1.- Back to 1998/99
2.- Build a lot of sites for yourself working 12 hours a day
3.- Make your own theory about rising and falling search engines and websites
4.- Sell some SEO services to small companies

...and that's all: you're a SEO expert.

If you haven't a time machine you can too stay here at WebmasterWorld and read everything you can; probably the best advice you will extract from your reading is
a) "Build your sites for users, not for search engines".
b) Today's search engines are mostly indexing text and counting links

Don't waste your time with SEO. The only thing, related to SEO, that you need to concentrate on is writing valid code. (You probably already know that you can validate your code through the W3C web site.)
If you build a content rich, interesting , well written site then you're already an SEO expert.

>>The only thing, related to SEO, that you need to concentrate on is writing valid code.

There are well over 100 factors considered for scoring at Google, and valid code is NOT one of them.

SEO is not just knowing what to do it is knowing what not to do. I have been paid to look at a lot of different websites and I am amazed what some developers do. I worked on a site once that when you went to the home page it had a 302 redirect to /home/index.cfn I have seen sites that were 1.5mb in size. The list goes on.

You don't need to learn anything about SEO to be an SEO expert. Use the same proven trick used by stock-market scamsters for the past several decades (somewhat modified for SEO):

1. Cold-call n companies, offering to SEO their website. Tell them you will initially charge no up-front fee - you will be paid only for positive results according to some formula. Give them some trial period, say 90 days.

2. Do some random junk to their website. Really doesn't matter what you do, just don't do anything really bad.

3. Some websites will of their own accord rise in the SERPs. Some won't. Don't bother calling-back the ones that didn't rise. Call back the ones that did. Of course, they will be delighted and retain your services.

4. Rinse and repeat.

You are now an SEO expert.

This thread is swinging from cynicism to ignorance.

SEO takes work, and its really something you learn over time working with your website. Once you have a website, you need to monitor its ranking in google etc, and learn through modifying it how to get higher up the ranking tree.

There are many principles around SEO, but if you stick to KISS (keep it simple stupid) you will be over 50% of the way there.

Otherwise you need to read the threads here and try to use them on your site.

The original poster is asking a valid question, and he's getting a lot of wisecracks.

kramcbe, start with Brett Tabke's 26 steps to a successful site with Google. I don't have the link. For the number of times I and others have recommended it, I should have it bookmarked. Sorry, but you'll have to search.

As basic as Brett's recommendations sound, they work.

Beyond that? Look at press release sites that either charge you little or nothing to put out a press release related to your site. They get distributed all over the internet.

Is there a forum related to your niche? Sign up, post often, and have a link to your site in your signature line.

As soon as your site is live, submit to DMOZ.

Find every respectable directory you can and submit.

Seek out other sites that have links pages, but only offer to trade links with sites that are relevant to your niche, and only to those sites that appear to be respectable. Also, mouse over the links on those sites; if you see a dynamic link, walk away.

Get some print coverage about your site in niche-related magazines or newsletters. People still read printed material.

Everything I've learned about SEO is right here on this site. While I don't claim to be an expert, I've amazed myself and customers with the results I've achieved just by reading this forum every day.

There are well over 100 factors considered for scoring at Google, and valid code is NOT one of them.

I believe the newest numbers are over "200 factors" considered for scoring.

And NO, valid code is not one of them. But, invalid code could be the cause of a wide variety of issues that all tie back into search and user performance. ;)

I'd start reading here...

[w3.org...]

Perhaps it would be useful to know why the poster wants to become an SEO expert.

When I saw the term "SEO expert", my assumption is that he wants to be able to offer his SEO expertise to others. Others here have assumed that he simply wants to improve his own website.

I think the advice might vary depending on the answer.

If wanting to offer his services to others, the "go back to 98-99" wisecrack is right on. Like any field of expertise, it takes time. While obviously, you can't go back several years, it makes the point that you aren't going to become an SEO expert over night. It will take several years before you are.

The short and obvious non-wisecrack answer is, of course, "learn everything you can about SEO, and then keep up with the changes".

We get a lot of questions like this, on various forums here: "how do I become X". The answer is always the same to the answer to "How do I get to Carnagie Hall". "Practice". Not really sure what kind of magic we are expected to perform, so there's a temptation to wisecrack...

There really was a purpose and seriousness in my own wisecrack answer as well. Unfortunately, SEO is a field that lends itself to sculduggery. There certainly are "SEO experts" operating in precisely the manner that I described. To even USE the SEO services of others, you first need to learn enough about SEO to know if your "expert" is a real expert, or just somebody playing the percentages, and running a "split the tickler file" scam.

(BTW, here's the way the stock-market scamsters play the game: cold-call n people. Explain that you are going to give them a free stock pick to show your expertise. Tell them not to buy the stock, but watch it! Tell half the callees that International Widgets is going up. The the other half that International Widgets is going down. Wait a sufficient time period. You are now a genius to 1/2 of the people you called. Remove the other 1/2 from your file, then call-back the other 1/2. Some won't be convinced yet - give them another pick. Repeat. Oldest trick in the book, and you can see how it can be - and is - applied to SEO, with a bit of modification.)

Kindly suggest me, how to become a SEO expert, I dont know any thing about SEO. Kindly give the steps to become a SEO expert from the scratch.

Same as any other field; learn about it; do it; learn some more. Keep up top date. Learn some more. Do it more ... and better. Learn some more.

It's a serious question - but not a good one. SEO is no different to anything else. there are no short cuts to expertise.

>> Kindly give the steps to become a SEO expert from the scratch.

sure, just us a few years to type it up again for you. Would html or pdf be better?

second, there's no such thing as a SEO expert. Those who claim to be so, are most likely lying and are defintely bragging.

