I’m starting to realize that as I try to figure out this whole “well-rounded SEO” thing, I’m not 100% sure where to start. I feel like I have a million and a half things to learn, and extremely limited time to learn it, and I really want to get a solid foundation under me. So I’m trying to figure out which things are most important to learn first, and which things can come later. A couple of ideas I’ve had about trying to figure out what to learn first are as follows:

• Read SEO blogs and figure out what gets talked about most. Learn those things first.
• Just do it: build a site using a template, and start throwing mud at the wall to see what sticks.
• Ask knowledgeable SEOs what they recommend.
• Open it up to an SEO forum and see what comes back.

Of these, I feel most comfortable with the last two options. I don’t really want to have to reinvent the wheel if somebody else has already been there. So maybe what I’ll do is send a couple of emails to SEOs I’ve come to respect, and go out and post on some forums and see what I get back, before I decide what to learn first.