Posted by Julian
Posted on 08-05-2008 under SEO

Create a Good Foundation for your SEO Growth.

The SEO industry is one driven by community discussion and ideas.  SEO blogs are a dime a dozen now days.  Almost every “web” related firm has a blog of some sort, and keeping track of all of them is impossible.  Very quickly, however, most SEO’s create a list of the SEO Senseis that they listen to and respect.  Since there are different schools of thought for SEO, different styles even, it is important to develop a good source of input to shape your SEO Growth.

In creating this list I considered taking a strong look at what the industry would consider the top “teachers.” However I think its better to focus on the combination that various SEO’s use.

Here are a few of the SEO Senseis that I follow on a daily basis and why.

Michael Martinez @ SEO Theory

Michael Martinez loves to speak his mind.  His name pops up in the SEOsphere on a regular basis.  Mostly it is because of a strong statement he made about another SEO’s techniques.  One thing for sure is that he takes a very strong stand on his views.  Most of his SEO focuses on theoretical best practices as opposed to the “latest trick” type SEO.

Although he doesn’t admit it directly in his blog, you can get the sort of feeling that for him, the white-hat line is a bit blurry. What is more important is doing things to SEO standards, which is something that currently does not exist.

With a focus more on onsite SEO than link building, Michael’s ideas and theories ring very close to my personal opinions.

Rand Fishkin @ SEOmoz

Rand Fishkin is a bit of a superstar in the SEO community.  Being 25 years old and donning yellow pumas, he is sort of the youth of the industry.  His reputation is known mostly for running SEOmoz, an SEO Tools website and community.  Most of the time he writes about best practice SEO.  Although my personal practice differs slightly from his, I find his strong focus on quality a breath of fresh air.

SEOmoz is known for its link-bait abilities as well as its tools, and especially the quality they put into the link-bait topics.

One thing to keep in mind is that Rand is only 25.  He once was asked why he has a beard.  His explanation was simply that some business people want you to look older.  To be 25 and have achieved that level of success is fantastic.

Andrew Shotland @ Local SEO Guide

I would say that about 80 percent of the SEO we do in our firm is Local SEO.  Andrew Shotland has been a GREAT influence on our search practices.  Local search is a very finicky type of search to optimize for and his way of addressing a wide variety of local issues helps a lot.

Also I should add that his play by play of SMX Seattle was a godsend to those to us stuck in less amazing parts of the world.

Danny Dover @ SEOmoz Blog

Although Danny does not post as much as Rand on the blog, and he was born after the first domain name was purchased, he brings a really fresh view by being a young SEO in a still slightly open field. His writing generally discusses the business of being a young SEO growing up in the industry.  The SEO industry can be a scary one to try and break into (especially if you don’t live in Seattle).  To see a young SEO like Danny making good strong headway is a relief for those of us who are pluggin’ away.

Plus he really has some good ideas that make you pause a second.

XMCP (anonymous) @ Slightly Shady SEO

Slightly Shady SEO is NOT a white-hat SEO blog.  The methods that they discuss generally are ones that will both propel a site upwards in returns and also risk losing all traffic if you get busted.  I should note that although we do not practice these methods, It was a post on Slightly Shady SEO that helped me discover a negative attack on one of our clients a couple months ago.

It is important to keep an eye on wha the “dark side” is doing in SEO.  Although there are a lot of Black Hat SEO blogs out there, Slightly Shady shows how people are blending the white and black techniques to rise up the results pages.

Eli @ Blue Hat SEO

Blue Hat SEO is much like Slightly Shady SEO in that the blog focuses on grey-hat techniques from time to time.  He address a lot of link farm ideas and concepts.  The same reasons for reading slightly shady SEO apply to this blog as well.  I would also point out that it is the personalities behind these two blogs (although un-named) that make them the black hat blogs of choice.  The Blue Hat mentality is definitely one that I can respect and enjoy.

Wait you left out ________ !

Let me clarify, this is not a list of the top SEO bloggers in the SEO-sphere, rather this is a list of what I would consider my personal SEO Senseis.  Of course I recommend following the major aggregators (as I do), and sphinn.com.  One of the important aspects a good foundation is having a diverse list (Rand and Michael don’t always agree on everything, for example).

Another thing that is worth doing is getting in touch with some of the writers you follow.  I have corresponded with Micheal, Rand and Andrew on various occations, and they were very polite and willing to field my questions.  In fact, one of them even helped point us to our current link building campaign.