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Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been approving a few trackbacks here on Best SEO Blog and over on SEO Theory.

The trackback idea was always a good one. It was, unfortunately, just so easy to spam that I have for years refused to allow trackbacks on principle.

Lately I find I’d rather allow trackbacks from blogs (and bloggers) I know and trust. The links are nofollowed, I think, so it’s not like I’m helping anyone with their search engine marketing.

But I feel it’s valuable and important to give recognition to the other blogs that make reference to the articles I write. Rather than give shout outs and roundups I felt it would be best to let the blogging software do its thing.

Trackbacks are set for moderation so we see a LOT of spammy trackbacks come through the pipe that never get approved.

Generally speaking, if you see a trackback in a comment here or on SEO Theory, it means the link has been vetted. Someone made sure the article issuing the trackback was making a relevant point.

I’m happy to link out to other people’s sites from time to time. I try not to do it in every post because I want the links to have some significance to my readers when I give them. But I’m happy to allow the trackbacks now, too.

I know I’m mentioned on a lot of SEO blogs, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a petulant way. Does that make me a “real SEO”? What about the hard-working SEO technicians who are not mentioned on blogs?

I’ve also been interviewed a few times (less often than most people who get to be interviewed as SEOs). Does that make me a “real SEO”? What about the hard-working SEO technicians who have never been interviewed as SEOs?

I’ve been quoted by the news media a time or two as an SEO. Does that make me a “real SEO”? If you’re a hard-working SEO technician and the news media have never asked your opinion on anything, are you a fake SEO?

Last week’s kerfluffle over Verified SEO/SEO Watchdogs leaves me wondering just how many more credibility issues the SEO industry wants to weather before people start seeing the fog clear from their priorities and agree to do something about adopting industry-wide standards (which would suck the wind out of the sails of all independent efforts to “monitor” the SEO industry).

I’ve never played the popularity game that permeates the SEO industry conferences. In fact, the only conferences I’ve presented SEO topics for were not SEO conferences. In my career I think I’ve made one last-minute pitch to be on an SEO conference (and if the email arrived by the deadline I would be surprised to hear that). My topic was something esoteric — the sort of stuff I write about but which SEO conferences eschew.

So I’m not buddy-buds with all the top SEO partiers. I don’t work on joint projects with the industry insiders (well, except when I do). My time blogging for SEOmoz is now ancient history and most people think all I do is criticize SEOmoz (honestly, why my compliments and recommendations for SEOmoz go unnoticed is beyond me — I must have lost more SEO popularity contests than I thought I had entered).

Having been nominated for more than a few SEMMY Awards (which I admit I have only begun taking a serious interest in this year), I can say that I feel like I’ve been noticed (finally) by the SEO industry as something other than a “contrarian” or “that guy who always demands proof”.

My SEO resume is, I think, tolerable. I’ve been praised and criticized, corrected and confirmed. People like me, they don’t like me. The SEO Theory Twitter account has more followers than your average bear — er, Twitter account.

But I have no credentials. I haven’t taken anyone’s course, passed anyone’s test, earned or purchased any piece of paper that says I’ve accomplished something. So, when push comes to shove, and we all unite in that great SEO achievements pissing contest in the sky, who among us will be qualified to be called a real SEO?

Here are a few ways we can sort of verify our serious intent toward being real SEOs, but are they good enough, are they achievable?

1. Get clients to publish honest testimonials on their own sites
2. Be listed in SEO industry directories that normally include only the most well-known names
3. Earn at least 25 Sphinns for 2 or more articles
4. Present at an SEO conference
5. Be cited by at least 5 news articles (on as many topics)
6. Earn a link from Danny Sullivan
7. Be mentioned by Matt Cutts
8. Have more real Twitter followers who actually retweet your articles than robots

So, what do you think? Can we all do that? Can we all prove we’re real SEOs, or are we all stuck in the same boat as the charlatans, scam artists, and beginners?

How do you tell the difference between a real search engine optimization strategist and someone who just claims to be one?

What’s the secret formula that should be promoted to our consumer marketplace, so that the SEO industry doesn’t have to worry about being dragged down by faux watchdog agencies, patent owners, and reputation trashers?

We often associate the word “amateur” with negative connotations, as if something amateurish were less desirable or not worthwhile. But how many of us would want to fight the World Amateur Karate Champion, or play against the World Amateur Chess Champion?

Amateurity is contextually denoted with both respect and disrespect. In some contexts, particularly sports, immense respect is accorded to the amateur leaders and champions.

I suspect that many people in the SEO community secretly or subconsciously strive to distance themselves from “amateur SEO”. I can think of a few movies, however, where some bad guy who is big on brawn and martial arts sneers at someone else, mutters “amateurs“, and then proceeds to get his butt kicked by the amateurs he dismissed so casually.

