The Intersection of SEO and User Experience

One of the biggest criticisms that exists regarding the process of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is that it’s entirely self-promotional—that is, that it manipulates websites based on what the search engines prefer to see, not based on what’s most beneficial to website users.

As such, it would appear that a conflict exists between SEO and the creation of a good user experience. After all, if you’re constantly tweaking and tailoring your website for natural search success, doesn’t it also stand to reason that this diminished focus on your website’s users creates an environment that isn’t enjoyable or interesting for real people?

In fact, I disagree. As you’ll see in the following examples, there are plenty of instances in which these dual focuses actually work together—with best practices from both disciplines combining to create an environment that’s both easily accessible to the search engines and highly engaging to the actual visitors that wind up on your site.

Use Sitemaps and Simple Navigation

It’s no secret that sitemaps and effective navigation strategies are important from an SEO perspective. Search engines operate on limited crawl budgets, meaning that they may only index a certain number of pages on your site on any given visit. If they have any difficulty navigating to different areas of your website (whether because of a lack of internal links or because of Flash-based navigation systems), you risk squandering this crawl budget unnecessarily.

As a result, sitemaps and efficient navigation options are great for the search engines, but their also great for your users. Keep in mind that users like things simplified as well. Really, nobody has time these days to click through page after page, looking for a single piece of information that could have been made easily accessible with a better navigation system.

So, do both your users and the search engines a favor by following sitemap creation best practices and implementing an HTML-based navigation system that ensures that every page on your site can be found within three clicks or less!

Combine SEO and User Experience Elements

From an SEO standpoint, huge chunks of text are good. Not only do they give the search engines’ spider programs a better understanding of your site’s focus area (increasing the odds that you’ll rank for the right search queries in the natural results), they also improve keyword discovery for webmasters (increasing the number of search queries for which you’ll rank).

But from a user standpoint, long stretches of uninterrupted text-based content aren’t all that great. Nobody wants to click on to a new website—only to be assaulted by the sheer volume of required reading offered by some pages.

That said, you don’t need to choose between the text content that’s favored by the search engines and the graphic experience preferred by website visitors. Just keep “the fold” of your website’s pages in mind. Because the first few moments of interaction on your website are so critical to interesting and retaining new visitors, consider including graphic elements on the top of your pages (where they’ll be seen right away by users) and text blogs on the bottom (where they’ll still be accessible by the search engines).  Everybody wins!

Write Content for Users and the Search Engines

As any webmaster with at least a basic understanding of SEO knows, content is king. Content does your website a number of SEO favors—from increasing the odds that your site will be indexed for a particular target keyword to aiding your chances of ranking highly by improving your overall “freshness” score. And for the most part, it should be obvious that adding high-quality content to your site on a regular basis goes a long way towards improving the user experience on your site as well.

That said, confusion occurs when it comes to how this content should be written in order to maximize its SEO effectiveness. The days of keyword density playing a role in SEO rankings has long since passed, and yet, many webmasters still believe that they need to create paragraphs like the ones below in order to secure the top spots in the natural search results pages:

“Melissa’s Gift Shop has the best low cost gifts on the Web.  Her store sells women’s gifts, men’s gifts, children’s gifts, pet gifts and more.  Her low cost gifts are great for any occasion, so be sure to check back the next time you need a low cost gift.”

No …  Just no!

When it comes to keyword inclusion, it’s a good idea to include your target keyword in your page title, headline tag and body content, but don’t include more than one instance in any of these areas. More than this simply isn’t necessary when it comes to SEO (in fact, doing so could put your site at risk of an over-optimization penalty) and risks annoying your readers to the extent that they leave your site and never return.

Repeat after me: High-quality, natural-sounding website content benefits both my readers and the search engine spiders!

Avoid Flash

Can we all make an agreement to simply stop using this outdated technology? Here’s the thing…

Although search engines have come a long way in their ability to recognize and parse the content found within Flash objects on websites, the still aren’t able to process this information correctly 100 percent of the time. So at best, you’ve filled up your site with content that the search engines can’t understand. At worst, though, you’ve diminished the overall SEO effectiveness of your site by including important information in a format that the search engines can’t process correctly.

