Learning SEO: The Quick Start Guide for Beginners
03/06/10
Learning search engine optimization, or SEO, is a good skill for anyone who works in web design, web coding and programming, or simply writing for the web. Even if you are not part of your company's official optimization team, having a good grasp of SEO concepts makes it possible for you to create content that is highly optimized from the beginning. If you are puzzled about how to go about learning SEO, read on for a quick guide.
If you are a novice, you should start by reading a self guided textbook or taking a class at your local adult learning center, whichever method is more in tune with your learning style. This will help you to master the basics. This step is doubly necessary if you are also new to writing HTML and CSS. If you have a slightly more advanced understanding of the fundamentals of SEO, a short class or seminar (say, one to three days) would be a good way to top off your knowledge of optimization.
Once you have mastered the basics of search engine optimization, the next step is self study. Choose from the scores of solidly reputable SEO article collections and blogs around, or the handful of truly good forums. (Look around before you settle on a set of sites to read. SEO, like any other high powered topic, is full of spammers and idiots as well as real professionals, so finding sites with real experts is vital.) After the first week of study, you will probably find yourself moving away from "how to" sites and article directories and toward SEO blogs and forums. This is a sign of progress. It means you fully understand the techniques of SEO and are looking for advanced tricks and new developments.
Keeping your knowledge of SEO and all the developments in the field up to date is essential. As search engines fine tune their filters to sift out spammers, web professionals must adapt to the search engines' new expectations and rework their sites to fit. Not optimizing to the very latest set of search engine specifications can be the difference between the first page of the search results and the 247th page. Reading forums and top bloggers will keep your SEO knowledge up to date, and attending seminars and web specialist conventions can give you an extra edge.
As you can see, mastering SEO is not a simple matter of taking an SEO certification program and getting an official stamp of approval at the end. First you need to learn the basics, then you need to stay on top of new developments. However, once you have the basics of SEO down, an hour or two a week is all it takes to stay current in the field. Persistence is the key. Keep reading, and soon you, too, will be a master of SEO.
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