As I was checking my usual list of go to websites this morning (SEOmoz, Marketleap, Prchecker, iWebtool & Widgetbox to name but a few!) I started to ponder... "Am I an SEO greenhorn?"

I am completely used to feeling "out of place" because I grew up in Manchester, England and now live in Ft. Worth Texas, so the feeling that I might be new to something, or not quite fitting in, is not alien to me at all. I have held back on posting to the SEOmoz blog for a while now because I was just unsure whether I am SEO-savvy enough to contribute to an SEO blog. That often heard talk radio phrase came to mind:

"Long time listener, first time caller!"

I read SEOmoz every week and have found invaluable advice which I have definitely tried to follow, I like to think of my brain as a coffee filter full of ideas, my daily surf is the super hot water percolating through, I just hope the result is a nice Costa-Rican espresso and not a weak milky machine made coffee!

So is there any way to determine if I am an SEO greenhorn?

1. I enjoyed reading Rand's post "What Makes an SEO" and I can quantifiably determine that I an not an SEO, I think I qualify for the "Technical" rating because I definitely practice SEO with my blogs but I don't think I will ever qualify for the "Self Constructed" or "Peer Validated" attributes because my blogging is not yet a full time profession.
2. I always try to focus on the quality of my blog content but a lot of my website updates are made with an aim to increasing search engine traffic;
   • I use Keyword suggestion tools to help me pick titles for my posts, the titles are often a little obscure but it works! Example, I wrote about a company that uses green dye to make dead grass look healthy, my keyword research showed that "Green Grass Leaves" would generate more traffic than "Green Blades of Grass" etc.
   • I try not to focus just on Google (which is difficult sometimes) and I am definitely working on my Yahoo! and Bing search results. Sitemaps galore have been submitted and I check my webmaster tools for the various "other" search contenders regularly.
   • I have poked my head down the "nofollow" rabbit hole and implemented "nofollow" on some elements which recur in every post such as social networking links, I don't feel completely comfortable implementing "nofollow" techniques but I hope to learn more.
   • I started my 2009 link campaign back in February and am focused on building meaningful links with sites that I truly want to be associated with. (High PR also helps!)
3. My site has so far had very little investment other than my own time but I have started using pay per click advertising to direct people to key areas including promoting my site widgets, I won't embarrass myself by saying how little I spend on advertising but lets just say I spend more on coffee everyday. (Have I inserted enough coffee references yet?)
4. "Cross browser compatibility" is no longer an odd phrase, I now try to test any updates I make in IE6, IE7, Mozilla and more recently Safari. My next adventure will be into creating a mobile friendly version of my site.

Anyway, I am very conscious that people reading this post will probably have a finger hovering over that Back button so I will wrap things up. I guess I am looking for some of that "Peer Validation" so if you think I'm an SEO greenhorn, don't hold back, I can take the criticism (I hope) and would love to get some feedback. Am I on the right track or headed for SEO oblivion?