Some see search engine optimisation (SEO) as something of an art form. Whether this is valid or not, it can at times certainly be a complex science. However getting a basic grasp of the key concepts of how search engines work and how to optimise a site to rank higher in Google doesn't require years of experience, it can be learned with some smart reading in the right places in a relatively short amount of time. This won't make you a professional SEO consultant, but if you've been given responsibility for selecting an SEO supplier at work or are overseeing an SEO project it's a good idea to read up on the basic concepts so you can get the most from working with a professional SEO supplier.

Where to start

I have always believed the best place to start learning about SEO is by getting a better understanding of how search engines work. Google's Webmaster guidelines (and the equivilent on Bing) do a nice job of explaining what webmasters should be looking to do o their sites to make them rank better in layman's terms. Reading up on these guidelines is a good idea as well if you are going to be working with an SEO agency. You should make sure that the tactics they are using for your campaign fall within webmaster guidelines.

Learn the lingo

Like any niche industry the SEO business has developed a lot of acronyms and terms which won't make much sense to an outsider. Luckily they're really not that complicated and usually knowing what an acronym stands for goes a long way to explaining what it means. Here are a few buzz words and SEO acronyms I'd suggest looking up. You can just Google them for an explanation or here are some useful SEO glossaries:

• http://www.seoconsultants.com/glossary/
• http://www.sempo.org/learning_center/sem_glossary/

Common acronyms and terms:

• SEO - search engine optimisation
• SMO - social media optimisation
• CRO - conversion rate optimisation
• IBL - in-bound link/s
• PR- PageRank
• TrustRank
• CTR- click through rate
• YSE- yahoo site explorer
• ODP- open directory project
• Meta tag
• HTML5
• Latent semantic indexing
• Keywords/ key phrases
• Nofollow
• Canocialisation

Get your head around keywords

Keyword research is usually the first thing you'll do as part of an SEO campaign. This is where you'll select the words or phrases that you want your website to rank for. For example if your company sells car insurance you might want to rank for 'car insurance' or 'cheap car insurance'. If you're an online shoe shop you might decide you want to rank when so done types in 'buy shoes online' or on a product name like 'ugg boots'.

The skill of keyword research is identifying not just the keywords which will get you the most visitors but the most relevant and achievable keywords for your SEO project which will lead to sales. Wordtracker has a good article on keyword research.

Understanding technical issues

Although you don't need to be a developer or coder to be a successful SEO, it helps. There are lots of technical issues to get your head around when trying to understand how search engines are accessing your site and identifying any problems they have reading it's contents. Most of these you won't need to know unless your site has a problem. This guide to technical SEO will get you started. Remember when you're learning SEO knowing the solution isn't always necessary, the biggest challenge is being able to identify that there is a problem.

This is the first part of our 2 page guide to learning SEO, see the second part here:

• Learning the basics of SEO Part 2