Emma-Julie Fox writes blogs and guest blogs for Pitstop Media Inc on SEO and online marketing best practices. The company is based in Vancouver and provides SEO services to North American businesses. As more and more entrepreneurs recognize the importance of having a website these days, you can expect competition for top search rankings to become tougher than ever. And with Google’s regular algorithm updates, it becomes even more important to stay on top of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) trends. Whether you’ve chosen to hire an in-house SEO manager or not and whether or not you choose to outsource your SEO, it pays for you, as a business owner, to learn as much as you can about SEO. Fortunately, there are online resources that can help you learn the basics of SEO and stay on top of your game. For Beginners Learn the rudiments before blasting off into the sunset. This section shows you free resources that are geared toward greenhorns. Flickr photo by bokeh burger If you’re new to SEO and simply want to take in a little of the basics each day, these are the best resources for you to check out: Google’s SEO Guidelines Since we’re talking about optimizing your web pages for search engines, where else should we start than with the world’s largest search engine? Of course, we’re not saying you should do everything Google tells you to do, but it certainly pays to know what they have to say about the various SEO techniques and strategies you may be thinking about using. Google Webmaster Guidelines As you browse through Google’s SEO guidelines, you’ll see a recommendation to familiarize the way search engines work. It would indeed be wise to do so in order for you to gain a better understanding on how you can effectively optimize your web pages. The webmaster guidelines will help you learn how to make it easier for Google to find, index, and rank your pages. Google Basics Also known as Google 101, this resource tells you all about the manner in which Google crawls the web, indexes web pages, and serves up results. This will help you design your SEO strategies such that it’s easier for your pages to get indexed and ranked on top of Google search results pages. The Beginner’s Guide to SEO (SEOMoz) Our list will never be complete without this resource in it. It is just a small part of the vast library of resources found in SEOMoz, but it can be one of the best ways for you to start learning about SEO. It is comprised of ten chapters, each of which offers comprehensive information that’ll help get you on the road towards becoming adept at SEO. Google-Friendly Sites (Webmaster Tools) This may just be a one-page article, but it provides you with vital information as to what Google views as high-quality sites. It tells you what signals Google use to determine the quality of a particular website. When you read the article, therefore, you’ll learn the basics of what you’ll need to do to have your website rank well on Google and perhaps even on other search engines. Wikipedia Article on PageRank Gaining a good understanding of PageRank is important for you to understand why some websites rank better than others on Google. This article provides you with a very good background on PageRank (description, history, variations, etc.). It is, in fact, referenced by some of Google’s own employees. Basic SEO Tips (Buzzfeed Article) If you’re completely new to SEO, it is sometimes a good idea to take things slow. Otherwise, you could be in danger of suffering information overload. In the interest of taking things slow, you may want to start learning about SEO with this buzzfeed article, which gives you five basic tips on how to begin optimizing your site. SEO Tips for Bloggers Blogging is now deemed an important part of both social media marketing (SMM) and content marketing. This is why many business owners have chosen to establish and maintain an official blog. Of course, it is just as important to optimize your blog as it is to optimize your company website. The eight tips provided in this article can give you a head start on getting more people to regularly visit your blog. Google SEO Starter Guide If you’re up for some heavy reading, this 32-page guide may be the best starter kit for you. It contains some very useful advice on the basics of SEO, improving the structure and design of your website, optimizing your site content, and even on going mobile. This guide may have been created way back 2010, but it still contains a lot of information that remains relevant to this day. The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine This is a paper submitted by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, when they were working to earn their PhD at Stanford University. This paper serves as a sort of blueprint for how Google works and although Google as we know it is far more vast and complex than what is described in the paper, this is still an excellent resource for understanding the inner workings of today’s search engines. SEO Fast Start This free downloadable eBook is written by Dan Thies, whose straightforward writing style makes it very easy for beginners to understand the concept of SEO. Although it’s been a few years since this was first published, it has in no way become outdated. That’s because the author takes the time to update each edition with the latest SEO tips, techniques, and trends. What is SEO? (Search Engine Land Article) Aside from getting a clear understanding of how search engines work, you’d also need to understand what SEO is in the first place. This article tells you what SEO is all about in easy to understand terms. It also provides some useful advice to those who are new to SEO. More importantly, it offers […]
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