The business of SEO is fast approaching a science with the levels of micro management involved, and while it’s true the stakes for large companies more than outweigh the headache of optimizing all there pages, what about individuals and small-medium size business. In other words, what about the other 95% of webmasters and internet users.

If you’re like the majority of webmasters, it’s unlikely you can afford to outsource the job on an ongoing basis. In this instance, it’s a case of training yourself, through the good old fashioned internet DIY education.

Keep in mind however that training yourself to a level of competence in SEO is only part of the struggle; the real issue lies in keeping up to date with the latest developments. I would suggest developing a good list of bookmarks, and perhaps downloading a few SEO related RSS feeds from time to time. One excellent way of doing this is through the new personalized pages developed by the big three. The jury is out on which service is best, but its worthwhile checking them all out.

Here are a few links to the relevant pages. Keep in mind you’ll have to setup an account to use any of these services.

While the Google service is the newest, it also lacks the invasive advertising of the other two services. Another way of constantly keeping up to date is too bookmark the many blogs now available. Some of these blogs are written by people in the industry and staff members of the search engine companies. These are great sources to get a little insight and feedback, but don’t expect to uncover the Holy Grail, I'd expect many of these people are under fairly strict NDO arrangements.

For a comprehensive listing of quality SEO related websites, blogs and forums check out the SEO Directory.