Oft-times in real life the difference between an amateur and the professional is the type and amount of support or compensation one receives for performing a set of tasks, not for the quality of the effort one had made.

Many amateur SEO techniques may indeed lead to search penalties and filtration, but there are still good practices that non-professional SEOs quickly adapt. These practices are still used (and are sometimes refined) by the pros. Here are a few examples:

Writing – Just writing a few paragraphs of text on a Web page is sufficient to get started with search engine optimization. Some amateur SEOs are far better writers than many professional SEOs. A good SEO wants to improve his or her writing as much as possible.

Website Publishing – You have to throw your bread upon the waters if you want it returned to you a hundred fold. Some amateur SEOs just love to create Websites. Many professional SEOs sort of take to the task like cats take to water. Truth be told, you should try to publish as many useful sites as possible in order to hone your SEO skills.

Engaging in the conversation – The most successful amateur Website operators are tuned into the conversation in whatever topic they invest themselves in. They don’t just know who the players are, they play with the players, eventually becoming players themselves. These heavyweights of the amateur Web oftentimes cross over into the professional markets, but their expertise becomes stale if they don’t stay engaged.

Many of us old-time SEOs came into the professional markets from amateur markets that grew competitive as the Web figured out ways to monetize itself.

Treat people with respect – This is one of those intangible factors that affects everything you do. Some people in our industry try to make themselves look good by making others look bad. That approach only works with gullible and immature people. Eventually you hit the wall and can go no further with this tactic.

In the amateur side of nearly all endeavors RESPECT is the main currency of exchange. People who don’t treat their peers with respect rarely go far in amateur circles. Professional SEOs should not devote their time to trying to make other people look bad.

There is a difference between offering a critical opinion that may offend someone and going out of your way to attack other people and seek to destroy their credibility. If your professionalism is built on ridiculing or deriding other people in the SEO industry, you’re not going to earn much respect. That lost respect will cost you friends and allies who won’t be there when you need them most.

Link freely to sites without thinking about SEO – This is the hardest lesson for many people in the SEO community to learn. So much bad advice has been published that tells people they must go out and get links to achieve SEO success that people have given up all their SEO power to the sites that provide links.

You have the power to shape your own SEO destiny by deciding carefully who and where you link, but more importantly by just linking out without thinking in terms of PageRank, anchor text, and competition. Amateur SEOs often build really great resources because they don’t “know” any better. They lose that primordial power once they start to believe the link building myths that permeate the SEO community.

Be passionate – People who have lost their passion for a venture become dependent on the passion of others. Passive SEO is completely dispassionate and it leaves you adrift in a cold sea of heartless link moguls who are only interested in what value you’re willing to part with in order to obtain the links they control.

Your passion, whether you’re an amateur or a professional, frees you from the anxiety associated with link building. Your passion drives you to build the kinds of resources other people recognize, respect, and appreciate.

Do these things well, and people will find it more difficult to decide whether you are an amateur or a professional SEO.

Everything on the Web can be faked. Everything on the Web can be replicated. Everything on the Web can be reused or repurposed. As users of the Web, every day we make decisions about whom we will trust as a source of information.

Some people are more skeptical than others. Some people are more trusting than others. Numerous surveys have revealed that the majority of search engine users assume that the first results presented to them are probably “good content”, “trustworthy content”, etc.

Matt Cutts has on more than occasion indicated that he and his fellow search engineers feel compelled to meet that expectation by serving the best results they can provide for the user experience. Over the past year, search has evolved away from finding matching content toward finding trustworthy content.

It’s all about trust.

And so far our efforts to figure out how a search engine assigns trust have pretty much been fruitless. But I think the justification for reverse engineering algorithms has grown thin over the years, particularly where Google is concerned.

In fact, earlier today as I was thinking about the work I do, I realized I don’t really chase the algorithms any more so much as I chase the priorities. That is, a search engine may try several algorithmic approaches toward fulfilling a set priority. Hence, assuming one can figure out what algorithmic approach is being used, by the time you have resources in place to take advantage of that part of the algorithm it has moved on.

It’s a losing battle, as some people in the industry like to say. And chasing algorithms has become far less important to me than chasing priorities. I have to think about 6 months down the road. I look for trends that haven’t even yet emerged, working toward developing (or enhancing) an ever-changing model of what Web search is trying to accomplish.

In search engine optimization, people obsess over whatever part of the algorithmic picture they think they (need to) understand. For some people, that is “fixing duplicate content”. For others, that is “managing PageRank”. Some people obsess over page titles and URLs, domain names, and how often they should use keywords on the page.

