Rule # 1 - DO NOT HAVE A PARTNER.

TLDR - We failed due to a lack of trust between partners that grew over time and I was going through a divorce and emotionally checked out of the business. (I was in charge of all production...ie. when I checked out, shit fell apart)

Here's what we did to scale from $120K the first year to $1.2 mil in 18 months (10x growth).

We hosted all client sites through 2 reseller accounts with Hostgator and Godaddy. Hosting revenue pays the light bill and cable bills. Plus, your contractors only need to know how to do everything in 2 Cpanels. It's more efficient and profitable.

Outsource: ALL design. Wireframes in-house.

Outsource: Hosting setup, domain pointing, CMS/Wordpress installation, theme installation

Outsource: Email marketing. You define strategy and design etc. but the build and automation is all outsourced.

Outsource: Bookkeeping. Automate everything using IFTTT and Freshbooks. Automate as much as you can.

Outsource: All Local SEO - We used LocalOxygen.com to scale production 10x.

Outsource: All social posting. Give the workers access to your posting software and let them post that shit. You do the strategy, they do the execution.

Outsource: Adwords management. Find a certified overseas crew to access your MCC and again, talk to them about how you want the accounts managed.

Outsource:Remarketing/retargeting - Overseas Adroll team or GDN team. You'll have no problem finding teams that know more than yourself overseas at reasonable rates.

Hire a part time VA (Virtual Assistant) for $3.00/hour and have her handle your email, send out client intake forms, invoice reminders, all reporting that isn't automated. After 3 months, this person can basically serve as your remote office manager for $4.00/hour from Peru,Greece or the Philippines.

When/if hiring overseas workers, look for countries with a favorable exchange rate and a bad economy + strong English presence. They must be available during US business hours and have a microphone and camera for face time chats throughout the week. https://Upwork.com and https://www.onlinejobs.ph (we actually bought mics and cameras for those who did not have them.)

We handled SEO in-house and had a small overseas team to help with link building.

90% of my time as founder was spent on project management and helping sales people understand this stuff so they could sell it better. You can find competent workers all over the world for under $10/hour. We used Odesk/Upwork and took the time to build a solid base of loyal contractors. We trained our contractors to do the work the way we wanted it done. I was paying several people in Pakistan full-time @ $38/week or $.96/hr) to do link building. Profile creation etc. etc. I simply made a video explaining what I wanted them to execute on and how to do it and they went off and did it.

We had writers in Isreal (with Masters Degrees) paying the $15/hour to write great content.

If I got back into the game again, as an owner, I would literally outsource 99% of the work. Some to overseas and probably the SEO to a US based company. The rest of my time would be selling. I'll never work IN an SEO company again knowing what I know now...so much easier to train people on systems and let them execute. This way I get to stay working ON the business, not in it.

Remember taxes take 39% roughly.

Number 1 lesson - Find a great sales person who is wide but not deep in their understanding and who is also great at establishing rapport , then you go along with them on the sales call. You're the credibillity. Rapport + Credibility = Trust = Signed Contract

Lesson 2 Create documented processes and train others on how to execute.

Lesson 3 As quickly as possible put yourself in a spot where you are able to work ON the business and not IN it. If you do not do this then the business is owning you.

Lesson 4 Read the E-Myth - https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

Lesson 5 - Bask in 80%-85% margins and pay yourself well. Also bonus your contractors often and healthily ($20-$50 bonus every two weeks) and they'll never leave.

Hope this helps...

in all honesty, this industry is so fast-paced and evolving so quickly that i don't think a book is going to give you the best information. in my opinion, the best thing to do is subscribe your RSS reader to SEOMoz, Youmoz, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch, Distilled.net, Bruce Clay, SEO by the Sea, and, of course, Google and Bing. there are other ones you'll definitely want to take a look at (for my interests, i'm also subscribed to Copyblogger, Smashing Magazine, and ReelSEO). reading those and staying up to date with them will make sure that you keep up with the latest algo changes, experiments, and ideas.

all that being said, i did start learning SEO from a book. it was this one. it's from 2008, so it's already outdated, but since i didn't have a marketing background, it gave me a good entrance into it. i learned some fundamentals from the book, which was good, but any of the details are either wrong or outdated, so if you do read it, take it with several pinches of salt. i've also heard good things about the SEO for Dummies books, with bruce clay. he's rather well-renowned in the industry, so there's bound to be some good, actionable stuff in there. i haven't read it myself, so i can't say for sure.

at the end of the day, any agency or company looking for an SEO person wants to see results, so once you get all this stuff in your head, play with it on your own websites (i recommend having multiples, and NEVER run dangerous experiments on your money sites!) to see what works. one of the best things about this industry is that there is no certain 1 way to rank well (whatever G may say), so it rewards people who are curious and are willing to try something crazy to rank.

good luck, and have fun! ask more questions here if you have them; this seems to be a fairly active subreddit for having such a small readership.

