15 Sites for Learning and Mastering SEO
Posted December 14, 2009 in Marketing, Tools/Resources 65 Comments »
We recently compiled a list of some of the best social media blogs on the web. Although maintaining healthy relationships and building a strong network on the web is crucial, search engine placement certainly can’t be ignored either.
We all know the impact of search engines on our daily traffic. It can be a make or break deal. With Google covering the most ground on search engine space and Bing slowly trying to catch up, it is a must for freelancers to learn the basics of search engine optimization. The key is to utilize both social media and search engines in a way that gets you the most from both worlds.
Here are 15 SEO blogs that you should read if you are interesting in mastering SEO:
15 SEO Blogs You Should Read
Some of these blogs will help you learn the basics of how search engines work, and others will keep you up-to-date on what’s new in search space. I’ve included a brief excerpt from each one to give you an idea of what these blogs are all about.
Go ahead and add these blogs to your feed reader and get ready to dominate search engines with rankings that will be hard to beat. These blogs aren’t mentioned in any particular order.
- Matt Cutts: Matt Cutts joined Google in 2000 and currently leads Google’s webspam team. Matt wrote the first version of Safesearch, Google’s family filter.
- Search Engine Land: Search Engine Land is a news and information site covering search engine marketing, searching issues and the search engine industry. The site is led by journalist Danny Sullivan, who has been covering search for the past 11 years.
- Michael Gray: Michael Gray became involved in web development and website management in 1998. He was Webmaster for a major specialty retailer, helping create their website presence and growing their online sales from less than $10,000 a month to over $25 million in annual web sales. Michael has been involved with affiliate marketing campaigns for several years and does consulting work on a variety of topics such as SEO, Social Media and Blog Management.
- Search Engine Roundtable : The purpose behind the Search Engine Roundtable is to report on the most interesting threads taking place at the SEM (Search Engine Marketing) forums. By enlisting some of the most recognized names at those forums, the Roundtable is able to not only report on these outstanding threads, but also to provide a synopsis that provides greater detail into those threads.
Note: Search Engine Roundtable turned six on Dec. 2nd. Head over and wish them a happy belated birthday!
- SEOmoz: SEOmoz provides companies around the world with consulting, Internet marketing and search engine optimization services. With over 55,000 subscribers, SEOmoz is one of the most popular blogs when it comes to search engines.
- Search Engine Marketing Blog: RedFly Marketing (company that runs search engine marketing blog) is a full service search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), and online advertising company based in Dublin, Ireland.
- Search Engine Watch: Search Engine Watch provides tips and information about searching the web, analysis of the search engine industry and help to site owners trying to improve their ability to be found in search engines.
- Search Engine Journal: Search Engine Journal, established in 2003, is a six year old publication of Search & Social Media, LLC, which specializes in a community approach to the reporting of search engine news & the sharing of Search Engine Marketing knowledge & tactics.
- Blogstorm: Blogstorm is the UK’s largest blog discussing internet marketing and search engine optimisation news & strategies. Patrick is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds based full service digital agency specializing in search engine optimization and social media marketing as well as building and designing websites and applications.
- Search Engine Marketing Group: The Search Engine Marketing Group was founded in early 2006 by serial entrepreneur Gerald Weber. What started as a Houston website consulting and design firm has quickly grown into one of the leading Houston search engine marketing companies.
- SEO Scoop: SEO Scoop is a community oriented search engine optimization blog, enabling a group of SEOs to share search engine optimization experience and theories with other interested SEOs.
- Blue Hat SEO: BlueHatSEO.com is the only website on the Internet that is completely dedicated to the art of Advanced SEO. Blue Hat SEO is essentially the study of advanced Internet marketing and search engine optimization techniques. Blue Hat SEO covers the advanced knowledge of both Black Hat and White Hat SEO.
- Daily SEO Blog: You can find practical, jargon free SEO tips here that you can take back home and implement on your site. Most of the articles featured here are the outcome of Mani Karthik’s experiences with the SEO learning process.
- SEO 2.0: Tadeusz Szewczyk alias “Tad Chef” is Germany’s most notorious white hat SEO, assaulting outdated SEO practices since 2004. He has been messing with the Internet since 1997 and therefore has all the scars of a web developer.