And don’t even try to tell me that Flash is necessary for your user experience! We’re long since passed the days when website visitors were impressed by every moving object and animated experience you could cram into your site. These days, people want information ASAP, which means that they don’t want to waste time sitting through the minute-long Flash splash page or presentation your Web team is so proud of.

So yes, while I know it’s possible to work around the SEO weaknesses that Flash presents, my point is that there’s no reason to. Users don’t want to deal with these animations, so do everybody a favor and eliminate them from your website entirely.

Incorporate Microdata Markup into Your Pages

One final intersection between SEO and the user experience that you’ll want to be aware of is the impact that microdata usage can have on your website’s performance.

When it comes to SEO, microdata—particularly those that follow Schema.org protocols—can be incredibly useful when it comes to providing the search engines with extra data about your site’s purpose and intent. As an example, adding the system’s “itemtype” tag to your page’s HTML could allow you to clarify that your page on “Pride & Prejudice” refers to the original book, not the recent movie.

As a result, the search engines that are able to interpret this structured data could serve your site up for more relevant search result placements than sites without this additional information.

As you might expect by this point in the article, users benefit from the addition of microdata as well. In many cases, especially that of the “rel=author” tag, structured data provides additional information that can be displayed alongside a site’s listing in the natural search results.

Not only does this extra data help users to make more informed search decisions, these enhanced displays have a notable impact on SERPs click-through rates, increasing the likelihood that a search user will wind up on your page over a competitor’s.

As you can see, there are plenty ways in which SEO and user experience objectives can work together to create a website that’s both engaging to read and easy to rank in the natural search results. However, if you ever identify a potential conflict between the two, keep in mind that your first priority is to the user. While SEO best practices may come and go over time, making a commitment to serve your user first will never go out of style!

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/the-intersection-of-seo-and-user-experience/57562/

Is Agile Marketing the Future of Search in 2013?

Over the last few weeks, the one thing I'm hearing a lot more people starting to talk about is the need to be agile in marketing campaigns.

At BlueGlassX, Greg Boser went as far to predict that agile marketing is going to be the new buzzword of 2013:

As I said in my last post, it doesn't matter what you call your online strategy - and buzzword or not, that's not what's important - but there's a lot about agile marketing as a concept that makes perfect sense.

2012 Is the Year That Search Grew up!

Looking back over 2012, we've seen a huge volume of changes.

The problem we've had with SEO in the past is that there was a huge gap between what Googlesaid the algorithm did and what it actually did. Everyone knew all along we should be creating great content to build a brand online. But this year, more than any other, we've seen that gap close to the point that the only way to achieve sustainable results is to finally do what Google has been telling us all along!

This means we have to be nimble and able to think on our feet a lot more to naturally acquire relevant links as a by-product of high-quality content generation, not by traditional link building.

Andy Betts has written some excellent posts on the shifts we're seeing recently, and I spoke atSES London back in February about the measurement of ROI in search. During this time I definitely feel that we've seen a significant shift toward the industry evolving in this way, with not just search marketers realizing the value, but also social, PR, content, and branding teams being integrated into the bigger digital picture, too.

Having a Great Strategy Doesn't Mean You Forget About the Tactics

2012 has been a crazy year for seeing SEO evolve - how many years is an Internet year now? In 2012 I think we're looking at closer to seven years for every month!

And 12 months on, we now seem to be in a world where we realize having a solid, long-term strategy is a far more effective and sustainable way to get results.

But that doesn't mean we should completely forget about tactic-driven strategies. Tactics are still a key part of your strategy that gets you to the top - so as long as you apply tactics that complement your long-term strategy, as opposed to quick wins, you should still be trying out new tactics all of the time.

Everyone knows that the only constant in this game is change - even if you're staying on top of what's working now, you're still likely to be behind the curve.

To quote Greg Boser again, "Chaos is good, complacency is the kiss of death" - and there's no way you can stand still in this game; everything changes so quickly. You need to be looking ahead to where things are going; read the patents (for example, this one on Agent Rank gives some very clear signs) and make sure you're testing all of the time. That way when your competitors are chasing you, they're always one step behind.

Learn From Agile Project Management

There's a huge amount you can learn about marketing by reading about agile project management techniques and processes.