As someone else said - don't spend $900 on this. There's nothing you can't learn through the internet.

I started with the SEOMoz Beginner's Guide - it's lenghty, but free, and after reading it you should have a solid understanding of where to go through there.

I also own The Art of SEO which might be good if you want to get serious about it and have a reference on hand.

I read Search Engine Land daily and check the SEOMoz blog regularly. There are plenty of good news sources, which are important to keep up on as things change so quickly. Those are the two I read most often.

Knowing the basics of HTML, PHP, hosting and such will also help you in SEO; and there's CodeAcademy and Youtube for that. I'm assuming you are familiar with HTML but if you aren't it's easy to learn. PHP and SQL is good if you're looking to get more advanced but you can do without.

If you want to send me the link to the website I can make some broad recommendations. Most importantly, have a goal. Is it e-commerce - you want someone to buy something - or articles that you're generating ad traffic on? SEO is marketing, so understand what you're selling and who you're selling to.

Best of luck - I got into this about 2 years ago; I'm a marketer and SEO is there; but I'm hoping to use it to eventually reach a management/director position down the line.

I politely disagree with some of the previous comments.


Business is not about marketing, branding, or SEO; it's about the value you're providing to people. Do people want or even care about your product?


If the answer is no, being number one on Google won't help you there. Speaking of Google, they rank you based on how many


SEO seems counter intuitive.


In order to rank high you have to have traffic and authority links on your site but you can't get traffic and authority links to your site before you rank, right?


Either this leads to a never ending black hole or there must be a way to do it.


Well there is, and it's called adding value.


You think Wikipedia worries about SEO? How about Amazon? Well they can't be with links like this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008Y70TMK/ref=s9_nwr...


These sites provide so much value people flock there, and over the years they have naturally acquired more and more page rank and authority.


Even Reddit itself didn't gain its popularity at first through SEO. As a matter of fact, when Reddit was relatively unheard of, the founders posted links themselves to the front page to start conversations.


But at the end of the day, it's the value that your product/service provides for people.


I know, I've said it over and over again but it's so important. When you have something to offer people, the next logical step is to get it out there.


I think I've driven the point home of making sure your product/service adds value (one more time for good measure) to people.


Without it, you can rank number one on Google for 100 different keywords, have the best marketing strategy, and everyone can know your brand name, none of it will really matter because no one will actually do business with you.


TL;DR

• Business is about adding value.
  
  
• SEO is a black hole? (read to find out ;)
  
  
• Wikipedia, Amazon, Reddit; why Google bots love them
  
  
• In conclusion: VALUE, VALUE, VALUE
  

I agree for the most part. An SEO book can be useful for learning certain things about SEO that remain static like on-page optimization best practices, as well as how to format an SEO campaign from keyword strategy to implementation. SEO an Hour a Day is a book I would recommend if you're looking for one: http://www.amazon.com/Search-Engine-Optimization-SEO-Hour/dp/0470902590

I also agree that you need to keep up to date with the main search sites and blogs. For this I recommend Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Watch and the Moz blog (SEL and Moz are my favorite as they provide the freshest and most insightful articles).


Additionally, check out Moz's SEO for Beginners. Definitely a good PDF to have handy even for seasoned SEO's: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

Hope that helps!

The Moz Blog is great, but can get a little technical if you're just getting going. For young SEO'ers, I really push the Yoast blog, it's got some great nuggets of SEO treatness.

We also just released a short eBook called DIY SEO LOL to get folks off the ground.

You can use SEO tools until your eyes bleed. You're better off getting a good base understanding so you can better grow with the times(they change quite fast).

I found the book "Google Semantic Search" very interesting. Also, this course from Tommy Griffith is pretty damn good.

If you're looking for something free this course is pretty good as well
(http://www.quicksprout.com/the-advanced-guide-to-seo/).

If you want to keep up to speed with the latest development I would recommend blogs like the official Google Analytics blog, Occam's Razor, The Daily Egg, The KiSSmetrics blog etc.