- Ask Kalena: AskKalena.com is a search engine advice column where users send their search related questions. Kalena Jordan is one of the original search engine blog writers who describes herself as “the search industry’s first agony aunt.”
Conclusion
Whether you are focused primarily on social media or search, just remember to put a bit of work into both. When it comes to letting others know of your freelance business, don’t think of search and social media as an “either or” proposition, think of it as a “when and how” challenge.
Your Turn To Share
The blogs mentioned above are the ones that I visit regularly to learn and stay current on search engine trends. Feel free to add more to the list in the comment section. If you have any SEO tips and tricks for fellow freelancers, make sure you share them with the rest of us.
Image by timusan
About the author: Ritu is a freelance writer who has been involved in social media for several years. At the moment he is working on a variety of projects, but is always open to new ideas. Contact him at email(at)ritubpant(dot)com or follow @ritubpant on twitter.
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65 Comments
Chris Green
December 14th, 2009 at 10:30 amGreat article. We created a free guide to getting started in ‘DIY SEO’ that people may find useful:
http://www.callowaygreen.com/diyseo/
Luke Jones
December 14th, 2009 at 10:44 amWithout a doubt, SEOMoz is the most interesting, insightful and resourceful blog that I have in my RSS Reader and I wouldn’t know half the stuff I do about SEO without it.
It’s the one I’d recommend most out of that whole list.
Kevin Donnigan
December 14th, 2009 at 1:38 pmNice collection. I’ve been looking for something like this! Thank you.
Jenna Molby
December 14th, 2009 at 1:42 pmGreat collection, thanks for sharing!
Travis Thorpe
December 14th, 2009 at 3:10 pmBoostability.com is a DIY site that helps you do SEO tasks without spending hours reading books or blogs. We tell you exactly what to do , why you are doing and how to do it. Start with our free automated website analysis then try our product for free.
goofydg1
December 14th, 2009 at 3:15 pmnice list
Kristi Hines
December 14th, 2009 at 4:12 pmSearch Engine Journal covers a lot more than just SEO techniques… they do a updates on the latest technology, social media news, and blogging tips.
As far as tips and tricks for other freelancers, the biggest thing to keep aware of is that any SEO efforts you are making for clients must look natural, otherwise your client could end up being dinged by Google. And the last thing you want is for your client to have their site de-indexed from Google search results because someone insisted that it was a good idea to build up 200 links within three weeks of a website’s launch.
Hermitbiker
December 14th, 2009 at 5:40 pmA great collection about “learning & mastering”… SEO !! Thanks “FreelanceFolder” !!
Gerry Grant
December 14th, 2009 at 5:52 pmSearch-Optimization.com is one of the oldest SEO sites around with Gerry Grant starting in 1994. Read the Best Practices for some good basic knowledge. Read the blog http://www.Search-Optimization.com/blog for up to date information.
Mark Thompson
December 14th, 2009 at 11:10 pmThe sites you have listed are a great starting point if you are new to SEO. There are a lot of other great blogs like Bruce Clay (covers a lot of search conferences and industry news), Marketing Pilgrim (internet marketing news), and you can also check out my blog, StayOnSearch (SEO, social media, internet strategies, tips and resources)
Ritu
December 14th, 2009 at 11:22 pmThanks for all your comments guys. I appreciate you taking the time to go through the list.
@John.greatwall : I understand you are new to SEO but you are not taking the right approach. Hopefully, you will learn as you go on but you certainly are headed the wrong path. Spam does not equal effective search engine optimization. Good luck
Amin Haq
December 15th, 2009 at 4:10 amThank you for compiling and publishing the list. As a search marketing agency we regularly read Search Engine Watch, SEOMOZ, Search Engine Land and Matt Cutts.
We have put together a training manual for our SEO team which we would like to share with folks interested in learning about this exciting field.
http://www.mediaflint.com/masteringSEOcampaigns.html
Heather Villa
December 15th, 2009 at 6:08 amThanks for list! I’ve been reading SEO scoop some and that has been a great resource for me. I’ll be checking out the other too.
Phoenix Full Speed SEO
December 15th, 2009 at 6:57 amNice write up. Eli (Bluehat) is certainly dedicated, as you said, to the “Art” of advanced SEO. Sometimes, I read posts, and come back a week later to read them again to see if they make sense yet.
Lol
Nice list.
