Picking Out Free SEO Help Worth Paying Attention To

The Web is crammed with free SEO help. The trick isn't finding help, but winnowing out the good help from all the mediocre or outright dangerous help out there. Here is a brief guide from a veteran webmaster.

The search engines themselves are the first place you should look for information about search engine optimization. All of the large search engines run blogs whose writers are members of the programming team and whose purpose is to help readers optimize their sites. Often contributing writers spend time on webmastering forums to learn what problems working webmasters are having, so the articles are timely and practical, not theoretical. The quickest way to locate search engines' blogs is to search for "blog" or "official blog" and the name of the search engine.

Forums are a good, but tricky, source of free SEO help. On one hand, forum members' discussions of their experiences and observations are indispensable. Webmasters with experience often know when algorithm changes are about to take place, and can discuss changes, legal issues, and other SEO issues freely and without the corporate constraints and need to protect the search engine's interests that the search engines' own bloggers have. Webmasters can also discuss patterns they have noticed in search engine behavior that search engines refuse to discuss or outright deny. On the other hand, forum members can also be... How to say this politely? Flaming morons. How to you work out which forums and which forum members are worth reading? There is no substitute for familiarizing yourself with a few forums and watching them over time. Focusing on forums frequented by official speakers for search engines is also a good idea. Official speakers are not stamps of quality, but they do mean the forum is significant enough that the search engine is willing to spend resources on it. The two forums you should definitely put on your watch list are WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint. To find more, search for "SEO forum."

Free SEO help articles are similarly tricky: There are reams of good articles, and a vast ocean of mediocre, wrong, or actively harmful articles. Avoid article directories and "experts" whose main area of expertise is grinding out several dozen SEO articles a week. Look for industry sites and authors whose network of sites you have heard of. Also look for small, expert written article collections and blogs, like that at HubShout. Avoid any articles that sound dull, rewritten, or stuffed with keywords.

As you can see, getting the best from the available free SEO help takes judgment and a touch of experience on your part as well as the ability to use a search engine. Go slowly and develop your knowledge base, and soon you will be able to sift out the worthwhile free SEO help.