fear to innovate, don't fear to try new things, but make sure that the new things you try are not against search engines guidlines and common sense.

5) Don't get addicted to formulas, PR and things like that. SEO is not pure mathematics, is more an art than a science in my opinion.

I think this is all I wanted to say for now. I started this thread because I see many threads started by newbies who get losted at some point, but I think this could be useful for those who bypassed the status of newbie ( I got lost many times, even years after I started in the SEO field ).

I really hope this will be of help at least for some guys reading SEO Chat. Wish you all good luck!

nice post sensei..i think this should be stickied!

Very good post
I learn a lot from this post

Very good for newbie like me!

Thank you!

thank you very much

Judging by the agreements, you will probably all hate me now, but what the heck…
Just breaking the norm here but would have to disagree with this;

"Choose 2-3 trustworthy resources (forums/blogs )"

Never place all of your eggs in one basket... span out, talk to everyone, why restrict your self?

If one of these sites goes down... that’s it, you have a lost all your links from them.

Take advice from as many different places as you can... there is no limit to the number of opinions, and the truth always becomes clear in the end.

2, 3, 4 and 5 are all good points though

The advice was not to get links from them but to learn from them. It is important to find good sources of information and develop a game plan. There is a lot of very bad advice given in relation to SEO out there... To me this is what I like about this forum so much the advice given here is excellent. Bad advice is flamed very quickly.

watch me get flammed:

Advice vice is simply advice, gain as much advice from as many places as you can... then summarise, I would advise against looking at just a few sources.

There are some SEO forums out there, (lets give an example iwe*to**ls) that may be targeted to a younger audience with many 1st time developers or blogers... these sites have their place in the world... but do they offer a good source of information that can be solely relied on?

others such as www.hi*hr**ki**gs.com may have a more mature/consultant opinion and in some cases look more to the future of SEO, they may tell you what not to do, but may also be biased by their sponsors... but do they offer a good source of information that can be solely relied on?

Some sources e.g. di*ita*p*i*t.com may offer good resources and many directories, but may also be full of various opinions, in which it is hard to point out what is good and bad advice... but do they offer a good source of information that can be solely relied on?

Some source may be official sites that Google may want you to see (Matt Cutts blogs being part off this), just because Google wants you to see this, doesn’t make it the best piece of advice on the web (Google doesn’t want you to get top results and monopolies all markets)... do they offer a good source of information that can be solely relied on?

Other site may just not be busy, but have very professional help in some areas... do they offer a good source of information that can be solely relied on?

Carry out your own surveys of SEO advice, have fun doing it, trust nobody, every site has their reasons, faults or benefits.... sum as much as you can up... then weigh it out... your own opinion is the just opinion in the end. Trust no sole opinion over the web, even mine

Why do you think you will get flammed? Do you think your advice is bad?

Same thing... why get flammed simply for stating your opinion?

I don't know for how long have you been in the SEO game because I don't judge you by the number of posts, actually I try to never judge nobody based on anything, but if you have enough experience you should have realized at some point that visiting/reading/posting on a lot of SEO forums/blogs not only takes a lot of your precious time that you could use for anything else, but as you said yourself, there are lots of places where informations/advices are given without proving their usefulness or truthness.

From my experience, I learnt it's much better to choose 2-3 trustworty forums/blogs from all SEO forums/blogs you came across and stick with them ( most of the time ). Of course, I also check various other resources ( other the the 3 I read almost daily ) from time to time and since I started doing that I can see a signifiant difference ( a good one ).

Ok, thanks for not flaming me.... SEO has allot in common with philosophy, sometimes there are no correct ideas or strategies, just opinions... and all opinions and ideas have some value when no defined answers can be considered correct

When it comes to doing research there are different methodologies. Originally being a scientific researcher, I know the value of reading as many journals as I can, and taking a little something from all of them.

In saying this, I only pick on one of the statements above, I would still agree strongly with 2 3 4 and 5.

- Mr T

I agree with Sensei , especially with regards to actually getting your hands dirty and not just learning the theoretical side of SEO.

You gain so much from actually performing tasks based on what you have learnt. You could just start up a practice website just to test out different theories to see what works and what doesnt. The website doesnt have to be for profit or business, just use it as an experiment, I guarantee you will learn much more than you would have just reading the theory.

Thank you very much for your advice. But i want to know how to get quality backlinks for my website?

There are many tutorials/articles/threads on this forum and if you search for them you'll find them .

But, to save some time for you, I'd point you to Visio's latest blog post related to link building: http://www.1stsearchenginerankings.com/2007/10/26/the-ultimate-guide-to-link-building/.

Enjoy and good luck!

to learn SEO is a neverending process.. new techniques, ideas, and tools are coming out every once in a while and of course, we need a lot of patience.