How can you judge an SEO pro from a webmaster using SEO techniques? Also how much really is there to SEO? Thanks.
a professional SEO can CREATE top 10-20 SERPS-pages in almost any competition against millions or even dozen of millions of competing pages ... without purchasing links nor any other techniques but virtually by his editing/publishing style. while most SEO applying webmasters try to get some result in niche markets or with extreme keywords of low competition. I would never entrust my own site any other webmaster but myself for the simple reason that i have invested ten thoiusands of hours of work, etfforts and my entire fortune of $ - hence as creator of all YOU and only you will be the most reliable SEO specialist unless oyu have a 3 digit $/hrs amount to offer that attracts a true professional.
I think your better off doing the work yourself. This way you learn how to do it and will always know how to. Read forums and blogs and you will find most all agree with keyword research. Proper link structure and links to your site. How to get links back and a few other topics.
in my opinion, a seo professional must have a web site under 10k alexa rank. it will be the proof of that he can make good seo
I'm going to completely disagree. What does Alexa have to do with SEO? EDIT: A person could easily game Alexa, so they would be considered an SEO profession, because they get a lot of Alexa toolbar traffic?
that's an interesting point ... of course being top 10k alexa is proof of excellency in SEO however such traffic would give him somewhere between 20k$ and 50k$/month in adsense revenue and most likely he'd love to enjoy life rather than doing more SEO for other site owners.
Arg, I could spend $100,000 on cheap traffic and get alexa top 10,000 and not do one thing to optimize my site for SEO. Again, how is Alexa related to SEO?
an SEO pro can earn his traffic and thus earn his alexa rank - while a lazy webmaster buys traffic. both should be easily to distinguish by professionals if such analyzes should become necessary. a web professional could easily analyze a site for generic traffic OR purchased traffic - generic traffic resulting in high alexa rank always requires traffic from top SERPS in a larger number of high traffic keywords. a G check would easily reveal the SERPS.
Im interested in SEO a loy, but too me I cannot see why everyone cant be a good SEO? it doesn't seem that it is too complicated to me just link submission to the right places etc? But I am probably not looking at the whole picture.
A good SEO will have client sites that rank highly for their main keywords, not necessarily his own site because a good SEO will be too busy to keep his own site updated (speaking from experience)!
A good SEO will be too busy to keep his own site updated, were as an SEO Professional will achieve High Positioning for both Client and themselves.
The question was professional, not good, but I'll go with good. Let's take an analogy here. So you're saying a good racecar diver is one that's always racing, but will be so busy with that, that they aren't good drivers driving their mini van? Okay, well I could go on the track and practice 20 hours a day... does that make me a good racecar driver?
I am a professional web designer and that's what I was talking about but didn't clarify. I'm so busy with client sites that I rarely have time to write new articles and update my own site. If one doesn't do that then over time the rank starts slipping because competitors are increasing or out ranking you. It has nothing to do with SEO but with time to keep the already SEOd site updated. For instance I wrote a new article last week on Triangular Linking Schemes and it's already ranking #1 or #7 depending on which words are used. However I know if I don't get busy and find some links for that page the rank will start to slip. There are only so many hours in the day and I give my clients first priority to my own site.
IMO, SEO Professionals optimize their sites using all the right techniques. He/she makes things step by step slowly but surely..
If your sites rank #1 for their top keyword(s), and stay that way for a long time, I would consider yourself a professional.