Be Careful with Free SEO Advice
Posted by Wesley LeFebvre on December 29, 2009
It is not a bad idea to have a favorite website or blog for industry related information, but it’s not smart to have no other resources when you’re trying to learn SEO. Especially if you aren’t paying for it.
There are several website and blogs I read regularly. Some of them I typically agree with, and some of them I often don’t. However, they all offer some great tips I wouldn’t have known otherwise. Some times you have to take the good with the bad, and learn how to ignore the crap.
One way to siphon through the junk is by looking it up on another trusted source. Another good indicator of marginal information is the certainty of the author. If they don’t sound sure of themselves, then chances are they probably aren’t. You should double check questionable advice with two of their direct competitors. Otherwise, you are likely to find teachings elsewhere that was just repeated by one of their blind supporters.
Another reason to reference multiple resources is because no one writer is going to give out all of their golden eggs for free, and for good reason. Do you really expect them to? But what might be a private trade secret to one expert, may be just another carefree blog post of another. There is a lot of great information you can get for free, if you do your research.
I try to share as much information on this blog as I can without compromising the SEO industry as a whole, and of course, my business. Some times I mention things I wish I wouldn’t have, and other times perhaps I could have said a little bit more. If only we didn’t have to worry about the hypocritical Google brown-nosers revealing the unparalleled impact of some good honest SEO strategies.
SEO is an industry where there are a lot of “experts” and an abundance of advice to go along, but the fact is many of them are just inexperienced SEO neophytes with a professional level blogging platform.