Image source: Tutorials Point

This might be a very new way of thinking for search marketers, but it's not a new concept or model. In fact, it follows a very simple process:

1. Build
2. Measure
3. Learn

Image source: HubSpot

If you're trying to prove a point to your boss or client, this is clearly the easiest route to getting that message across. This is exactly the same way you would create a prototype for showcasing a new product, or a pilot episode for a TV series.

For anyone who is experienced in SEO, I would suggest that rather than trying to develop new skills in search, perhaps you should buy a book on agile project management instead.

But with agile marketing there's no need to change your whole strategy, just make sure you're adaptable enough to learn what does and doesn't work - and be well prepared to take advantage of any opportunities that may come along.

I think the one thing I've learned, especially this year, is that it's not always a case of right or wrong. There's a good chance you're doing something that's working, but it doesn't mean it's your best option.

The great thing about this industry is that we're constantly surrounded by great opportunities - so the first step is often figuring out what you shouldn't be doing or how you can free up some time.

For example, where are you wasting your time? What don't you enjoy doing? What aren't you good at? Once you figure this out, everything else is much easier to fall into place. Whether it's reviewing a client fit, your career, or your online marketing strategy, it's exactly the same.

Agile Isn't Flexible, It's Intuitive

In order to make your marketing campaigns agile, you need to fully understand what this means - and just as importantly, what it doesn't.

While it may seem like a campaign that's flexible, that's not what it's about. Yes, it's sensible that rather than having a rigid 12-month editorial calendar, you add flexibility in order to adapt and change. For example, perhaps you'll set 25 percent of your plan aside for topical issues, which may come up and allow time to be adaptable (depending on your industry, it may be much higher).

But flexibility suggests making a compromise, which isn't the most effective way of getting results. An agile marketing campaign needs to be able to adapt and intuitively grow based on your key findings and strategy.

Run Controlled Experiments and Prove a Point

As Greg says, it shouldn't be a "throw stuff against the wall and hope that something sticks" model. Instead, you should be testing out new ideas and concepts by creating controlled experiments.

If you can closely measure the impact of a tactic on a small scale, and prove a point that if you do X, this Y happens, then you can make data-driven, strategic decisions on whether you'd like to roll this out more heavily across your campaign.

This makes you more agile in being able to move quickly . Plus, it means that by running small experiments in this way, you'll be able to prioritize decisions based on their likely success. And that's what it's all about - the building and prioritization of a clear marketing plan.

Marketers Need to Lose the Fear of Failure

By being agile, you also lose that fear of failure. It's not about making every single thing you do a success - that leads to taking safe bets and consistently getting average to good results.

You might be happy with that, but if instead you accept that you're going to make mistakes along the way, you're incrementally improving your processes and likely to achieve much better results in the long term. Matt Roberts from Linkdex made an excellent analogy recently, which was a comparison with the VC funding model.

"VC's will often back 10 companies, accepting that some will be complete failures, others will do ok - but if one is a big success that outweighs everything else they've backed. And this applies to search and content - it's much better to have one outstanding piece of content which outperforms everything else you've done, than it is to have 10 pieces [of] content which have had good results."

SocialTriggers.com by Derek Halpern is another good example of this. Derek would much rather have one great piece of content and then focus the rest of his time on promoting that content. His theory being "why create new content when there are still people who haven't seen your last post yet?"

It's a different way of looking at things, but again it makes a lot of sense - he's learned what resonates with his audience, to the point that every post he writes has over 100 comments. So now he gives his audience what they want to see - and follows up by promoting it as much as possible.

Your Team Must Be Integrated, Not Siloed

If you're going to have an agile strategy, the first thing you need to do is ditch the silos.

In order to get the best results, you need to make sure that everyone is on the same page. The days of doing SEO, social media, PR/branding, and even content marketing effectively in silos have gone - each of these benefit and help each other in different ways, so to get the best value you have to look at the bigger picture.

By using an integrated model, you can figure out your internal restraints and challenges - and then fix them. It's not always easy when everyone is fighting against each other for their own individual goals and budgets.

When's the Best Time to Publish a Story? When It's Most Relevant!

I was asked this question after my BlueGlassX presentation. My answer was to find out more about your audience and to learn what works best with them, in a similar way to how you would test an email marketing campaign.

