SEO Experts: Where did you start?

[JCWhelan1]

Hi all!

I'm beginning to travel down the road of becoming an SEO expert! I've attended the latest few webinars on Moz, and have started watching the White Board Fridays. However I'm wondering, for the current SEO Experts, how did you get to where you are today?

I.e. What books did you read? Did you pay for classes or just learn everything from Moz? Where is a good place to get an SEO Expert Certification/Is it necessary? How long did it take you to become an expert? (Stuff like that)

I suppose I'm looking to make a list for myself, organizing what I should learn first, and then create a timeline moving forward.

Thanks for your help Mozzers! - Briana B.

[MonicaOConnor]

Moz has a great section called Learn. I started with blogs like that, and then used Google to look up other forums or topics related to what they had in this section. So, if I read the section on URL formats, I would go to Google and search "best url format for SEO" and read whatever else came up. There are a lot of places that are like Moz, and I think I learned the most from the sites that disagreed with what I found here. It gave me the opportunity to see two sides of the argument and then make an educated decision as to which practice actually was the best practice. 99.9% of the time, what I found in the Learn section of Moz was completely accurate.

I became interested in SEO when I was working for a company that completely got hosed by a firm. Taking what they told us, I just started looking to verify what they were doing because we couldn't see any results.

Take things one step at a time. Start at the beginning with on page optimization and content. Once you feel like you are comfortable with the basics look into off page optimization and social media. Keeping an open mind is essential, this industry is fluid. You will always be able to find more than one way to do something. Learn to trust your gut and always ask yourself if what you are doing is natural and organic. If you are keeping things natural and organic more often than not you are using best practices.

Reading the Q&A forum here is really beneficial as well. I have been working in SEO and PPC for 6 years, and I still learn something new from community members everyday. There is always a new method or GA or GWT update that can change how you use your data, or restricts your data. The people in the community are very much on top of changes in the industry and can give you insight to methodology and best practices.

There are many other community forums, like searchengineland.com. Use every resource you can. I think of Moz as my ground. If I find something out there in cyber space that I find interesting or new, I validate it here.

Welcome to the community and good luck to you!

[JCWhelan1]

Thanks for your advice!

[MonicaOConnor]

Anytime

[iQandil]

Hi there,

Try reading this first http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

Also try reading about Google updates on Search Engine Land website, as well as Moz of course. 3 months old SEO knowledge might be outdated because of changes happening to Google through their updates, mainly Google Panda and Penguin.

Also follow some of the big names on Twitter and keep an eye on relevant tweets.

I hope this helps

Issa

[RyanPurkey]

Hi Briana. Neat question! This could be pretty fascinating as it fills out. Instead of giving you a personal history though, I'll go over some of the things I read or used early on that have continued to serve me well into the present.  And I'll break these up into two areas: Technical and Classical.

Technical

• DNS and HTTP: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596100575.do You'll likely come across many other O'Reilly books as you study (whether on your own or in a course) as they are classics. The other applicable one to DNS being: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596005627.do Finally, combine that with HTTP (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596005627.do) and whenever you come across discussions on whether or not to structure a site with a third level, cname, a name, 301 redirect, 302... whatever, you'll have a solid foundational understanding of what's at play. I read my first one of these back in 2000 and the information has stuck with me ever since.
• Scripting. Another book reference: Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP by Jaimie Sirovich and Cristian Darie, Wrox, April 2007. Their site is here: http://www.seoegghead.com/our-seo-book/search-engine-optimization-with-php.seo.  While their book is on PHP, having an understanding of any scripting language gives you a core understanding of how much of the content on the web goes from server to browser. Java script being another major one as you'll often interact with it on some level, at the least a code to incorporate tracking via Google Analytics or other services.
• CSS. Firebug is my favorite plug in for messing around with CSS. And really it's all about being able to quickly and easily mess around. Its in-browser highlighting features, css window, flexibility are all favorites for quickly tackling look and feel issues. Having an understanding of CSS also makes any discussions with designers all that much more smooth. In that vein...
• Images.  The big technical thing to understand here as far as the web goes is the various file types and how you can accomplish a smaller file that still looks great via formatting in JPG, GIF, or PNG (for the most part). I learned most of this while interacting with Photoshop and using the "Save for Web" feature. In relation to SEO though, the ability for people to share your images goes a long way. Here's how XKCD author Randall Munroe handles it: http://xkcd.com/license.html.
• Bots, Crawlers, and Spiders. Oh my. You can play around with Xenu's Link Sleuth to get a hands-on understanding of the automated web surfers out there as well as reading up on the documentation for Googlebot and others.  The big take away is understanding the difference between the previous two bullets and what bots see when they visit your site.
• SEO Tools. You're in a good place for those! With an understanding of all of the above it will really help you to break down what might be a breakdown in the sites you're analyzing. Moz's guides are excellent reading, along with what you've mentioned doing already. Same goes for things like Google Webmaster Tools, and Google Analytics. GA deserves its own mention under UX, so...
• UX. When you can get a handle on UX you're at the finish line of optimization, but ready for another lap most likely!  If you're site is up (first two bullets), loading quickly and looking nice (second two bullets), indexed (fifth), and ranking well (sixth), knowing how your visitors are interacting with your site and moving towards goals or conversions is key. Being able to work with Analytics (Google or another) is key.  Thankfully there are whole schools dedicated to this: https://analyticsacademy.withgoogle.com/explorer and http://www.google.com/analytics/learn/index.html.

Classical

• Marketing. In regards to the SEO space it's been neat to see how Moz has matured and how the space as a whole better and more conventionally intersects with classical fundamentals of marketing.  Having technical proficiency in the things listed above is one thing, but being able to combine them fluidly with core marketing principals is another. Avinash Kaushik is an excellent example of combining technical proficiency with marketing common sense. His "about" page and blog roll are filled with others who do both well.
• Sales. If you have the opportunity at some point, definitely work as closely as possible with a sales team. Especially the ones that crush it on a regular basis. Ask them what they want in terms of leads. What would their perfect lead be? How do they use the website currently? When you begin connecting the dots from search to visit to sale you're at the top of your class.  Conversion Rate Experts are a great example and their story is pretty instructive.
• MBA. If you're going to take the plunge in education and are going for a corporate setting, an MBA from well-regarded institution still goes a long way. By no means a requirement for success in the field (too many examples to list) it still has its place in many people's timeline.
• Conscientious. Look at any timeline and the ones that see the most growth and success--often despite blunders, mistakes, and tangents along the way--are the people that interact with others in a healthy, patient and kind way. If you come across some one who is the opposite of this let the go along their own way and keep on your own path. You might turn down work because of it from time to time, but you'll have the reserves to find more and continue onward if you do.

Those are some top of mind highlights. Best wishes for your success!

[JCWhelan1]

Wow - I'll be taking a look at everything you have provided me. Thanks a bunch Ryan!! -Briana B.

[EGOL]

Built a small website.  Nuthin' happened.

Read about SEO.  Tried something.  Watched what happened.

Read more about SEO.  Tried something else.  Watched what happened.

Read more about SEO.  Tried something else.  Watched what happened.  Rankings dropped.  Couldn't remember what I changed.

Started writing stuff down.

Read more about SEO.  Tried something else.  Watched what happened.

Read more about SEO.  Tried something else.  Watched what happened.

Read more about SEO.  Tried something else.  Watched what happened.

Read more about SEO.  Tried something else.  Watched what happened.

Stopped doing SEO.   Instead spent time improving website and writing content.  Got better results.

[TheeDigital]

Read everything, believe half of it, test everything twice whether you believe it or not.