Good Morning Jill:

First let me thank you for the great newsletter you publish weekly. It is both informative and insightful.

As we both know this industry seems to change on a dime. What I am referring to are the changes in rules along with best practices, of course without cheating or using shortcuts, to satisfy the search engines. Top rankings are the ultimate goal but also maintaining a good ranking along with a good informative website is an ongoing battle. Although I read several newsletters and articles I find it difficult to keep up with all the changes.

Could you recommend some online courses that would be a good starting ground for understanding search engines' likes and dislikes along with some marketing information? I feel I have a good understanding of the basics of SEO work but would like to fine-tune the skills I already have.

You can reply by email....no need to call me....I know how you love phones...lol

Regards,

Greg

Jill's Response

Hi Greg,

Thank you for the kind words regarding the newsletter.

I'm one of the few who really don't believe that the search engines change very often. To me, it seems that the engines want the same stuff today as they wanted in the past: that is, a great site that fits the search query at hand, that other sites also recommend. Of course I live, breathe, and eat SEO 24/7 so I don't notice all the minor changes that happen, as they just seem natural to me. Remember that most changes the search engines make are simply spam-fighting measures. So if you're not setting out to deceive them somehow, any changes they make algorithmically shouldn't really affect your site. (Yes, it's true that every now and then they throw the baby out with the bathwater, but it's not as often as others would have you believe.)

That said, you sound like a great candidate for Dan Thies's online SEO coaching classes. You can learn more about them (through my affiliate link) here: <http://www.seoresearchlabs.com/hr>. (Dan's also a speaker at our High Rankings seminar in Nov. if you decide to go with an offline course.)

Jill

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