However, for topical stories, timing is everything. If there's big news that's happening within your industry, you need to be prepared to drop everything and adapt, so that you can instantly switch your focus to what's most relevant.

For example, following Michael Jackson's death in the early hours of the morning, Amazon very quickly updated its Amazon Store to make a tribute to him and cater toward the huge demand of people looking to purchase his music. You don't wait for the optimal sharing time for topical stories like this.

Summary

For agile campaigns, you need to be on top of your game, and know what's going on around you. If you're prepared to adapt quickly when that topical story comes along, you're much more likely to reap the rewards.

Likewise, if you can ensure your campaigns are ready to adapt and you learn from both your successes and failures, then that makes you more likely to achieve that steady progress month-on-month, which is far more sustainable to long-term growth.

What do you think? Are your campaigns agile enough? And how important do you think this is going to be toward marketing success in 2013?

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2232618/Is-Agile-Marketing-the-Future-of-Search-in-2013

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Chris Record Shows Us How to Add Categories to Your Empower Network Blog

SEO 101: How Your Website’s Structure Affects its SEO

When it comes to SEO training, most of the resources out there are quick to extol the benefits of both on-site optimization (typically, including your target keywords in key areas across your website) and off-site SEO (as in the case of external link building activities).

Site construction – courtesy © Maxim_Kazmin – Fotolia.com

However, many of these introductory guides gloss over a subject that’s just as important to your website’s natural search success—its underlying structure. In fact, there are a number of different ways your website’s structure can influence its overall SEO authority, so be sure to brush up on the following site structure elements to make your website is as search-friendly as possible.

Element #1: Site Navigation

At first glance, website navigation might seem like one of those things that happens organically. That is, you don’t plan out where you’ll place every page on your website; categories and hierarchies simply start to form on their own as the size and breadth of your website grows.

When it comes to SEO, though, this is a huge mistake! The structure of your website plays a tremendous role in its overall SEO authority, and the specific navigation elements you put into place deserve plenty of attention in this process.

Your first site navigation consideration should be to avoid using navigation types that make it difficult for the search engines to crawl through your pages. Particularly, steer clear of navigation structures that are built entirely in Flash or JavaScript. While these formats might look flashy to your visitors, they’re nearly impossible for the search engine spiders to parse and crawl.

Instead, stick with navigation schemes based in XHTML and CSS (or, if you must, images that use appropriate keywords in their ALT tags). These navigation structures are more easily read by the search engine spiders, making it more likely that your pages will be crawled, indexed, and displayed in the SERPs, where appropriate.

But beyond the initial setup of your website’s navigation structure, you’ll also want to pay attention to your website’s depth.

When it comes to websites, “depth” refers to the number of clicks needed to reach any page on your site from your home page. From an SEO perspective, a shallow website (that is, one that requires three or fewer clicks to reach every page) is far more preferable than a deep website (which requires lengthy strings of clicks to see every page on your site).

As an added bonus, don’t forget that shallow navigation structures improve your website’s usability, making it far less likely that visitors will give up trying to find the content they were looking for in your buried pages. This decreases your website’s bounce rate and may improve your overall average time on site, both of which are factors that are suspected to play a further role in SEO rankings.

Element #2: Internal Linking

Of course, if your website is large, controlling the depth of your website through your site’s navigation structure alone isn’t entirely feasible. If you have 100 total pages, for example, you’d need more than 30 separate categories to make all of your pages accessible within three clicks using navigation structures alone, which would almost certainly bog down your site’s appearance and functionality.

So, while structuring your navigation paths correctly from the start can help to improve your website’s SEO performance, you can also decrease your site’s depth through the use of internal linking.

In the world of SEO, there are two types of backlinks:

• External backlinks, which are links that point to your website from an entirely separate site, and
• Internal backlinks, which consist of connections between individual pages within your website.

Creating internal links between the pages on your website offers a number of different SEO advantages:

• As mentioned above, internal links decrease the number of clicks required to access each page on your website, allowing the search engines to use their crawl budgets more effectively.
• Internal links offer opportunities to use keyword-rich anchor texts throughout your pages (though you should be careful to only create internal links to relevant, useful pages, instead of using this as an opportunity to create keyword-stuffed links).
• Internal links improve the user experience on your website by providing readers with additional materials that may pique their interests. As a result, both average time on site and average pages per visit go up, leading to potential SEO and conversion rate benefits.

