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December 03, 2008
5 Tips on Choosing the Right SEO Training Resources
5 Important Tips for Choosing Your SEO Skill-Building Resources
by
By John Alexander
These days there are search engine experts galore where ever you look and often there are conflicting opinions.
So how do you really select a voice from among so many voices to listen to and learn from?
Here are 5 tips to consider.
Tip 1. Choose a training organization that is already practicing what they preach.
For example, how can any organization teach you genuine SEO skills and the full scope of search engine marketing if that organization have no search engine visibility for competitive terms for them self? For example, if someone is claiming they will teach you search engine marketing, you should be able to easily find THEM in the top search results. If you can only find them in the PPC ads or Sponsored links, then how are they going to teach you on the proposed topic, if they cannot utilize it for their own company. So use wisdom in selecting from whom you will learn, because SEO these days is far to competitive for guess work. Choose a training organization who can easily be found in the organic listings for highly competitive terms.
Tip 2. Choose a training organization that will teach you more than just how to "gain rankings."
It's true that top rankings are important but what does your training company teach about the value of quality content. One of the challenges that is most common today, is that there is very little emphasis put on the value of content itself. A good educator will not just teach you how to perform optimization, but will also teach you about how to create highly engaging content that is well written and merits some true value to the reader. Learn how to create useful content that truly merits being found and satisfies the visitors initial query. Search engine marketing skills include many other topics besides optimization skills.
Tip 3. Consider "information accuracy" and information that is actually "kept up to date."
From where does your training organization get their specific SEO knowledge? Are you being taught something that is out of date or something that was collected from hearsay on some message board posted by an anonymous person. The only accurate way that you can know something is really current and true, is to test it out. Testing and research is the foundation of gaining accurate facts. As you know, search engines do change the rules often and it's important to operate based on up to date research.
Tip 4. Watch for an emphasis on skill-building rather than a reliance on SEO tools.
Of course there are some excellent tools worth knowing about, but the learning emphasis should be on understanding search engine marketing technique, manual optimization technique and building genuine skills. You need to develop your own "SEM comfort level" and a knowing that you can do the job without too much reliance on what some tool is telling you to do. It's much faster to develop your manual skills in the beginning and then add in certain tools once you have achieved your comfort level. The all important comfort level with your SEO skills is what will change the way you feel about your own abilities. By reason of use and a little practice, you'll experience new-found confidence with working on more and more competitive type of industries.
Tip 5. Find out if your training organization offers any type of ongoing support or mentoring program.
Find a training organization that practices white hat strategies. Consider checking with previous trainees to see how they are coming along with their SEO skills after training. If you see that a training school often has good repeat business, that's an excellent sign too. Many SEO professionals will come back once a year for a refresher training or just to find out the latest changes or newest strategies and bring their skills up to date.
Search Engine Academy has training centers in local communities throughout North America and Asia.
Each SEO Training Academy teaches you more than just how to do traditional best practices. It's personalized instruction plus ongoing mentoring that help you get your skills up to speed in minimal time.
Nothing works as well as when you can learn "by doing."
Best wishes,
John
Posted by John at December 3, 2008 07:43 AM