Two years ago, Rand Fishkin (the CEO and co-founder of SEOmoz) wrote an excellent post about learning SEO: 6 Ways to Learn SEO.
Many of the resources listed in that post are still extremely valuable; however, a lot has changed in two years. To help keep you current, I’m going to channel my inner Rand and give you an updated list of resources to learn SEO.
Free Online Guides
One of the fastest ways to learn SEO basics is through an online guide. The best guides contain a wealth of information, and they are updated regularly. But before we dive into a few examples, let’s watch Rand give us an overview of SEO:
For more introductory information, here are a few of the best free SEO guides:
(1) SEOmoz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO – This is one of the most popular (it’s been read over 1 million times) and most informative guides you’ll find. It’s broken into 10 chapters, and it covers topics such as how search engines operate, keyword research, basic link building, and how to measure the success of your SEO campaigns. Best of all, the guide was updated in May 2012.
(2) Rand’s Introduction to SEO – This presentation (shown below) is a little dated (August 2010), but it is still incredibly useful. It includes 150 slides, and as Rand explains, “It covers the search engine landscape, the SEO process, keyword research, link building and the emergence of social media as a ranking signal.”
(3) Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide – This is a great introductory guide with numerous best practices for accessibility, indexability, and on-page SEO.
(4) Search Engine Land’s What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization? Guide – This “guide” is actually a collection of valuable resources, including an introductory video, The Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors (shown below), a Guide To SEO that explains the periodic table, and a few of the site’s most popular articles.
(5) HubSpot’s Learning SEO From the Experts: A Step-By-Step Guide – This free guide includes 27 pages that are dedicated to topics such as keyword research, on-page SEO, link building, and social media.
(6) Web Gnomes’ Getting Started with SEO: The Definitive Beginner’s Guide – Our free eBook covers a wide range of SEO topics, including how search engines work, on-page SEO, link building, social media, and measuring SEO success.
Published Books
Sometimes people just enjoy having a book in their hands, and if you fall into that category, there are plenty of solid introductory SEO books to choose from. Unfortunately, every book on this list is already outdated to a certain extent (that’s just the nature of the industry), but they’re still useful for learning SEO fundamentals.
 |
Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy IS Your Business Strategy Vanessa Fox ISBN: 978-1118231937 May 2012 254 pages |
 |
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Secrets Danny Dover and Erik Dafforn ISBN: 978-0470554180 March 2011 456 pages |
 |
The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin, and Jessie Stricchiola ISBN: 978-0596518868 October 2009 608 pages |
 |
Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity Avinash Kaushik ISBN: 978-0470529393 October 2009 475 pages |
 |
Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah ISBN: 978-0470499313 October 2009 256 pages |
 |
The Truth About Search Engine Optimization Rebecca Lieb ISBN: 978-0789738318 February 2009 224 pages |
 |
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability Steve Krug ISBN: 978-0321344755 August 2005 216 pages |
Blogs, Articles, Videos, and Forums
Online guides and books are great for establishing a foundation of SEO knowledge, but for the latest and greatest insights from the community, you should spend some time every day (or at least every week) reading and interacting with industry blogs and forums.
Blogs
Here are a few of the most established SEO blogs:
This isn’t an exhaustive list, but these blogs will help you learn SEO, and they’ll also introduce you to many of the thought leaders in the SEO industry.
Articles
The blogs listed in the previous section are great for following new developments in the industry, but until you learn SEO fundamentals, they can be a bit overwhelming. To help speed up the SEO learning process, here are a few of the most useful articles that have been written about various SEO topics:
Keyword Research
- The Ultimate Guide to Keyword Research – The title says it all. This is, in fact, the ultimate guide to keyword research. It covers the different types of keywords, how to find them, how to use them for blogging, and how to use them for affiliate marketing.
- Keyword Research for Web Writers and Content Producers – This five-part guide to keyword research teaches you how to find a popular niche, how to find popular topics, and how to find profitable keywords.
On-Page SEO
- Perfecting Keyword Targeting & On-Page Optimization – This 2009 post by Rand is still one of the best on-page resources ever written. If you want to learn the fundamentals of on-page SEO, read this article.
- Perfecting On-Page Optimization for Ecommerce Websites – In this article, Paddy Moogan offers an updated view of on-page SEO in the context of e-commerce websites.
Content Marketing
- The Complete Guide to Blogging for your Business – In this guide, James Agate teaches you how to build your business through blogging. A few of the topics he covers include why you should blog, what you should write about, and how you should promote what you’ve written.