Fortunately, unlike plotting out your website’s entire navigation structure, getting started with an internal linking plan is easy. Whenever you add a new page, article, or blog post to your website, take a second to see if the readers who are accessing this new content might be interested in other topics you’ve covered elsewhere on your site.

If you do find opportunities to recommend related pieces, create internal links within your new content that point to these other website pages.

Again, keep in mind that, though there is some benefit to creating internal links that utilize keyword-optimized anchor text, this shouldn’t be your primary pursuit. Keep the focus on serving up interesting content to your readers, and don’t be afraid to skip internal linking on new content pieces altogether if you’d have to stretch to make other articles seem relevant.

Element #3: URL Structure

One final website structure element to consider is how your individual page URLs are built. As you might expect, there’s a potential SEO benefit to be had from integrating your company’s target keywords into this vital navigation area.

The specific steps you’ll need to take to set up an SEO-friendly URL structure depend on whether your site runs on HTML or a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla or Magento.

HTML websites

If you run an HTML-oriented website, your page URLs will be built according to the file names of every new HTML file you create and upload to your site.

For example, if you use a desktop website editing program like Dreamweaver to create a new article and save your file as “my-new-article.html,” the full URL of your article once uploaded to the root domain of your website will be “http://www.mydomain.com/my-new-article.html.”

Now, in this example, odds are you aren’t trying to get your website ranked for the keyword phrase “my new article.” So, instead of using generic file names, take the time to label each file with a descriptive name that includes your target keyword.

Be sure to separate multiple words with dashes, rather than underscores, as the search engine spiders may interpret words separated by underscores as a single word (as in, the file name “apple_pie” might be read as “applepie” to the search engines in some cases).

CMS websites

Typically, most CMS websites make it easy to create search-optimized page URLs, though you may need to tweak a few settings to get the greatest SEO benefit possible.

For example, in the case of WordPress, you’ll need to first navigate to the “Permalinks” section of the “Settings” area within your dashboard and select a link structure option that includes your post title within the full URL assigned to each post. If you don’t take this action, your URLs will—by default—include the numbers and codes created for each new post by WordPress’s standard settings.

According to the default WordPress settings, a new post URL structure could look like this:

http://www.mydomain.com/?p=144

By selecting the “Post name” option within the “Permalinks” panel, this URL would be transformed to:

http://www.mydomain.com/post-title.html

This second variation is both more appealing to readers (leading to higher rates of engagement on your website) and confers the SEO advantage of being able to include your target keywords in your URLs.

If you’re using a CMS other than WordPress, consult the Help section of your chosen platform for complete instructions on how to set up SEO-friendly URLs on your website.

Even if you’ve already built your website without these elements in mind, it’s still very possible to go back and make the changes needed to ensure that your website qualifies for full consideration by the search engines and their automated spider programs.

Try correcting one element, or even one element on one single page, at a time. With consistent effort, you’ll see substantial SEO benefits as the result of your site structure changes.

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/website-structure-and-seo/54156/

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Attract your visitors through Attraction Marketing.

Top 10 SEO Startups of 2012

Is that time of the year, when we look at our industries in retrospect. Today, however, instead of telling you what was, we bring you something that could be… All these SEO/SEM startups launched in 2012, and aim to become stronger, better and more popular in 2013.

PlagSpotter: duplicate content checking

A must have tool in any SEOs arsenal is a content checking tool – something to scan the web and find scrapers, and something to protect original content. PlagSpotter is such a tool, an alternative to CopyScape, an online duplicate content checking and monitoring tool, that scans your URL and generates a duplicate content report showing all external URLs that copy your original content.

PlagSpotter: duplicate-content scanning and detection tool.

SEOClearly: A/B testing

Recently featured by Search Engine Journal, SEOClearly produces a variety of split tests (A/B) reports, based on data grabbed directly from Google through Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools.

Site SEO improvements can be seen through testing elements like copy text, layouts, images and more. SEOClearly makes sense of A/B testing results.

