“free” Internet Marketing Training Scams

By Author: autor
Total Articles: 4304
Comment this article

Search Engine Optimization is complicated.

It’s complicated for a number of different reasons:

* The playing field changes constantly. Information that was useful in ‘04 wasn’t in ‘05. What applied in ‘08 didn’t in ‘09.
* The rules for Google’s algorithms are a closely guarded trade secret. Google obviously doesn’t want other search engines figuring out their methodology, and doesn’t want webmasters and designers getting an unfair advantage in page rank by exploiting the algorithm.
* Google has over 120 factors to consider when assigning page rank to a site.

There’s a lot more to SEO training than keyword use, cultivating backlinks and getting reciprocal links. Anybody who is worth their salt in SEO will need to understand web design, web development, analysis, search, usability, coding and web development skills. And all that is fairly useless when it isn’t paired up with creative copy writing ...
... skills and website marketing know-how.

All these skills will also need to be updated constantly; the Internet is in a constant state of evolution as new technologies emerge. Of course, once you’re set up with the basic knowledge of SEO, you’ll have an advantage in understanding and keeping up with the changing playing field.

Unfortunately, in a down economy, there are plenty of people out there who are looking to take advantage of those who are desperate or at least in need of updating their skill set. All those “Google will pay you $4,000 a week to work from home” links (and their ilk) sound too good to be true…because they are. The same goes for the fly-by-night SEO marketing firms that offer “guaranteed #1 ranking” or “guaranteed SEO results for a flat fee.” And the same also goes for “free” SEO marketing training.

The only way to really learn this business is to put in the time doing implementations and seeing what works as far as actually analyzing, optimizing and implementing SEO strategy. Most of the companies that promise training for SEO are really just promulgating basic information that is available to anyone from Google. Remember that if it sounds too good to be true, chances are it is too good to be true.

Unfortunately we’re living in an age where there are plenty of self-proclaimed “experts” in all kinds of fields. Bad SEO practices and bad SEO training and advice is worse than no SEO awareness at all. Outdated information will do you no good, and black-hat SEO tricks (cloaking, hidden text, etc) will run you the risk of actually having your site blackballed.

If you want to learn SEO, a lot of it is just going to be hands-on hard work. If you want to learn it from someone, trust your gut and remember that if it sounds too simple or too good to be true…it probably is. If you need more information on SEO, contact us. We are always happy to help.