SEOmoz creates SEO Beginner’s Guide
by Paul Flyer
As beginning Webmasters first stumble upon the concepts of search engine optimization, they have to deal with fascination (read: obsession) and disillusionment (read: anger). The best way to deal with either is to first read the most sane information about the subject. Enter the Beginners’s Guide to SEO offered by SEOmoz.org.
This free document (offered in HTML and WORD formats, why not PDF?) is an excellent introductory document for the SEO beginner. I read it over three times, spaced over a month, before I wrote this recommendation. I wanted to digest the information for myself before I evaluated its accessiblity to the beginner.
If the terms URL and hyperlink are foreign concepts then this guide will be too advanced. Some may chuckle at such a concept, but I have met many computer users to whom the Internet and the Web is simply a big black hole.
What exactly is Search Engine Optimization?
The guide provides an excellent definition:
SEO is the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines.
Later in the guide, this warning is given:
This guide is NOT about how to manipulate the search engines to achieve rankings, but rather how to create a website that search engines and users will be happy to have ranking permanently in the top positions, thanks to its relevance, quality and user friendliness.
In other words, for those interested in creating websites of value, this guide’s for you [sing budweiser tune here].
At the end of the guide there are three and a half pages of SEO resources that is a handy resource all by itself.
This guide is a great place to start if web development, design and optimization are interests.
Be sure to review our list of recommended web tools.