Josh
Keith Johnson
December 15th, 2009 at 9:57 amOutstanding article, Ritu! Many thanks for sharing.
Raymond
December 15th, 2009 at 1:09 pmNice list but what about Dan Thies? He taught Brad Fallon a lot on SEO. Dan also gives away SEO Fast Start, a great SEO primer.
http://www.seofaststart.com/
Mike B
December 15th, 2009 at 1:33 pmThanks for compiling this. SEO is really important when building websites of course, otherwise there’s no point in developing a site, as it’ll just sink to the recesses of the web and never be seen by anyone!
juan
December 15th, 2009 at 7:08 pmKeep with good work!
rohn smith
December 16th, 2009 at 7:42 amHi these are really help full sites for beginner ,i have learn many things form their.Thanks for sharing
Freelance SEO India
December 16th, 2009 at 2:25 pmThe domain can be utilized for developing a community or handshaking platform for Webmasters and Link Builders. The domain can also be utilized by any freelance SEO Professional to create a website providing all services or to publish his/her portfolio. The domain is available for sell. Kindly contact at seosaxena[at]gmail[dot]com if interested.
proiecte case
December 17th, 2009 at 4:35 amthx for sharing,
Reciprocal Link Checker Link building is very crucial to effective SEO. An easy way of building back links is through reciprocal linking, which is the exchange of links with other webmasters. Not all webmasters you exchange links with will keep your link in their site however, as some of them remove it soon after you exchange links. The more the exchanges you make, the harder it becomes to keep track of the number of reciprocal links you have. This tool enables you to check how many reciprocal links you have and their status with one click.
SEO Blog
December 17th, 2009 at 5:05 amThere’s so much misinformation out there that people don’t really know what is and is not. It’s refreshing to see people that know what they’re talking about. You have an Informed commentary seems to be a rare commodity these days. Keep it coming SEO Blog
Website Designing India
December 17th, 2009 at 10:32 amSearch Engine Optimisation is all about increasing traffic to your website. It’s benificial for every one who wants increase him websites traffic.
Kayla S., SEM Manager
December 23rd, 2009 at 8:02 pmGreat collection! I do follow quite a few from the list, but after reviewing some of the ones I haven’t read before, I think I’m becoming their fan. Thanks for sharing!
SEO Tips
December 29th, 2009 at 10:51 amThanks for a great article. I’ve been searching for this kind information for a while and had not found it until today. It’s rare to find well written articles like this anymore so I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Thanks again for sharing this information. SEO Tips
Pat
January 19th, 2010 at 6:53 amExcellent article. When people are starting out in SEO it’s difficult to seperate the leaders from the followers. This article will give those budding professionals somewhere to refer to.
Keith
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:01 pmGreat list! I’ve been on SEOmoz and I agree it’s an amazing site for finding SEO techniques, I’m going to check out some more on your list right now, thanks.
ireland seo agency
January 22nd, 2010 at 4:26 pmThis is a great reading. Thanks for sharing this information. We have few readers who would like to read this stuff. We will pass it on to our readers for more feedback. We are dealing with seo firms and would like to get feedback from you too. This is a nice postings indeed. Thanking You. london seo agency ireland seo agency
ireland seo agencies
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:17 pmThis is a great reading. Thanks for sharing this information. We have few readers who would like to read this stuff. We will pass it on to our readers for more feedback. We are dealing with seo firms and would like to get feedback from you too. This is a nice postings indeed. Thanking You. london seo agency ireland seo agencies
learn seo
January 23rd, 2010 at 12:14 amI am thankful to you for all these resources. I was wondering for some good sources to get started with SEO, you have resolved this issue.
search rounds
January 27th, 2010 at 4:30 amThanks for sharing the Nice collection. Seo is the process where people really need some good resources. Thanks
seo India
jhnsmith978
January 27th, 2010 at 8:32 amYeah, Nice information man..For me too the best place to learn SEO is through looking for forums and blogs because they will give you basic instruction on how to work on SEO. SEO is a very interesting as well as very challenging job which calls for special expertise.. You have given a nice tips for the beginners whoever are interested to go for Search Engine Optimization..
http://www.seopaathshala.com
Johnson
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:05 pmReally thanks to share this blog all blogs are so informatics thanks again for sharing this info.
Seo uk
February 11th, 2010 at 6:18 amVery useful article. Thanks to the author of this seo tips.
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