There are plenty of websites out there that will teach you about SEO and Internet Marketing.  Some sites, like SEOmoz or SEObook, will share their knowledge with you for free (because you’re paying them by clicking on the adverts or affiliate links scattered throughout their sites or by paying for their premium training and tools) while others, like Search Engine College, will take your money in exchange for a structured course that will train you in whichever aspects of Internet Marketing you choose.

My personal favourite is the SEO Training Dojo, which has a fantastic community of very knowledgeable people who are always happy to chat and offer advice in the community’s Skype chatroom.  The Dojo also has a huge library of training articles and videos compiled from sources across the web that cover nearly every aspect of SEO and Internet Marketing and they now produce a weekly podcast where the Dojo’s team of so-called “Regulators” go over the latest news from the SEO world along with regular guest experts.

But are any of these sites really The Best Site For Learning SEO?They’re all great resources for learning about the latest changes in Search Engines and the newest theories about how to achieve the best possible rankings in search results, but there’s really only so much you can ever learn about SEO just by reading articles, no matter how well written and researched they may be.

The simple truth is that there’s only one website where you can truly learn everything you need to know about SEO…

Your own.

I doesn’t matter how many SEO blogs you subscribe to or how many “SEO Experts” you follow on Twitter.  All that reading is great for teaching you the theories of SEO and giving you some good ideas about what may or may not work but unless you get your hands dirty by experimenting and testing those theories and ideas on a site of your own you’ll never really learn anything.

Granted, if you already have a website for your business and it’s an important part of your customer development you probably won’t want to try experimenting with anything too extreme because you can’t afford to put a foot wrong and accidentally tank your money site’s rankings if you push the SEO envelope a little bit too far.

So that’s where you go out and set up a new site all of your own and carry out your experiments there, far away from your main site.

How To Set Up Your Own SEO Test Site

It’s easy enough to do.  Just pick a subject that you’re interested in and register a suitable domain name.  In fact, if you follow this guide by Glen “ViperChill” Allsopp, that’ll take you through the basic stages of getting your site set up and established.  Don’t worry too much about the later stages of the guide where Glen goes into detail about the steps to monetize your site through affiliate programs, just concentrate on creating a site that can rank well for searches related to your chosen niche (of course, if you then want to start earning some money from the site as well then go for it and good luck!)

Obviously WordPress is far and away the easiest and most flexible platform for you to use to build your site and with the wealth of SEO tools and plugins available for it (like these awesome ones from Yoast) you can tweak and test to your hearts content.  Just make sure to keep a record of any changes or experiments that you make so that you can cross reference them with your analytics and identify the effects of your tests.

Of course, you don’t have to use WordPress all the time.  There are plenty of other CMS’s out there that you can use when creating your testing sites and it can be helpful to familiarise yourself with as many of the as possible, especially if you have to work with one or more of these alternate CMS’s as part of your day job.  Some of the most popular systems that you’re likely to come across are Joomla, Drupal and (to a lesser extent) MODx.  Each of them has their own particular features and benefits and they’ve all built up loyal communities of users who are only to happy to share tips and tricks for getting the most out of these systems.

Testing Is The Only Way To Really Learn SEO

Using WordPress as your primary system for developing tests and devising new strategies is a great way to get started but if you can then take what you’ve learned from your SEO tests on WordPress and figure out how to apply the same ideas to one or more of the other CMS’s not only will you be able to demonstrate that the effects are not simply a fluke of using WordPress, let’s face it the more data you can gather the more reliable your conclusions will be, you’ll also be building new skills for yourself as you learn to use these alternate systems so you won’t need to be reliant on WordPress for all your sites.

The point of all this is to test, test and test again.  If you read a blog post that tells you the Meta Keywords tag is completely useless for improving your rankings in Google but can still help you to rank in Yahoo searches then don’t just take their word for it.  Devise a test and try it for yourself.  If you notice an upswing in your referral traffic from Google Image search after revising your image ALT tags then test that as well.  Identify what works and what doesn’t from your own results.  That’s the only way for you to move on from learning about SEO and actually learn SEO.