The one thing we don’t obsess about is probably the most important factor influencing Web search: which sites we trust. We spend our days building links for ourselves and client sites but when we pontificate we casually link out to Websites we feel demonstrate our points or provide good, reliable information. Furthermore, we visit those sites more often than we visit other sites.

You’ve done many Web searches as an SEO. You’ve clicked on all sorts of strange links. You have developed an acute sensitivity to sites you want nothing to do with. Your red flags wave, your alarm klaxons wail loudly — your hand quickly takes you back or closes the browser window.

A Web document doesn’t have to be malware to be unacceptable. It can be boring, a duplicate of something you have seen elsewhere, outdated, a thin-content site covered with advertising, etc. You’re not likely to trust that kind of content for yourself. You would not recommend it to anyone else to use as a model for their own site or to visit.

Your examples of “bad sites” don’t have to resemble my examples in any way. There are too many sites out there that people choose to trust for us all to trust the same sites.

Nonetheless, using those sites you trust as a guide is one of the best practices you can develop for your SEO. Follow your nose, for your nose knows what stinks and what smells sweet. Instinct will tell you better what is safe to do and what is not — better than any list of criteria you’ll find published on an SEO blog.

We express our trust in many ways. You can easily quantify that expressed trust when developing models for Web sites, looking for sites to use as link resources, and in evaluating for sites you want to link to (you should always link out to good content that will be of interest to your visitors somewhere on your site).

We trust sites where we participate in the discussions.
We trust sites where we contribute content.
We trust sites we use as personal sources of information.
We trust sites we use for personal resources (extended search).
We trust sites where we make purchases.
We trust sites that we read on a regular basis.

We put faces with these sites, even if they are only corporate faces (think of Amazon) or collective faces (think of Ickipedia). We trust even sites we don’t like if we have found them to be useful on more than one occasion.

The trust you extend to whomever you meet on the Web is your best guide to:

1. What you are comfortable with
2. What works with you
3. What you know best
4. What you would most like to be associated with

In the final analysis, aren’t these among the primary criteria we use in deciding where we want to be and what we want people to think of us? The search engine optimization specialist who ignores his or her gut feeling is neglecting one of the best SEO tools we have available. No one can package that for you.

Think about it.

A new user at the HighRankings Forum revived an old discussion to ask Is there really no professional course in SEO?. That is such a good question for someone just starting out to learn search optimization.

What makes a course “professional”? Is it the professionalism of the instructor or the accreditation the course may have earned from an authoritative body?

There are far more SEO training courses available than any one person can possibly evaluate. We don’t even have an index of them. The search engines reveal that many people have optimized sites for SEO training course.

And there is no authoritative body that establishes accreditation for SEO training courses. About the closest you’ll come to anything like a standard for SEO training might be the services offered by the SEMPO Learning Center, which offers Webinars, tutorials, and full-blown training courses.

But SEMPO, as I have noted before, has balked at trying to establish standards of any sort. Their training course — while created by dozens of experienced professionals — are really just more of the same from the SEO industry. We are good at putting together a hodge-podge group of resources and terrible at establishing anything like a minimum requirement for quality and acceptability.

Accreditation is not necessary for building a foundation of standards, although it would be the best path to follow. The problem with accreditation, however, is that there is no authoritative body to set the standards. So the closest we can come is to adopt informal standards.

There is no enforcement of informal standards but people seeking SEO training courses can be selective about which courses they sign up for. Here are some guidelines to help you evaluate the quality of the training course.

The SEO training course must have a functional description – A “functional description” means it doesn’t confuse you. It should start out with “Basic SEO”, “Intermediate SEO”, “Advanced SEO”, etc. and then it should summarize the type of information that will be conveyed.

The SEO training course must have training materials – You need a textbook, which any trainer should be capable of providing. If the trainer doesn’t have the time to write a textbook they should be able to purchase some from someone else who has written the material. Proprietary textbooks are okay but they should be printed, ideally bound, and available as .PDF files on a disk.

-You also need presentation slides for each session. These should be provided in both printed and electronic form. The slides themselves should provide structure to the discussion or presentation. Ideally, you want supplemental information for the slides, rather than all the information on the slides.

-You want a recommended reading list. People DO write books about search, search optimization, Website design, Perl/PHP programming, etc. Shari Thurow has published two books about Web search and usability. If you asked me for an opinion on reading lists, I would say any reading list would be incomplete without at least one of those books. But there are dozens of books on SEO that have been published by well-known people in the field (Tim Ash, Rand Fishkin/Stephan Spencer/Eric Enge, Bruce Clay, and more). No one is going to agree with everything these folks say, but you should be offered a reading list of at least 5-10 books (anything longer than that should be accompanied by detailed reviews).

