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The Booster Seat Ep2: Good SEO Blogs
Welcome to the first edition of The Booster Seat! That’s right, we have a name for this little series that we’re doing here and it’s called The Booster Seat. Congratulations to the person who helped us decide on the name and thank you all for all your insights and ideas into what we named this. We’re sticking with The Booster Seat. It sounds pretty good, I think.
Today we are talking about SEO blogs – not only our SEO blogs, but how do we gain SEO knowledge through blogs. I believe the blogs are one of the best platforms in gaining SEO knowledge. They did provide fresh content. They’re usually relevant. So I’m going to talk about some of the core steps into choosing a good SEO blog to read and what you need to do when you read every SEO blog.
Well, take a walk with me.
Now, in my research I have read a ton of SEO blogs and I read them on a daily basis. I’ve come up with some core steps that I take when I read an SEO blog. As you SEO gurus know, reading SEO blogs can sometimes contradict each other and it can be confusing. So I want to talk about some of those core steps.
Core Steps to Reading SEO Blogs
Consider the Audience
Every SEO blog has a core purpose. Every blog post has an audience. That purpose is the real main reason why that blog exists. Understanding the audience gives you perspective. It doesn’t matter if that audience is for customers, internal use, or SEO as a whole; it doesn’t’ matter who that audience is but you need to make sure that you understand who the audience is so you can get the perspective you need.
Other Sources
When I talk about other sources, I’m talking about two main things. First, I’m talking about the sources mentioned in the blog post itself. Follow those messages. Go to the source. I’ve found in my research that the source itself contains more information than the blog posting it. The second source that I want to mention, is the source you have being a Booster. Boostability is an excellent resource. We have tons of data and information on how SEO works for customers, real customers – specifically and most importantly our customers. How does that work? We have that information.
Read the Comments
The comments! Reading through the comments is very important. In fact one of the most important sources for information is the comment section. For example, Matt Cutts wrote a blog several months back where he said guest blogging is dead. Well, if you read the comments of the post he actually refines his statement and says, “No, it is the spammy blogs that are dead.” You can read those. The comments add a lot more color and flavor to the blog post. So remember, read through the comments.
Evaluate and Ponder
Pretty simple, but make sure you follow this step. Do a gut check on the blogs. If it doesn’t pass your gut check, then forget about it. Remember, evaluate and ponder through these things and you’ll be just fine.
Recommended Blogs
Now, I want to move into a few blogs I recommend. There are actually only a few blogs I recommend when talking about the SEO industry and here they are.
- Moz Blog(s)
- Search Engine Land
- Boostability Blog
- Google Webmaster Central
Now Moz actually has two blogs. They have UMoz and they have their own blog. UMoz is a few guest posters and then there own blog – these are great, resourceful, and authoritative posts. Remember those core steps for all of these blogs.
Search Engine Land is another great blog, but remember they have a purpose. They make money by people visiting the website and reading through the blogs and clicking on the land. Remember the audience specifically for that.
The Boostability blog, especially for Boosters, is a great resource. It has a lot of information about how we treat SEO and how we position SEO. It is another great resource.
Lastly, go to the source. Google is a huge source for SEO. So go to the Google Webmaster Central where Google is going to be telling webmasters how to do SEO.
That pretty much covers it. Now again, remember the core steps when you read through an SEO blog and you should be just fine.