Image Credits: cogdogblog & comedynose

There’s been plenty of advice recently about how to use video sitemaps and micro-formats to optimize the videos on your site to get the best chance of showing up in Google’s search results.  But something that seems to have been forgotten in this rush of technical SEO posts is the importance of optimizing your video on YouTube to show up in their internal search results and encourage click-throughs when your video appears in the Related section of other clips.

YouTube is, after all, the second most used search engine in the world, so if you’re producing video content you really should be putting it on YouTube and you really should be doing whatever you can to make sure people can find it.The points in this article are focussed particularly on YouTube but the basic concepts can just as easily be applied to many of the other video hosting sites out there, like Vimeo or Flickr.  YouTube’s size however makes it worthy of dealing with as an entity all of its own.

The following 10 points are a series of simple tips that you can apply to your YouTube videos to help them rank better in YouTube search for your target keywords, encourage more views from people clicking through from related videos and getting the best chance to reach the critical mass needed for your video to appear in YouTube’s coveted “What’s Hot” lists.

1. Target Keywords Used Within Interesting/Enticing Title
   Let’s say you’ve made a video review of the latest Blue Widget to hit the market.  You want Blue Widget to be the focal keyphrase so rather than calling your video “Billy and Bobby review the new Blue Widget” go for something like “Blue Widget Tested To Destruction By Billy & Bobby“
2. Target Keywords Used As Tags
   Use your most important keywords first and remember to keep them relevant to your video.  Include your brand name as a tag to strengthen its chances of appearing in universal search results for your name on Google.
3. Site URL At The Beginning Of The Description Field
   Remember to write the URL in full, including http:// so that this will become a live link which will be visible without people having to click the more… link.  The link will be nofollowed so don’t worry about the SEO benefits of this, the focus here is on making it easy for users who like your video to click through to your actual website.
4. Target Keywords Used Within Your Video’s Description
   Your description will be shown as part of your YouTube search result, so you want to make sure that searchers know they’ve found what they’re looking for.  Don’t just string out your keywords.  That’s what Tags are for.
5. Choose Your Category Wisely
   Make sure it is the most appropriate one for your video’s goals and target audience.
6. Make Your Video A Response To A Successful, *RELATED* Video
   Preferably one which gets a high number of views and that doesn’t have a lot of other responses.
7. The “Middle Frame Trick”
   Make sure that the middle of your video includes an enticing image and/or the title of your video as this will appear as the thumbnail image for your video.
8. The First 48 Hours Are Vital To Your Success
   Your video is only eligible to appear in the Most Watched lists for the first 48 hours after it is uploaded.  Make sure you upload it at the right time to catch the maximum possible number of viewers from your target group.  If you can manage to get onto a category Hot List, your video will be exposed to a massive number of potential new viewers and your view count will explode.
9. Seed Your Video Out To Social Influencers
   Find the folks at the social hub within your target group as soon as possible.  Share it on Facebook, Twitter and anywhere else that your target group socializes online.
10. Build More Permanent Links To Your Video
    Get links from blog posts and static pages with your target keywords in the anchor text in order to drive direct traffic and increase your video’s chances of ranking in universal search results.

BONUS TIP: YouTube users who have subscribed to your channel will be notified when you upload a new video.  Building up channel subscribers can be a great way to boost the number of views your videos get when you first put them online, and you’ll often find that your subscribers will then share your new video with their friends on other networks like Twitter or Facebook.  There are plenty of way to encourage people to subscribe to your videos but YouTube have just made it a little bit easier for you.

Towards the end of 2010 they released a new Subscription Widget which you can embed on your site in much the same way as you would with a Facebook Fan Page widget.  This means that people can now subscribe to your YouTube channel directly from your site instead of having to click away from your site to go to your YouTube Channel and then subscribe on there.  We’ll be taking a closer look at the new YouTube Subscription widget in a future post.

