What courses, books, and other information can I use to teach an employee to be an SEO specialist?

Two key concerns are 1. Customer confusion with the 2 offerings: Imagine being in an art gallery that sells photography training and fine art or a book store that tries to sell you fine art. Even if it's the same group of people, they may be in very different mind-sets and hence may not associate both together. 2. SEO challenges with mixed messages you're sending. Which keywords would you optimize for which part of the site? Advantage would be if the customer base is the same group of people, hence offering cross-sell opportunities. For instance, if your MAIN source of leads for the training site is the art site, then this would be more important. In general, I would suggest one site for one customer group. If there is likely to be a very high overlap, then same site, with multiple sub-sites might work. In matter of fact, it'll probably be EASIER to do two sites for this than one site. Your designer will thank you :) Then tastefully add cross-links in the places where someone is likely to use them. For instance the art gallery could have a post 'How I make art' and links to your other business there. And the photog training site would have your art pics with subtle on-image links to your art biz. While I'm not a branding expert, I do find that my engineering lead approach to challenges in Marketing/Sales usually works, and provides clarity and direction.

I have been working in SEO for over 10 years and have built search agencies from the ground up. I've also worked with some big brands on International SEO like Active.com, as well as many US based chains like Extended Stay Hotels. I suggest sub-directories as they are MUCH easier to manage and promote via SEO. You can't have specific local IPs with sub-directories, but you can with sub-domains. But that's not hyper critical, there are WAY more important factors. Plus, you can geo-target in Google Webmaster Tools. Your current structure for sub-directories is perfect: http://drivingtests101.com/Canada/Ontario With subdomains, each will be treated like a brand new site. So you would have to work very hard to get each to gain good authority SEO-wise. Plus managing and hosting lots of subdomains is a ton of work! In order to not get penalized you need to: Implement the the "lang" and "hreflang" tags in the HTML of each country directory and all pages within. Have unique Title tags and descriptions written in each language. Have unique content for each country and state page. Written in each respective language. Yes, its a TON of work but hey, you are trying to take over the world! If you are serious about international search traffic then you will do these things and the costs should be balanced out with the extra traffic you'll get. If you can make the root domain super authoritative then it will boost ALL of the internal pages. This is also key to ranking well for international search. I'm open to a follow up call to elaborate on any of my responses or to answer other questions.

The cost of SEO depends a great deal on three things: 1) The specific services being offered (SEO, social media, content strategy, etc.) 2) The degree in which those services will be implemented (how many hours per month) 3) the skill and experience level of the SEOs involved. $800/month is a pretty small investment if you consider all the layers to making a web marketing campaign successful. My company will usually not touch any fully-managed web marketing campaign for less than $1500/month and that's at the low end of the aggressiveness meter even for a pretty basic site. A larger ecommerce site might start around $5K and go up from there. Overall, you want to look for value and results. You'll want to know how long the SEO has been in business and when looking at proposals you need to understand the amount of time the company will be investing in the campaign. You also want to spell out your goals and establish the expectations on how/when those goals will be achieved. When the SEO and client don't have the same expectations, that can lead to issues later on. But if you know what the goals are you can both be on the same page from the start.

If you got 5000 sites to link to your site using the same keyword you'll likely be flagged for spam and attempting to manipulate the search results. That is an old-school attempt at SEOing a site that Google and the other search engines have already developed algorithmic answers to. There are three aspects to building up your search rankings. 1) On-Site Optimization: Your site has to be coded in a way that is search and mobile friendly. You need to optimize your content for searcher's topical interest's (keywords), and give your visitors a great on-site experience by focusing on usability issues. 2) Content: You need to create and publish awesome content that fills the needs of the audience you're trying to reach. Write blog posts and create other forms of content that answer questions, provide tips, and map out solutions that truly illustrate that you are an authority on the topic. 3) Social Engagement / Links: Links are an important part of the algorithm, but getting a bunch of sites to link to you using keywords is the wrong approach. You need to be engaging on social media and (to a far lesser extent) socializing your content above. But the more you engage, the more others will socialize your content for you, which is where authority is really built.

Obviously, no 2 situations are alike; and multiple factors affect any outcome. Practically, the number of answers is infinite. But one factor I've looked at intensively, full time for years is the role played by the brand name and/or the site's domain(s). Think of doing business -- online or off -- as moving along a path. Some paths are rocky or go through quicksand. Others can be made straight and smooth. Obstacles can be cleared, or the surface may be lubricated. For most niches, you'll see brand names / domains that add friction -- friction that is compensated for by extra marketing inputs ... effort or money. Suppose your niche were nicotine patches. Well, ideally you might own NicotinePatch(es).com to simplify brand recognition, add trust, increase click-through rates, and so forth. Traffic can be built up without an exact-match domain. No doubt about that. Still, not all domains / names perform equally well online or in the minds' of an audience. Answers aren't always so clear cut. However, since the internet is built on domain names, domains and names are worth evaluating very deliberately.