The most common question I receive after I've written any of my posts is:
How can I get started and learn what you know?
And that's a difficult question to answer. Not because I don't think it's possible, but because there is so much that you can do in the SEO field.
Let's take black hat out of the discussion for a moment, because what I think people are really asking is:
Again, that's not an easy answer. I can certainly fire off a response to that that says something like:How can I make money on the Internet?.. Because my sites don't seem to be making me anything.
Find a topic you like, a nice, start writing quality content about it and people will find you and link to you and eventually you can monetize that site and make some money.That's all well and good, but what people usually need is some type of mentor. They need to be able to ask questions at any time and get answers. Typically, however, mentors are quite difficult to find for one of several reasons:
- Inability to follow instructions. There are quite a few folks who will ask questions, learn the answers,and then do absolutely nothing. Why? I dunno - that will be debated for ages I suppose :)
- Time, or rather, the lack of it. Usually, a mentor that is worth having is going to be quite busy. They simply don't have the time to coach a lot of people. Just like you, they want to make money. A mentor will sometimes do it out of the goodness of their heart, but more often than not they'd like to be compensated in some way for their time.
- Don't know who to ask. It's very difficult to find someone who not only would be willing to mentor you, but also be competent enough to actually teach you something. It's quite easy to say on a forum, "I made $30,000 last month in Adsense", but of those people who have said that, how many can you trust to be telling the truth?
So, usually my conversation with the people who e-mail me has involved answering the questions that they have, and since they don't know what to ask next and I'm not giving them a footprint to follow, they give up pretty quickly. To those folks I apologize. It's never been my intent to bar anyone from finding out information.
I believe it was Randfish who pointed out a while back that we all wear hats of many colors. On some of the forums I frequent, this isn't the case. Take, for example, the syndk8 where you'll find lots of black hat information but usually nothing that's white hat.
On the other hand, there is a different forum that I've been watching for the past year that has taken a different approach. Initially, they started as a site that would teach you everything you needed to know about scraping and using various programs to do it. They also gave away keyword lists every month.
Well, times change and so has this forum. In fact, I find it ironic that the "new" stuff they are teaching are a lot of white hat techniques and building less spammy content.
When you can couple the white hat techniques with the black hat techniques is when you can come up with some truly powerful combinations.
I think it's fair to say that most of us are looking for ways to improve our websites and their ranking. That's why we spend so much time doing what we do. I sincerely hope that all of you who are looking for a mentor take a look at that forum so that you can get the tools, techniques, tips, etc. to succeed.
Oh, and for what it's worth, it's not the ONLY place that you can get the information, but it's one place that definitely has a growing amount of information and is also the only one that I publicly endorse.
One other thing before I close...There are a few people I'd like to mention that have helped me grow in the past few years in one way or another. Here's your chance for the spotlight (in no particular order):
- Randfish - your long thought out posts and analyses make my brain hurt, but I usually get more out of them than I think you put in them!
- Earl Grey - You're a tosser, but I enjoy your debates on various subjects. I never quite know when you're selling me a long yarn or telling me the truth. I am a better person for it either way because it makes me stretch further.
- Dazzlindonna - Thanks for all your kind comments on SEOChat when I hung around there. I'm still amazed you put up with me.
- Kerry Cianos - My best friend for like 16 and counting years. It's time to rewrite our scraper and start doing some Markov chains! I'll even let you use .NET 3.0 :)
- l3vi - Our nightly discussions, brainstorming, marketing, etc. have continually pushed me to work harder. You might be making more than me, but I'm still planning on catching up!
If I forgot to mention you, rest assured your help was still appreciated - it's just that those few brain cells were wiped from my memory during the chemotherapy!
G-Man
P.S. Who has been a mentor to you and helped you in a significant way?
Edit: Removed affiliate link :)
I "happened" to meet an old time affiliate scum (who always prefers to remain nameless) in my early days and he introduced me to an old Jim World mod named RodB. I can say unequivocally that without him, I wouldn't be where I am today. Those two guys - one with an introduction and constant pushing to do better than I did last week and one pointing me along the road (but never doing a single thing *for* me) and being my "sounding board" for my first year or two in changed my life.
lol@that post
I do not have any mentors but I do follow a few of you around on the internet studying what you do, when I find something you know that I don't I add it to my toolbox, thanks! :)
But my biggest mentor is the Google algorithm, I play with my blogs every day and improve upon code and content, if I do not do well it is time to adapt and come back and try again. I guess this is also why I study all that Matt Cutts, Adam, Vanessa Fox and any other Google employee says. While everyone is getting all "Web 2.0" Matt Cutts is telling anyone who wants to listen how to succeed via multiple channels but often this great advice goes unheard. When Matt mentions or even implies something new I test it out and sure enough, he is correct pretty much all of the time.
Some follow spammers like Shoemoney but to me that guy works way too hard, spamming may be a challenge but I do not want to set fire to my domains thank you.
Ammon Johns and Bill Slawski are my biggest mentors!
This is a good post for making readers think. But I had to disagree with the implication that mentors are harder to find now. I too well remember the early to mid nineties, when *everyone* was equally new, and equally making up the rules as they went along.