Image Credit: Rego Korosi

1) Ask Questions
Opinions are like arseholes. Everbody’s got one.
Give your readers a reason to share their opinions by asking them questions during the course of your posts. Don’t just broadcast your announcements. Make it a two-way conversation.

2) Pick A Side
Most rational people are capable of seeing both sides of an argument.  Unfortunately, the perceived anonymity of the internet means that a large percentage of people stop being rational.    You just need to look at the comments on almost every video on YouTube to see this.  The trick is to have a strong opinion and be able to stick to your guns, debating your subject without degenerating into the tit for tat name calling and flame wars that so many trolls live for.   There are some hugely Outspoken Bloggers out there who have turned their talent for this into a veritable artform and you can learn a lot from observing how they handle themselves.

3) Do As I Say, Not As I Do
The only real rule on the Internet is that there are no rules, so don’t be surprised if you see me break almost all of these rules at some point.    There will be times when you have to be flexible and use your common sense to decide just how strictly you’re going to follow these rules.

4) Find Out What They’re Already Talking About
Check out some of the other popular blogs in your niche and look for trends in the subjects of their posts.   Take a position (remember point 2 above) and make your post a response to one of the posts you found.   You should also find out where your target readers spend their time online (Twitter may be the obvious answer these days, but it’s not the only place you should be looking) and look at what they’re talking about – are there particular products they’re excited about or problems that you can help them solve?

5) Show Them Something Familiar In A New Light
Some of the most successful posts in terms of reader engagement and viral sharing are those that show readers something mundane that they’re used to seeing in one particular way, in a completely different way.

6) Make ‘em Laugh/Cry/Angry
Provoking an emotional response is a powerful way to increase your readers’ engagement with your articles.  Just remember that there is a fine line between engaging and enraging, as anyone who’s ever read the comments on Techcrunch.com will know.

7) Keep Your Promises
There’s a whole internet full of content out there for people to read, so if you start a series of articles you’d better finish them, because unless you’re someone who provides massive value anyway, those disappointed readers probably won’t hang around waiting forever.

Leave Them Wanting More
’nuff said.

Photo Credit: Ged Carroll

The usability of your website goes hand in hand with its ability to convert visitors to your site’s goals.  If people can’t find your contact form because your Star Trek obsessed designer insisted on labelling it “Communicator” instead of “Contact Us” then you won’t get any messages.  If you make users go through three pages of questions and Ts&Cs when checking out of your shopping cart don’t be surprised if you have a massive abandonment rate.Those of you reading this who have children will be able to relate to the points below.  Taking care of your newborn baby required a lot of adjustments on your part as you learned how to recognize the signals your baby was giving you and you figured out how to make him or her happy.  Because happy babies mean happy parents.

These same principles can be applied to your efforts with your website.  Ultimately you want to learn how to recognize the signals your visitors are giving you and figure out how to make them happy.  Because happy visitors are more likely to become happy customers.

1. They’re Helpless Without You
2. If It’s Not Right In Front Of Their Face It May As Well Not Exist
3. Everyone Will Have Advice On What You Should Do
   Try/test to find out what works best for you.
4. If You Need To Make A Change, Do It Quick
   or you could end up covered in shit.
5. Your Baby Is The Most Beautiful Baby In The Whole Wide World And You’ll Quite Happily Punch Out Anyone Who Tries To Say Otherwise
   You’ve put in so much effort.  You’ve tweaked column widths.  Altered colour schemes.  Experimented with fonts.  You love your website and that can make it hard to hear even the most well-intentioned, constructive criticism.  But sometimes you need to be objective.  If your site’s not converting look at why and make the changes that will improve things.  It’s just like being a parent and having to accept that maybe your little angel isn’t going to win any beauty contests.  Learn to live with it and start saving money to pay for braces.

Photo Credits: Brian Leon & H Anderson