Agency Spotter: Find your SEO agency

OK, this is not just to help you find SEO agencies, but all kinds of professionals, from branding to SEM, PR, social media and beyond. You can also add your business. Agency Spotter aims to reinvent how businesses find and work with creative agencies – check them out, and see if they deliver.

Agency-Spotter: find and work with creative agencies.

SEMhit: Outsmart your competitors in Search Marketing

Still in closed alpha, SEMhit is an interesting promise: to enable you overtake your competition in search by analyzing the performance of their paid and organic campaigns on Google.com. Once SEMhit lets you in, you can find new keywords, improve your ad copy and revise your landing page strategy. Also, check and understand the SEO techniques of your challengers. This is another startup we are going to test for your in the near future.

Rankpanel: SEO overview for any site

Rankpanel shows you a compact SEO overview for any site, which is not only the summary but also starting point for further in-depth SEO statistics. It also gives you access to keyword ranking data for 500,000 pre-selected keywords from 6 key countries. We will be testing Rankpanel in the near future, to give you a more in-depth overview of the tool and what it can achieve.

Rankpanel is described as a fast and intuitive online SEO tool that provides essential insights for you to help yourself and your clients rank better.

Lucidel: really simple analytics

Lucidel cuts through the clutter of traditional analytics platforms to bring you actionable insights into your site’s visitors. You will learn which demographic segments bring more ROI; who are your visitors and what they want; where your revenue is going and which segments are causing a trend; who is coming to your site and why; and much more.

Lucidel answers the questions that impact your bottom line.

Infogr.am: create infographics with ease

Infogr.am is a free tool to create and share infographics and online charts. You can pick a pre-designed, pixel-perfect infographic template, then make it interactive, by adding charts, videos and maps.

Add interactivity to your data stories. Infogr.am is built with newsrooms in mind.

Yet another search engine: VerticalSet

It seems like every year we witness the birth of a new search engine. Well 2012 is no exception. Meet VerticalSet, the “next generation search engine” developed by Amit Ambardekar. The search engine can be adjusted to optimize the search performance, through a series of search extensions like Google News, Wikipedia Search, Twitter Search, IP2location as well as GRE word, Urban Dictionary, Blekko Slashtag Sear…, QWiki, Stackoverflow Search and DDG Goodies.

With VerticalSet you can change the search experience the way you want.

SRCH2: Enterprise search software

SRCH2 attempts to fill a gap in the search industry, especially for enterprise solutions, where search engines are built on software that is more than a decade old. The software is built from the ground-up by Stanford and Google alums. SRCH2 sees search as a friendly, meaningful and convergent conversation between the user and the data.The SRCH2 engine uses in-memory algorithms to support ultra fast instant search on large amounts of data. It is 10 – 100x faster than the most commonly used enterprise search software. Its built-in error-tolerance, forward indexing, and rapid geo-search make it the best available mobile search tool.

SRCH2 is feature-rich, and blazing fast.

Browseo: Browse any site like a search engine

Browseo is a web app that allows you to view any web page without distractions caused by styles. It also highlights parts of a page that are relevant for SEO.

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If you have some time, please know more about Attraction Marketing.

How to Teach Yourself SEO

So, you want to learn what all those techie-types are referring to when they talk about link building, anchor text, title tags, and on-site optimization? Welcome to the SEO club!

Teaching yourself SEO can be a challenging process, but it’s not impossible. Take a look at the following step-by-step plan and then get started. Remember, SEO changes every day, so there’s no time like the present to get started learning!

Step #1: Seek out beginner-level resources

Now, I’m assuming that you’re reading this article because you want to learn SEO on your own time, as a supplement to whatever else your full-time job may be.

If you have the time or resources, there are plenty of great “all inclusive” training courses that’ll take you from beginner to advanced student in the shortest amount of time possible (for example, check out the SES series of conferences if you’ve got a few thousand dollars to invest in your education).

But if you’re doing this on your own, you’ll want to begin by seeking out well-regarded beginner-level resources. There are plenty of different training programs out there, though you’ll want to pay special attention to the following options:

• SEOMoz’s “Beginner’s Guide to SEO”
• SEO Book’s “SEO Training”
• Bruce Clay’s “Search Engine Optimization Tutorial”

Any of these resources will give you a solid background in the principles and techniques underpinning the practice of search engine optimization. Once you feel comfortable with the concepts covered in these beginner-level resources, begin to seek out more advanced training programs to refine your skills and understanding even further.

