SEO College
I attended a private Bible College in Indiana for 4.5 years and a state technical college for .5 years. The college mentality seems to be, work hard during college at whatever job you can, and once you get out you can apply your degree and get a good paying job. As you know I currently work a day job, but I want to quit that someday and work for myself full time. Rather then wander around aimlessly I decided I needed a plan and time frame.
One class I attended at the state college was “Advanced Website Design”. The teacher is one of the best teachers I have ever had, smart and helpful. The class was centered around learning Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver and a few other tools. The majority of what we did was to go through in-program tutorials or online tutorials for the programs. The tuturial would give us a project and then guide us step by step how to do it. Thus we were able to learn by hands on experience and, to some degree, at our own pace. This teacher taught me one of the single most valuable things I can ever learn. He taught me how to teach myself. Basically the class was just organized tutorials that you completed. I can read and learn anything myself. Simply read, learn, apply in a structured format and your doing the same thing.
Thus I came up with a plan. The plan in a nutshell was to go to SEO college for a “bachelors” degree. By that I simply mean that a bachelors degree is typically a 4 year degree. So I plan to learn SEO and online business in 4 years. Now in a typical college, you would have to pay money, usually alot, to have someone teach you. Given the fact that you are really doing the work, all they are really doing is guiding you and making sure you achieve a measurable level of knowledge. Neither of which actually guarantees you will earn any money with your degree when you get done. This isn’t to appealing to me.
So I decided to consider myself as being in SEO College. By having my own college I can create a learning plan, learn in an organized format and measure my level of knowledge by how much money I make. I am of course not just learning SEO, I am really learning how to make money online. Its just like college, with a few differences. I don’t have to pay some school a incredulous amount of money to learn. In fact as I learn and apply I am actually earning money. I don’t have to do it on the schools time frame. I can learn as fast as I like. I don’t have to go thru four years of wondering if I am going to get a job when I get done. I get to actually build myself a job as learn. Also in this case I get to stay on top of things. If there were a college course on SEO it would be well outdated by the time you finished the 4 years. I stay up to date as the market changes.
So about the plan. I don’t have a strict plan per say as things do constantly change. However I have basic plans. -I do have many small steps laid out, but in order to keep this post reasonable I will give a summary. I will give more detail of my plans over time. – My plan is to quit my job by April 2011 and be able to work full time for myself. I believe that I will meet this goal before April 2011. The purpose of considering myself to be in college is to keep me focused and on target. If the average joe can get a degree and job in 4 years, I can get an excellent education and create my own job in 4 years or less. When I get discouraged about things not going fast enough, I remind myself I am just a sophomore in SEO college, how could I expect to know what a graduate like Shoemoney or John Chow knows? 
Shoemoney and John paid their time in “school” I am paying mine now.
My status in school? – I started April 2007 with proxies. I have since written an ebook that has earned over $2500, I have earned over $1500 with proxy websites in one month. My latest successful projects include 2 content sites that are SEOd. I can’t say everything I have done has earned a profit, but even Google and Apple have had non profitable ventures at one time or another.
To reach my goal (maintaining my current income) and quit my job I need to earn $65,000 per year. To be comfortable I want to earn $80,000 to $100,000 per year. I earned about $10,000 last year and am already on track to well exceed that this year. If things go as I would like I will make between $30,000 and $48,000 in 2009.
It all starts with a plan. If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. I WILL go part time at my job for a while when I transition and quit my job altogether one day. I have a plan, what is your plan? Do you even have a plan? Do you want to succeed in earning either a living or just some side money online? Then get a plan and stick to it. Enroll in a hypothetical self taught college if you want, start a blog to help you keep track of your progress maybe. Just be sure to WRITE IT DOWN. Do it, on paper, on purpose. Do it today, do it now.
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2 Responses to “SEO College”
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Hi matt, just stumbled onto your page here and i liked what you had to say. I’m pretty inspired about what you’re doing, seeing as i have just recently entered into the seo field and have been researching degrees and college work. All the while i’ve been aspiring and dreaming of my own seo business. As of right now i am currently working for a .com and optimizing their sites, which they taught me how to do. I’m continually needing to grow and was wondering what and where you’re finding useful information for newbies to seo other than in forums, and seo blogs.
I like your end note as well, i’m a firm believer in writing it down and having a plan. Currently i’m still developing a plan… should probably set a time frame to have that plan written out by. anyways do you have links to the work you’ve done in the last year? I haven’t gotten to explore your site yet, so if there are some on here i’m sure ill find them. keep it up, and keep pressing in!
I would recommend SEOBook by Aaron Wall. I spent a lot of time roaming around forums, but Aarons book is EXCELLENT. To get his book, you currently need to join his “community” or something to that extent, he explains it. Then he gives you his book for free. The community is excellent as well, and is a monthly subscription. But even if you join one month and get the book, learn what you can from the community, and then cancel. You have to book to go from there. I will post about this topic next week.
As for the links to my work, if you follow me around the community (not just this website) you will likely find some of my work, but I prefer not to disclose it here. Just so everyone doesn’t flood my niche. However, read my post on SEO starups for ideas on how to get going.