But as Cygnus there alluded, inspiration is everywhere. I find constant inspiration from not only the experts, but equally from the enthusiasm and wonder, (and questions) of the newbies and clients too. But hey, Geoffrey, you got me linking to the post from my work blog, so you're doing something right.
Oh, and Kim's right - get yourself back to Cre8asite to share some of your thoughts and insights when you can, okay? :)
Everyone is my mentor; I either learn what to do, or what not to do, how to act, or how not to act...every situation and encounter in life has been a learning experience for me, and I'm the better for it.
Cygnus
There are many, many people I've had learned alot from, but my very first encounter with SEO in general really sticks out.
At that time I had no idea there was a complete industry involved with getting higher rankings and I sure was utterly surprised at the level of openness people had in giving information.
If it wasn't for SEO GUY, a.k.a. Morgan of https://www.seo-guy.com/I probably wouldn't have started to learn SEO.
Haven't been active in his forum for a while, but he will always be remembered as "the best dude/forum I came across"!
So a big thank you to SEO GUY!
Regardless of how valuable that forum might be I wouldn't give them any money out of principle ... "We cannot guarantee holding a position for you unless you enroll today.". Yeah, right.
I didn't read the entire, mind-numbing page, but the bits I did skim over are equally patronising / transparent / offensive. Is it just me, or is treating potential customers as idiots not a good tactic? Especially when your target audience are likely to be marketing-web-SEO-aware.
I have been following GeoffreyF67 & Earl since the begining of syndk8 and I have been following seomoz since it began. Im a fan of all, but I have to voice my concern with allowing affiliate links in blog posts, disclosure or not. To me it cheapens this blog. I did not click on that link and will never find out if that is a good source of information because it was an affiliate link. As an affiliate link, how can I trust the poster is sincerce about it's value? Just wanted to put that out there.
Don't cut yourself out of the mentor running G-man! We got to know you for a time at Cre8asiteforums, and I, for one, always looked forward to your posts. It's wonderful to see you prowling around again :)
Thanks Kim :) I still have cre8pc bookmarked and have been planning on going back there soon but trying to get back up to speed after my treatments has kept me super busy!
Of course, the little nag in my head is saying - what were you doing on Digg for 5 hours on Friday FOO! :) Digg is evil!
Tell us! We wanna know what you were doing on Digg for FIVE HOURS!
That's a good topic for a post I think! I'll do that in the next day or so :)
Hmmm...that's a good point. I'm sure Rand will be stopping by soon and have something to say one way or the other :) Another precedent setting post by G-Man :P
Hey, I thought I had exclusive rights to sappify our blog! What gives?
Sincerely, G-Man's submissive little harpy ;)
Hmmm... Affiliate links on SEOmoz is counter to the spirit here, so let's try to keep them to a minimum. I do think it's great that you're sharing the sources of your information, Gman - I'd love to hear a bit more about why, exactly, you endorse KeywordAvalanche and who can benefit from the $57/month price tag.
On the mentor front - I've had many. Ammon Johns, Mike Grehan, Danny (of course), Dan Thies was an early one and there are literally dozens of others. People who I still follow to this day and look up to. Maybe a post on what I've learned from each of these folks is in order at some point.
G-Man,
Perhaps I am missing something. You mention a forum but you give us an affiliate link to buy a course. Do you expect us to purchase this course to gain access to the forum or is this forum freely available?
If we must buy access, did you purchase the course? If you did purchase it, when and why? If not, what is your relationship to this course and to this forum?
I apologize if I am sticking it to you or if I misunderstood. The reason I ask is that this seems counter to the spirit of this SEOmoz blog. Rand and his crew seem all about being open and forthright. You began your post with “The most common question I receive after I've written any of my posts is: How can I get started and learn what you know?” On this blog I expect a statement like that to be followed with something on the order of Let me walk you through an example that you can try for yourself, not with open up your wallet.
Again, if I misunderstand I apologize. I want very much to be civil and friendly, and I also would like to understand better.
(And yes, I will be the first to admit that in my lame attempt to be diplomatic, this response reads textbook passive-aggressive.)
To be honest, I debated about putting the link in there. Do I use that forum? Yep. I've been a member for over a year now. I originally purchased membership because I wanted more keywords and because several friends who I trusted highly were already in the forum.
Over time I realized that this was a good business decision.
You're right in that the question would normally be followed up by - this is exactly what you need to do. In this particular case, however, I really don't see a way that I could do that as the KA forum really covers a LOT of different topics. Everything from scrapers to linkbuilding to getting indexed to white hat sites to article sites, keyword gathering, etc.
It's a huge subject and I'm not sure that I could walk someone through it all A-Z in a single post.
If the affiliate link bothers people - /shrug - I can remove it. I was more curious how that would work in a post than anything ;)
G-man, thank you for responding to my post in the same positive spirit that it was intended. (God I’m laying the PC-speak on thick tonight.) I have two reactions to your response:
First, do not write an article or get yourself into a series that you are uncomfortable with. Train wrecks come in many shapes and forms. There is no use setting yourself up for one from the outset.
Second, how-to articles do not have to be all encompassing and comprehensive. There is a big difference between a full semester class and a weekend workshop. Classes tends to cover a lot of material in a little detail while workshops tend to cover a little material in a lot of detail. I write this because I think you can offer-up some great articles without covering every conceivable scenario or giving away too much.