But if you want good tips on how to get started with GA I would recommend Web Analytics - An Hour A Day and Web Analytics 2.0. Both books are by Avinash Kaushik. They are old (for digital marketing litterature) but most of the messages are still very relevant and I found them a great inspiration to get started on structured analytics and how to incorporate analytics in your daily work in a digital marketing organization.

I would try PPC first to make sure they keywords are worth the effort. Best reference: http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Google-AdWords-Brad-Geddes/dp/0470500239

Otherwise, to get links you should use linkbait. Use your imagination; how do you get the hordes to link to you? Infographics, catchy stuff, a useful resource, etc. Here's the best beginner's guide if you've never read it, it's the basics though: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

Amazon have the same issue you do, so I would have a look at how they deal with it. (I've done it for you :)) They are absolutely killing it in the eCommerce SEO world so their word should be considered gospel.

So how do Amazon solve this issue? Well, they create almost completely different pages. Take a look at this hardcover version versus the kindle version. It's the same book with the same reviews etc, but the pages are very different.

In addition to the original content, they've also placed a rel=canonical tag to the main landing page, to clarify the structure of the website to Google. (To check the canonical tag, check out the Open SEO stats chrome extension, or just view the source code)

This is the ideal scenario. If you dont have the resources or time to provide this kind of originality, try and find the sweet spot between originality and your resources.

I'd recommend reading blogs to keep up with what's happening, things change a lot. I have read this book however - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1491948965/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_wRRGxbYSV6HK4 - and it is pretty good!

I found SEO: An Hour a Day very easy and enjoyable to read. It covers all the essential SEO topics, as well as paid search. This book will get you about half the way there.

Another note: check backlinks using Google Search Console. Look for junk links---you might have some that OSE didn't detect. And check the backlinks of the #1 and #2 spot.

And finally, buy a book on advanced SEO. There's one by Danny Dover that I recommend reading: http://www.amazon.com/Search-Engine-Optimization-SEO-Secrets/dp/0470554185/. It gives you steps to follow for troubleshooting certain scenarios.

• http://www.amazon.com/Internet-Marketing-An-Hour-Day/dp/0470633743 - Helps you to get basic knowledge of everything.
  
• Here is something also about Google algorithm and other news for you: http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change , http://mozcast.com/ , http://www.seroundtable.com/category/seo , http://www.searchmetrics.com/en/services/ranking-factors-2013/#brands
  http://www.steamfeed.com/how-to-skillfully-take-over-a-messy-seo-project/
  
• Good starting point for taking over a SEO project
  
• SEO CheckList - http://moz.com/blog/the-web-developers-seo-cheat-sheet-2013-edition
  
• http://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/ - Always check this :D

Seomoz guide is great for getting an overview
http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

The art of seo goes in to more details and gives a pretty good introduction to basic whitehat seo
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-SEO-Eric-Enge/dp/1449304214/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1341331571&sr=8-8&keywords=Seo

Read lots of blogs. I like inbound.org, kaiserthesage.com, viperchill.com for the white/grey and Blackhatworld.com for the darker stuff. BHW has some really good ressources, but also some really clueless people, so take everything with a grain of salt. And of course frequent r/seo

I also add these two:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Secrets

https://www.amazon.com/Search-Engine-Optimization-SEO-Secrets/dp/0470554185/

2. Ultimate Guide to Link Building: How to Build Backlinks, Authority and Credibility for Your Website

https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Guide-Link-Building-Credibility/dp/1599184427/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492104666&sr=1-1&keywords=the+ultimate+guide+to+link+building

Not a class, but the book "The Art of SEO" from O'Reilly came highly recommended to me. They keep updating it so be sure to get the latest version.

I would recommend you the two guides -

1. Online Version: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
   
2. PaperBack - http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-SEO-Theory-Practice/dp/1449304214

> Dog Ultrasonic silencer

Wait, what? Does this work?

http://www.amazon.com/Silencer-Animal-Repeller-Ultrasonic-Deterrent/dp/B00B2OLHJG

Hmm, 36% say it works, 24% say it doesn't. WTF

For people from the UK, please use this link - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Step-Step-SEO-Complete-ebook/dp/B00ELRTNAQ

The one from Bruce Clay.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-SEO-Mastering-Search-Optimization/dp/1491948965

I bought it, see if you can find it online. It's on around page 60

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0738723290/ref=pd_sbs_14_img_0?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8V0KKC627V2BASEB46CF

Well i guess im gonna have to do this on my own once i get them out of the picture. Guess ill be reading SEOmoz guide then diving into Search-Engine-Optimization-SEO-Secrets