- Content Marketing 101: How to Build an Audience that Builds Your Business – This 6-part content marketing tutorial teaches you everything you need to know to begin creating content that will attract potential customers.
Link Building
- Link Building Strategies – The Complete List – Once again, the title says it all. Jon Cooper’s list of link building strategies is one of the most comprehensive resources you will find on link building.
- The Noob Guide to Link Building – In this article, Mike King outlines a six month link building action plan that is designed to help “noobs” (i.e., people that are new to the SEO game) attract links to their sites.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
- The SEOgadget Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization – This infographic (and corresponding explanation) by Richard Baxter and the SEOgadget team is one of the best resources you will find about CRO. It breaks down the entire process, and it offers actionable advice every step of the way.
- Your Landing Page Sucks! Here are 10 Examples That Don’t… – In this article, Oli Gardner presents 10 landing page examples, and he offers concrete feedback about what he likes and what he would change about each example to generate more conversions.
Local SEO
- Local Search Ranking Factors – Every year, David Mihm releases a list of important ranking factors for local SEO (based on feedback from the best local SEO practitioners in the industry). It’s a must-read if you want to improve an organization’s local search ranking.
- Local Search Data Providers in the U.S. and Canada – This is an excellent guide that illustrates the local search ecosystem in the U.S. and Canada.
Social Media
- The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media – This guide actually consists of 5 individual guides that discuss how to use the following social networking communities: Tumblr, LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter.
- The Ultimate Google+ SEO Guide – In this article, A.J. Kohn provides the definitive guide to Google+ SEO. If you have any questions about Google+, this is the first resource you should consult.
Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising
- Google AdWords: The Small Business Guide – This is an excellent interactive guide to PPC advertising using Google AdWords. It offers a step-by-step approach to creating and managing a campaign, and at each step, it also offers links to additional resources.
- The Best PPC Blogs – The Definitive List of Pay-Per Click Blogs – I’ll keep this short and sweet. If you want to learn PPC, this resource will teach you. Period.
SEO Tools
- 33 Free SEO Tools You Should Know About – This is an excellent collection of free SEO tools that covers numerous SEO tasks (e.g., keyword research, backlink investigation, etc.).
- 55 SEO Productivity Tools We Use at Single Grain – This is another outstanding list of SEO tools (and most of them are unique compared to the previous list).
Miscellaneous
- A Stalker’s Guide to Competitive Research – In this article, Selena Narayanasamy provides a comprehensive approach to competitive research. If you want to investigate a competitor’s strategy (and you should), this is the first post you should read.
- How to Perform the World’s Greatest SEO Audit – This is an excellent guide that illustrates many of the important components for an effective SEO audit. It’s one of my favorite articles, but I’m obviously biased ;-).
- Search Engine Ranking Factors – This is an excellent resource that helps quantify the relative importance of various signals (e.g., number of unique linking root domains, number of social shares, etc.) for ranking in the search engines.
- The New SEO Process (Quit Being Kanye) – In this article, Mike King describes the old SEO process (in which SEO is incorrectly treated like it exists in a vacuum) and provides a new process that embraces the expanded role of SEO and its integration into the overall marketing mix.
- Dealing With The Increasing Complexity and Volume of SEO Tasks – This is an incredibly in-depth discussion of the ever-expanding list of tasks that fall under the SEO umbrella. It describes numerous topics (e.g., brand building, social integration, local SEO, etc.), and it offers many helpful resources for each of those topics.
Videos
I enjoy reading as much as the next guy, but it’s usually more fun to learn SEO by watching videos. With that in mind, here are a few popular video collections:
- Whiteboard Friday Videos – Every Friday, SEOmoz releases a new educational video about an SEO-related topic. The videos are an excellent way to end the SEO workweek.
- Google Webmasters YouTube Channel – Google regularly publishes videos that address SEO-related questions. They’ve also recently launched an educational series of videos called Webmaster Academy.
- Distilled SEO Protips – Distilled has created a YouTube playlist full of short educational videos. They also offer a free service that emails you an SEO video every month.
- SEO Book Free Videos – SEO Book offers a subset of their training videos for free. These videos cover topics such as keyword research, on-page SEO, and link building.