Those who claim to be so, are most likely lying and are defintely bragging.

Self proclaimed experts rarely are. :)

Becoming good at SEO takes time, practice, and some thinking outside the box. Oh, and many, many hours of reading WebmasterWorld!

>>There are well over 100 factors considered for scoring at Google, and valid code is NOT one of them.<<

I believe the newest numbers are over "200 factors" considered for scoring.

To be perfectly honest, I don't like to nitpick unnecessarily, other than the fact that I occasionally pay attention to credibility of sources.

The over 200 figure came from a WSJ article, and it was AFTER the article publication that Matt Cutts said *over 100* and if he corrected himself after that I haven't seen it. At that point I had no tangible evidence that a WSJ reporter was more accurate that Matt, and still haven't, so I decided that over 100 was enough to worry about until I get smarter. ;)

Besides, over 200 is still over 100, not under, and really - a n00b at SEO really won't be able to figure out that many, they'll do well enough with 10 or 20 important ones for starters.

And NO, valid code is not one of them. But, invalid code could be the cause of a wide variety of issues that all tie back into search and user performance.

There is a BIG difference between bad code that can indeed cause problems, and code that simply doesn't validate. A page can be perfectly fine and rank beautifully without validating, it isn't a criteria being used for scoring - unless that's changed since Matt Cutts' video in which he stated that Google had no means of assessing validation at that time.

Notice that a response above said that valid code is ALL that's needed for SEO and unfortunately, too many people believe that so it warranted a direct response.

This thread is about SEO specifically and what it takes to learn, and boiled down to the most basic, albeit over-generalized synopsis:

1. What it takes is figuring out what words or phrases users would type into the search engines when they want to find the products or services or information that you offer.

2. Then what it takes is to make sure that the search engines can properly crawl and index the site, and can figure out that your site is relevant for that topic or product or service.

Simple example: for a site domain jumpandshout.com, running a site wide title of Jump and Shout throughout the site doesn't tell the search engines that the site is selling trampolines. Great branding, but not SEO.

There have to be words and phrases used properly throughout the site that indicate what the products are and what they're for, and any pertinent information shoppers would want, using relevant, related phrases - including in page titles and many of the other over 100 factors used in scoring, some of which are primary and most important.

[edited by: Marcia at 12:10 am (utc) on May 4, 2007]

The over 200 figure came from a WSJ article, and it was AFTER the article publication that Matt Cutts said *over 100* and if he corrected himself after that I haven't seen it.

Actually that number came from an announcement on Google Press Day (in 2006), from Google themselves. Not a WSJ article. :)

An SEO Expert is going to understand what makes up a page. Not just what is seen visibly, but what is also under the hood. That's like having a race car driver who doesn't know jack about what is happening under his/her hood.

I think all SEO's need to have a basic understanding of what is happening under the hood. They should have knowledge of HTML elements and attributes. They should also have a basic knowledge of CSS. Without that, they are just Content SEOs which is just one part of the equation.

Its like using a WYSIWYG editor. If you don't understand what is happening when you push a button, how are you to know that what you just did was wrong? The same concept applies to SEO. Do you know what a title element is? How about a title attribute? Not you Marcia, but in general.

Do you know which elements you should be using for which content? Should that go into a list element or a paragraph element. Should that be an h2 or an h3.

I've found that writing valid code has forced me to fully understand what each and every element/attribute I am working with is doing.

I think you miss an important part by just learning certain "layers" of SEO. If you can learn a little bit about each layer and combine that knowledge and expand from there, you have a more solid foundation for learning.

You can take comfort in knowing that when you view the source code of a page you can figure out what is going on from top to bottom at quick glance. You can decipher the pages you may be looking at that are ranking highly and really refine your understanding of why.

You might want to consider becoming an expert in a variety of disciplines that fall under the SEO/SEM umbrella. SEO in itself is just one part of it. So, you become an SEO Expert. But, your client needs SEO, PPC, email marketing, link development, etc. Now what? ;)

>>Not you Marcia, but in general.

p1r, I'm not so sure there can be an overall generality, particularly in this case, in this specific thread, which is topically about what it takes for a beginner to learn SEO.

Of course, knowing what's going on under the hood is important, if only to know where to "seo" for the most important elements, but this thread is NOT about usability and validation and after-marketing, it's about getting a basic start in SEO from which to grow. That's the topic, and to suggest that W3C validation is a start is, IMHO, placing an unnecessary burden that will not necessarily have bearing on the success or failure of a site.

So for a beginner, which is what this thread topic is, rather than getting diverted, I'd suggest that the best place to start is to get a grasp at the conceptual level of SEO, rather than getting bogged down in extraneous issues beyond the necessary level, in order to get an initial grasp of the process and purposes.

Beginners don't need layers, they need comprehension and a grasp of basics to get a start. For a beginner, I'd suggest starting right here:

Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone [webmasterworld.com]

=======================================================================

Added:

For those interested in discussing a particular layer beyond the basic precepts needed here, this current thread, jump-started by an interview with Google's Adam Lasnik, makes a good read on some of those issues:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: Marcia at 1:36 am (utc) on May 4, 2007]

SEO is not just knowing what to do it is knowing what not to do.

This is so profoundly true it will drive you crazy trying to understand..
Only time will give you the insight you need to understand this...
(5+ years of hardcore SEO work)

I call this Offensive SEO vs. Defensive SEO

Becoming good at SEO takes time, practice, and some thinking outside the box. Oh, and many, many hours of reading WebmasterWorld!

With all said above I can't do anything but agree...However, thinking outside the box is not necessarily needed. In social media optimization some creativeness is a must - in SEO - there are some strict rules to follow and some others, referring to algos and stuff, that you need to discover yourself.