Budget SEO - What I spend my money on for Search Engine Optimization

It’s funny how private I’ve been about my SEO techniques and where I spend my money to help optimize my clients sites. It’s not so much that I tried to hide some secret SEO technique that makes my client’s sites rank #1 on Google, its more resources than anything (which is my secret weapon).

The most valuable thing I spend my money on by far is events, website memberships and books. Of course I buy links, I pay for analytical services, content and etc but those come secondary to my budget and many times I never spend a single dime on them.

So what resources I spend my money on and recommend?

SEOmoz - Get the premium membership, well worth the money.

SEO Book Training Program & the SEO Book - Either is fine, I find the training program is a lot like the book with updated content & a community presence.

For resources that is basically it; I’ve read probably close to 100 books on internet marketing and I’m a member of probably every SEO forum on the internet but with everything I know now the only two resources that actually teach me new things are the two listed above.

As for events (physical conferences, forums, etc) I recommend the following:

SMX: The Search Marketing Expo - $1395 for an all access pass.

SES: Search Engine Strategies - $1795 for a platinum passport.

PubCon: Search Marketing Conferences - $799 for a full pass.

Forums I recommend:

Another thing I like to do is track the experts in search engine optimization. Here is a list of people I highly respect and follow religiously:

Aaron Wall