We can’t have a section on videos without actually showing a video so here’s a popular Whiteboard Friday video about SEO myths:
Forums
After you’ve read a few articles and watched a few videos, you’ll probably have a few lingering SEO questions. Fortunately, there are a number of forums that will allow you to ask those questions and interact with other SEO enthusiasts.
Here are a few of the most popular SEO forums:
SEOing Your Own Sites
Once you know the SEO best practices, it’s time to start applying that knowledge and experimenting with your own websites. You can’t truly learn SEO unless you actually do SEO.
One of the best guides for starting this process is still The Beginner’s Checklist for Learning SEO by Danny Dover.
Using this checklist, Danny guides you through the process of creating a website (and getting it hosted), identifying keywords, performing basic on-page and off-page SEO, and monitoring your efforts. Combine Danny’s step-by-step approach with the resources above, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a full-fledged SEO!
Social Media
As you continue to expand your theoretical and practical SEO knowledge, it’s important to begin participating in the SEO conversation taking place through social media.
Social media has become a critical component of this industry, and it offers at least 3 benefits:
- Relationship Building – We all know the value of strong industry relationships, and social media helps facilitate the creation of those relationships, regardless of geographic location.
- Information Sharing – The SEO community is incredibly helpful and openly willing to answer questions and exchange ideas.
- Knowledge Leadership – Once you begin making your own contributions to the SEO knowledge base, social media is an excellent forum for promoting those contributions and establishing yourself as an industry leader.
For a massive list of people in the SEO industry to follow on Twitter (or encircle on Google+), check out this list of 101 Internet marketers on Twitter & Google+.
If that list is too overwhelming, here’s the Mount Rushmore of SEO (based on popularity, influence, and seniority):
From left to right, here’s more information about the guys found on the mountain:
 |
Danny Sullivan Twitter: @dannysullivan Google+: Danny Sullivan Twitter Bio: Editor of SearchEngineLand.com, covering Google, SEO, PPC and all aspects of search engines and search marketing. |
 |
Matt Cutts Twitter: @mattcutts Google+: Matt Cutts Twitter Bio: I’m the head of the webspam team at Google. |
 |
Aaron Wall Twitter: @seobook Google+: Aaron Wall Twitter Bio: We cover the SEO and search marketing space as well as general changes to the web. |
 |
Rand Fishkin Twitter: @randfish Google+: Rand Fishkin Twitter Bio: CEO + founder of SEOmoz. I tweet 50-75X/week primarily on inbound marketing, SEO, startups & entrepreneurship. |
Conferences and Events
Now that you’ve learned the SEO basics and built some amazing online relationships, it’s time to take your SEO learning into the real world.
Conferences are a great way to learn from the biggest names in the industry, and they provide an incredible venue for networking with like-minded individuals.
Here are a few of the most popular SEO conferences:
If you’re not ready to attend an SEO conference just yet, you still have options that are closer to home. For example, most major cities have at least one SEO-related Meetup group.
I encourage you to search for Meetups in your local area, but here is a list of the most popular Search Engine Optimization Meetup groups.
You can also find local SEO events by contacting your local Chamber of Commerce.
Conclusion
Obviously, there are many different ways to learn SEO. You can read online guides and blogs. You can watch educational videos. You can exchange ideas through social media or in the real world.
No matter how you decide to learn, the important thing is that you actually start learning… and don’t stop. Like most technology-based industries, the world of SEO is constantly evolving, and it requires ongoing education.
With that in mind, I’d love to hear how you learned SEO. What helped you the most, and what advice do you have for SEO newbies?
Fantastic resource guys, already sent it on to some guys learning the trade.
Thanks Gaz! Hopefully, the post will help them get up to speed quicker 🙂
Wow, awesome article Steve. So many resources here! I use a lot of these when training new team members, but to have all of them in one place (and well categorised too) is really helpful.
Just one thing I didn’t see mentioned was Google’s own training videos on Analytics. These are an amazing resource and anyone starting out should watch these: http://www.google.com/analytics/iq.html.
Thanks for those kind words Rowan 🙂
And thanks for the link to the Analytics videos; that’s a great addition!
Hey Steve,
Thanks for sharing this amazing collection’s; really this post is very informative.
You’re very welcome Abhishek; I’m really glad you enjoyed it 🙂
Hi Steve, great post, even I got navigated from commend posted in a seomoz post by Will, your post is excellent. Really it treats like a refresher course. Thanks a lot for the post.
Hi Brahmadas,
I’m glad you found our site and enjoyed the post 🙂 Thanks for commenting!
-Steve