Step #2: Put what you’ve learned into practice

As you begin your SEO training, you’ll encounter plenty of different tricks and techniques that will help your future webpages to perform well in the natural search results. However, keep in mind that learning SEO from an ebook is a lot like learning to drive from a book. There’s a pretty big difference between reading about the subject and actually putting it into practice!

If you really want to learn SEO, you can’t just read about the approaches taken by others. Instead, you need to practice implementing them on your own websites and measuring the impact that each change you make has on your site’s overall performance.

Don’t have a website? Well, there’s never been a better time to start one!

Your new website doesn’t need to be complex, and you don’t need to have any business goals associated with it.  It doesn’t have to be an expensive proposition either. In fact, it’ll take less than $100 to purchase the Web hosting and domain needed to create your own static HTML or WordPress website.

What’s important is that you see, in real time, how different SEO concepts are put into practice. While it’s one thing to read about techniques like optimizing your title tags or meta descriptions, carrying out these tasks in real time will give you a better understanding of how SEO functions overall, making you a more effective website optimizer in the long run.

Step #3: Find a mentor

Of course, building a five-page website on which to practice SEO isn’t nearly the same thing as optimizing a 1,000+ page e-commerce website!

With SEO, there’s a tremendous learning curve that separates SEO newbies from more advanced practitioners. So, while you’ll certainly learn plenty by studying and implementing the practices you learn about on your own website, you’ll advance your skill set even further by finding an advanced SEO mentor who can give you helpful guidance on how to improve your techniques.

Finding a mentor can be a challenge, as many practitioners within the field are too busy with their own projects to offer suitable guidance to a beginner. Ask around at local business networking events, Web forums, or SEO groups, but don’t be surprised if it takes some time to find a mentor who’s both available to work with you and well-suited to your unique learning style. Keep searching until you find the right person and you’ll be amazed at how quickly your SEO skills can improve!

Step #4: Join an SEO group

In addition to finding an SEO mentor, search your area for any in-person SEO meetup groups. Though smaller, more rural areas may not have established groups of this nature, most cities offer at least a handful of SEO or digital marketing meetups for participants of all skill levels.

To find these gatherings, try searching for your city on Meetup.com to view all existing local activities, or try entering the phrase, “SEO group + your city” or “digital marketing group + your city” into Google. If your search turns up multiple options, check them all out to determine which groups are the best fit for your skills, interests, and personality.

Or, if you aren’t able to find information on any existing SEO groups, why not start your own? Services like Meetup.com make it easy to organize groups and promote your new organization to a wide variety of members. If you do decide to go this route, try partnering with any SEO or digital marketing professionals in your area to bring a more experienced viewpoint to your new group.

Step #5: Monitor SEO news sites for industry updates

Finally, to really grow your SEO skills, you need to remain on top of the industry’s many changes. Think about it … If you select a single SEO training program from the list above to work off of and never change up your learning materials, you aren’t going to be informed on any changes that have occurred within the field of SEO since your materials were initially introduced.

As a result, it’s imperative that you set aside time every week to browse through SEO news websites. You can navigate directly to sites like Search Engine Journal or SEOMoz, or you can use aggregation services like Alltop’s SEO page or Inbound.org to get a quick overview of what’s hot within the field of digital marketing.

While browsing these pages, keep an eye out for trending topics that are covered in multiple articles or across multiple websites, as these subjects typically indicate issues you’ll want to be aware of.

For example, if Google rolls out a change to one of its algorithms, you can bet you’ll see a handful of different articles about the specific update and its implications on every SEO news website out there. The fact that so many people have covered a given topic makes it one that you’ll definitely want to pay attention to!

Yes, it will take time to learn SEO. It’s a complicated field that few have mastered, so plan on putting in plenty of time hitting the books and looking up new terminology. But don’t let this discourage you! Remember that even the most advanced SEOs started out where you are today. Although you might feel overwhelmed right now, know that with consistent, dedicated studying, you’ll soon be talking Web with the best of them!

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-teach-yourself-seo/53574/

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