Hi friends, According to me the qualification for an SEO must be something like a Marketing Graduate or Computer Engineering or Computer Science. Bad SEO comes from the misunderstanding of search engine and the technicality behind it. An SEO with having sound knowledge of Market Trends along with programming knowledge can give more justification to Search Engine Optimization work. An SEO who was basically a content writer or just a link builder can't be the SEO strategist straight forward. Only few percent possibilities are there that they can succeed in SEO ethically. What are your view or suggestion regarding this?
I've been doing webhosting for something like 14 years. I can answer most of the SEO questions my clients raise even though I've never had any training in the field. (I do have a BS in Computer Engineering which is what the school called their program of 50% programming 50% hardware way back then.) I started paying attention when I noticed that one of my sites had 14k broken links indexed by Yahoo in it's database. Most of the times I read something from a SEO expert, I think it's either hacked garbage that's been copied and pasted from someone else or just skims the top of the subject. Showing that you have actual working knowledge in the field would be what I would look for. Put together some tutorials or working examples and I'll pay attention. A link or two to sites that you worked on or with as an example would also be a plus. Give examples of what doesn't work or how things backfire maybe something to consider. (Although leaving out the solution would be a good idea else you;re ruining yourself.) Saying "backlinks backlinks backlinks" and that just looks like marketing yourself to me. That's me though. Hype and keywords seems to be what sells. A degree in the field makes it official that you;re someone to pay attention to.
I really appreciate your reply. You've pointed to a very good topic that people use to recognize SEO thing as either lots of "Submissions" or lots of "Backlinks". Which is actually doesn't seem like achieving a cleaner and logically navigated site. Another point is, most of the people in this industry use to claim themselves as SEO guru by just reading some free and meaningless e books and rewriting the content to publish on their own name, that's it. Its a good thing that people like you who are really conscious about the logic and programming behind search engine. I'm also an Information Technology Engineer who use to spend lots of hours in understanding the actual search engine logic which matches the nature of human search behavior rather than just building so many useless backlinks.
IMO, building backlink and wirte more keyword related content just what people to obey logic and programming behind search engine, if the search engine hasn't chage this, people 's SEO method will be useful!
I agree with sunstarshop, that is converting people's search behavior in to parameters and variable is what search engine all about. But m not agree with "Appealing Wedding Bands" common sense just helps you to be good "submitter". I would ask my dear Dp friend that does he know about Database and coding optimization. Optimization doesn't mean "link popularity" first of all. So a common sense of search engine can make someone good SEO is totally wrong. This thinking is nowadays lead many people to choose SEO and in future they proud of themselves by earning high PRs only. In fact, high PR is a secondary thing coming after Ranking... Hope DPians are agree with this.
To get a site in good rankings, u need not know everything...I mean u don't need to know submission, coding, content optimization, internal linking, link popularity, Angela's method, blog marketing, press releases etc...you just need to know their role according to search engine algorithms, and where and how to get these things done...that's it! BTW I did my BE in civil engineering and now successfully running 10+ sites and plenty of blogs in a couple of years!...so IMO, there is no qualification for SEO...you should be just prepared to get screwed up for a year with Google
Well many a time we end up doing jobs that are totally irrelevant to what we study. I will say a degree is not necessary. Bill gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell are all college dropouts. I will say you will gain loads of real experience by trying out various things in real life rather than reading and analysing. Warren Buffet the Financial genius always wanted to dropout from college. He stayed only because of his father's insistence. He said that he knew more than his professors. This applies to the so called gurus. The greatest of affiliate marketers or SEO specialists don't teach people. Their time is spent better doing their own work.
Don't ever take example of extraordinary personalities like bill gates, steve jobs or may be newton. They were just the genius, they thought in their own way and made others to believe what they believed. This is the problem with SEOs, every SEO compare themselves with successful online personalities. I'm still with my statement that SEO needs good and balanced knowledge of what was discussed by coolseo36. Although the world is full of freedom for every individual and everybody have their own thing to state.
I agree with densepense, just as Albert Einstein said "Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration", IMO, this is true for SEO, good knowledge and practices are requried, also if you get the 1% inspiration, then good luck to you!