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A Search Engine Watch Forums thread asks how much does it cost to learn SEO.
As you can imagine, I am sure the answers run from nothing to thousands of dollars. I think I personally learned from testing and reading a book that cost $15.
But most SEOs have annual education on some level. Either they go to conferences, do webinars, pay for access to exclusive forums or just spend their own time testing things out.
For the sake of the poll below, please assume any time you spend is not worth anything. Instead, what is the true annual cost in terms of dollars you spend out of your pocket or your company's pocket, on SEO education. This can be in the form of going to conferences, having SEO training, buying books and so on.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.
Comments:
Roger Dooley
01/18/2011 01:34 pm
Certainly anyone serious about SEO has to spend a significant amount of time on reading forums, official blogs, SEO blogs, and newsletters, not to mention studying one's own analytics for general lessons. It's hard to assign a cost to this time, though I suppose for a salaried individual it could be calculated based on a percentage of pay. I think for a responsible SEO consultant (not a drone taking direction from others), this number is often in the 20-30% range with outliers in both directions.
Stephen
01/18/2011 02:00 pm
I agree with the previous statement 100%. For an individual to stay up to date with all the new features search engines are releasing plus the changes in the web development field is timely. While I prrsonally am afforded budget to attend conferences, the majority of my learning is personal and free. I think a better survey would be focused on time.
Yachtfinder
01/18/2011 02:17 pm
I have to admit that till now, i didn't spend any money on this... Instead, i've read all the top SEO blogs, watched the WebmasterCentral videos on youtube, read the google's SEO beginner's guide.. maybe in the future I'll invest some money in trainings and seminars
Jordan Kerr
01/18/2011 10:13 pm
"For the sake of the poll below, please assume any time you spend is not worth anything. " I would say that this is actually the real cost of learning SEO. There are enough articles, forums and discussions online to get a good understanding of SEO, the participation in which is generally free. I would argue that the real cost of learning SEO is the years you put into reading, testing, discussing, presenting on it,etc...
Barry Schwartz
01/18/2011 10:15 pm
yep, but for the sake of the poll. :)
Guest
01/18/2011 11:31 pm
I would personally say that my SEO knowledge has cost me a few trips to SEO conferences around the world, but I did not learn the best strategies from the panels or workshops. I learned them from the connections that I made over a beer at lunch. Lots of personal testing and relationships building is key. The fundamentals can be learned quickly, the relationships are the most powerful. Every website online is in some way or another controlled by a human. If you can influence the human, you are golden.
Chris Elwell
01/19/2011 01:11 pm
Jordan's right. To paraphrase the late William F. Buckley, the premise of the poll is false. Time starts having real, tangible value at some point between grade school and college. In fact, most people who invest to come to SMX say that the time they are away from the office is a bigger deal than the money they pay to come.
Barry Schwartz
01/19/2011 01:12 pm
I know. But I just want to see actual dollars, not time spent. I've done polls on time...
Patrick Morgan
01/19/2011 09:58 pm
If your time is worth nothing, seo may not be for you. Time is a limited commodity and very valuable.
outsource SEO
01/20/2011 08:50 am
In my years of experience, SEO have been my bread and butter without anyone helping me. But if someone could finance me even if i already know mostly of SEO structure, I would be delighted.
yachtcharter
01/26/2011 03:15 pm
till now, i didn't invest money on SEO training.. i invested in SEO campaigns, like hiring article writers, article directories submitters, etc.. but didn't spend any money on seo trainings or books... and why pay for that, when there's a ton of free info out there?
zahnarzt münchen
01/28/2011 06:45 am
well, you have many options.. if your time is limited, you can just be an SEO consultant, analyze and decide what needs to be done and leave the other guys to do the hard work (backlinking especially).. so you're just the one with the ideas, the other, you outsource.... that's still SEO
SubmitShop UK
02/11/2011 07:23 am
The Yearly Cost Of SEO Education Search Engine Roundtable Either they go to conferences, do webinars , pay for admission to exclusive forums or just spend their own time testing things out.