The SEO training course instructors must have published biographies – You should be able to find these people on the Web and learn why they are qualified to be teaching SEO. Since you cannot go to a university and earn a Masters in “SEO Education”, the next best thing is to find out where these folks have demonstrated their expertise. Beware of client testimonials. Although many are real, genuine, reliable sources of information on a training course, testimonials are routinely faked in online marketing.

The SEO training course curriculum should be published – You should see before you pay how many classes there are, what they cover, how much time is devoted to them, etc.

The SEO training course should include Internet time – If the trainer is not offering real-time evaluation of Websites and search results, the course material is not current. Change is the only constant in this industry and any reasonable SEO trainer should be more than comfortable with taking students online during class. The trainer should raise that expectation in advance.

The SEO training course should enumerate the skills you’ll acquire – Students should be told in advance that their training will give them the skills and maybe tools to go out and execute specific tasks.

The SEO training course should describe its level of difficulty – Basic SEO training should be substantially different from intermediate and advanced SEO training. Again, we have no standards in this industry so one person’s idea of intermediate SEO might coincide with another person’s idea of basic SEO. Most so-called “Advanced SEO” courses that I have read about only seem to cover what I would consider to be intermediate-level topics.

An SEO trainer should be able to articulate what s/he sees as Basic SEO, Intermediate SEO, and Advanced SEO. No one has to agree with my ideas, but the SEO training course should describe the skill sets it assigns to Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced levels of training.

The SEO training course should document the standards it teaches to – But wait! If we have no standards as an industry, how can we be sure we’re learning to good standards? The truth is, no one who is inexperienced is qualified to judge between standards but it would be better to allow prospective students to compare the standards you teach to with standards other courses teach to. So a good SEO course should be accompanied by an in-depth explanation of the SEO standards the instructors are following.

If the students come away feeling like those standards were met, then they received at least part of the value they paid for. By asking for and choosing among the statements of standards that SEO teachers adhere to, people entering the SEO industry help move the standards discussion forward.

In fact, the students should be demanding standards on all fronts because standards will help them more than anything else.

The SEO training course should discuss search engine guidelines – Frankly, I believe you should offer a separate session just on the guidelines published by search engines. The SEO standards a course teaches to should not be the same as the search engine guidelines. The guidelines don’t cover all aspects of search engine optimization. Search engine guidelines are intended to help people do things that are acceptable to search engines — they don’t help people do everything (ethical and acceptable) that is necessary for search engine optimization.

The SEO training course must specifically discuss the needs and resources for at least 3 major search engines – I don’t care how much so-called market share Google has. If you’re not teaching people to optimize for Ask and Bing (and Yahoo! while it still has its own algorithm), your SEO training course sucks.

The SEO training course should teach how to measure market share – Market share is very important. It helps us analyze how competitive a vertical is. Knowing how to measure market share helps us view search engine market share reports with healthy, healthy skepticism. The data published by Alexa, Compete, comScore, Hitwise, and Nielsen is largely guess-work and extrapolation. We may have nothing better to work with, but these services cannot show us the real picture.

The SEO training course MUST teach how to measure conversion, return on investment, and other success/metrics-related topics – Success has to be measured. Performance has to be measured. If you sign up for a training class that doesn’t offer any information on how to track and measure performance, there is a HUGE gap in your SEO education.

The SEO training course should provide in-depth use and discussion of at least two tools per topic – Any SEO training course that only uses the Google Adwords Suggestion Tool, or which only uses Google Analytics, sucks. There are other ways to do keyword research and any SEO who relies solely on Google Analytics for metrics and reporting had better be doing so only because they took on a braindead client who contractually forbade use of better tools.

An SEO training course should teach you to be flexible and familiar with multiple assessment tools. If you come away from an SEO training course thinking that Google provides you with everything you need, you wasted your money.

It’s okay for an SEO trainer to say, “I personally only care about Google”. But if that trainer only teaches to Google then their course should be clearly labeled “SEO Training For Google”. The students should know in advance what the value is they are paying for.

Google does not equal Search.

SEO for Google does not equal Search Engine Optimization.

We don’t have to wait for the SEO course owners to debate this proposal. The smart ones are already complying with many of these suggested standards. People who want to learn more about search engine optimization can now look at the various course offerings with a better sense of how to weigh them.

The industry is constantly improving. The process is long and slow but we’ll eventually get to a point where people look at us with the professional esteem and respect many of us aspire to. But as I have noted elsewhere, we cannot afford to leave these all-too-important issues in the hands of naive academics who don’t understand search engine optimization.

If the day comes when standards are imposed upon us by a government that draws upon “expertise” in the educational community, the SEO industry will have a huge uphill battle to wage to ensure that realistic and practical standards are set.

You can do your part now by continuing the discussion wherever you participate in the SEO community. SEO training course standards MUST be part of that discussion.