7 SEO Training Tips - With all of Your Getting -
be sure to get understanding.

By John Alexander

Of the many offers we hear people who often get disappointed when then spend a small fortune to "learn SEO" but generally come away with something they never expected like purchasing some expensive tool set or worse, they end up giving up on their project before they ever get started. Some people end up just being handed the same best practices list that they could get for free online.

These days SEO training and building SEO accuracy is obtained more easily than ever before, for the serious business owner who wants the right solutions to be able to compete online and win. This leads us to the title of today's series of tips.

When it comes to SEO Training and Search Marketing, be sure that with all the information you're getting, be sure to get understanding.

To be able to optimize your projects accurately and without guess work is essential. The reason why, is that it saves your literally weeks of wasted time. Time is money.
Before you adopt the idea of trying to learn how to reverse engineer some algorithm (as many marketers suggest you absolutely need to do.) Remember that your true target is your competition not the search engine or its algorithm. You are not even in a war with search engines as some try to make you think. You are in competition with your competitors only.
Every time you check your rankings within the search results, be aware of the most recent changes in personalization of search (and with localization.) Just because you see one of your pages in number 1 position, does NOT mean that the rest of the world does. Stop using traditional ranking on a scale of 1 to 10 as a means to judge or benchmark your progress.
Have you ever thought of investing in the creation of a rank checking tool? Save your money. All of the rank checking tools are working the way they always have. Some things have changed, but it's not the tools.
It is the search engines and the way they sort results.
When it comes to measuring keyword research and clusters of phrase combinations, things are not what they appear to be either. To treat your keywords as though they were all identical and equivalent is wrong, because you must consider each keyword phrase based on its competitive landscape. For years people have made assumptions that if this set of rules is true for one keyword phrase, the same rules apply across the board. As semantics expert Michael Marshall explains, "keywords are all graded on a curve, by phrase and by industry."
The question is no longer where do I rank on a scale of 1 to 10. For the future, the informed optimization professional will be examining, "Where do I rank for my most correct search audience AND for what percentage of the time am I most easily found.?"
When are "best practices" good to follow? Usually best practices are very reliable so long as they are outlining the negative things to stay away from doing. For instance when Google's Webmaster Guidelines give you a list of things not to do, like don't keyword stuff or don't cloak or don't use hidden text or don't use invisible links etc.
These are all list of things the search engines advise against and they are useful in the sense of best practices.

The Value of Understanding How Things Work as a Sequence of Operations in a Search Engine

Nothing compares to grasping a true understanding of how something works. It's better than guessing at it or spending years of trial and error. The true value of understanding exactly how search engines function, is that it means you don't have to feel like your in the dark just because the search engines changed. Change itself is one of your greatest assets, since you'll understand how things work. When something changes, then you can change too without being afraid.

In summary, what I encourage you to do is to attend any one of our live hands-on SEO Mastery Workshops in local communities around the globe. Each class is personalized training and includes a 6 month mentoring program afterwards at no extra cost.

Our next Workshop that I will be conducting is in Orlando on July 12-15, 2010 and joining me will be Robin Nobles and Michael Marshal. Orlando Details are here.

If you are looking for something a little close to home, choose one of our upcoming live Search Engine Academies from our future dates page.

About John Alexander
John Alexander is Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses. John has taught SEO skills to people from 87 different countries world wide.

John is also Director of Search Engine Academy with localized Search Engine Academy training centers where the Complete SEO Mastery Workshop and 6 Month Mentoring program is taught locally to business owners and individuals in communities across North America and Internationally in Asia and in Australia.

We'll keep you advised on all of our future training dates the moment things are firmed up.
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7 SEO Training Tips - With all of Your Getting - be sure to get understanding.

When it comes to SEO Training and Search Marketing, be sure that with all the information you're getting, be sure to get understanding.

The Value of Understanding How Things Work as a Sequence of Operations in a Search Engine

John Alexander

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7 SEO Training Tips - With all of Your Getting -
be sure to get understanding.