Hi, Daniel. A great way to get some SEO experience is to set up a website from scratch.

Building a site from the ground up will force you to quickly run into those SEO questions (for example, What should my folder structure look like? What duplicate copy issues do I have [www. not 301 to non-www? etc.,]? How do I start ethical and impactful linkbuilding if I have little resources?).

If you’re setting up your own site, you’re going to work though setting up bot and user-friendly architecture, writing human-friendly and search-friendly content, link building from scratch, optimizing a site for local search, incorporating social media on your site, etc.

In my opinion, the best way to learn the foundations of SEO is to put yourself under pressure and learn it as you go. Plus, you’ll get your own website out of it and you’ll have something to present to employers to show off what you’ve learned.

After you have the foundational SEO down, I highly recommend going to some top tier conferences and get to know the A players. I’ve been really impressed by BlueGlass’ conferences. Surround yourself with those kind of A players and you’ll pick up a ton. If you can’t swing a conference ticket, get to know the top SEO players in your city and connect with them. Take them out to lunch and ask them if you can pick their brain.

In the end, my advice is to just keep pushing to learn as much as you can about the nature of Google and Bing’s algorithms and the companies themselves. If you understand how they work and their motives, you’ll be able to better understand where/why they are where they are now and where they may go in the future–and build toward that. The best SEOs know that they don’t know everything. If you keep that curious and probing mindset, you’ll be great in the biz.

I also think taking a creative or marketing writing class is a good idea for any SEO. The more compelling your content/call outs, the less the bounce/exit rates, the longer people stay on your pages, the better chance you’ll have at those people converting, and the more likely you’ll get a link or a social reference. SEO gold.