Hi there; Budding SEO-enthusiast here, and I'm finding it's very difficult to find reputable sources on how best to harness the power of google. I'm not as up to date or tech-savvy as some here, but from an outsider's perspective it seems like google is always changing the rules. I am concerned about investing a lot of time and energy into learning how best to aim my writing for the googlebots to pick up, only to find that Google is changing the rules and end up with my stuff not even indexed! Do you have any experience/frustration with this sort of thing happening? What made you keep up with it, despite the likelihood of a "rule change" in the future? -TWC
1. Yes the rules are constantly changing 2. You have little choice. Either you stay plugged into an SEO community and adapt, or you pay someone to do it for you. 3. You can instead not bother with SEO at all and just build your site for people. If you don't do well in natural Google listings you can simply run AdWords and pay a lot for the top spot. These statements pertain to Google, specifically. While G is important, you should not be solely dependent on G. And, there may be better ways to market your particular business. They may be print ads, radio, facebook, twitter, etc. So determine the importance each marketing tool. If G turns out to be one of the most important, then you have to do what you have to do.
To manage and keep up with the changes, you have only one option focus on developing websites that add value to your visitors by providing answers to solutions.