I'm a SEO. Is the only way to brand myself to start a SEO blog?

Actually, I suggest starting by writing for a few other blogs. SEOMOZ has their YouMoz section, which wouldn't be a bad place to start. You can also answer questions on Quora and Twitter. Eventually you'll want your own blog, but starting with other sites and networks that already have a big audience might be a lot easier. I know a lot of folks will say that you shouldn't write for others, because all that does is help them rank better. That's true. But you need to balance that against the fact that they already have the audience.

Great ideas mentioned above by and ! And how about starting your own local SEO meetups (at the very beginning with friends and colleagues) in an informal way? That's how you'll get some PR, learn other SEOs, and well, spend some good time in a company of good people! ;) To get more ideas on starting meetups, look through the examples at http://meetup.com. Alternatively, you can join the existing ones (search for your city) and become a speaker (which is probably much easier than speaking at the conference). Good luck!

You don't need to start a blog yet. There are hundreds of other SEO blogs out there, and most of them will be fairly well established. If you do start now, you'll be looking at 6 months at least before you get a decent readership, presuming you are promoting it constantly. I prefer the tactic of trying to develop your name in the industry and participating in the community first. Twitter is brilliant for this, share people's posts and try to start up conversations. In particular try to find other people who are of a similar level to you (i.e. don't attempt to converse with Rand!) as you will get much better feedback. I think guest posting, as suggested by , can be very powerful, and plenty of sites accept them. You will at least be building relationships with the site/blog owners, in addition to anyone who might read the post and comment. Similarly I think meetups as suggested by could be very beneficial in terms of getting a foothold in the industry. If that seems like too much work then try to go to a few industry conferences (and network like hell). I also think that Google+ is great for use as a mini-blogging platform. In particular I like it for posting reactions to someone else's blog post, and +ing both the brand page and the writer (and any others you think relevant). You can draw people in this way and suddenly people are discussing the post on your wall. It is certainly a good starting point if you don't want to commit to a proper blog. One other thing - whichever method you use, you will end up writing - be it on your own blog, guest blogging, or something similar to the G+ strategy I just mentioned. In your writing look for the unique angle you can bring to the table. A lot of the blogs out there are written by agency workers. Since I am in-house I tend to write from my in-house perspective as it offers something different. In your situation, presumably you are doing a lot of work in the Dutch SERPs. Most blogs out there are about the UK, US or Australian SERPs - yet a lot of agencies offer international SEO (often without a great deal of experience, I imagine). Certainly they will not be as familiar with Dutch SEO as you will, so perhaps that could be a unique angle for you?

Start a SEO blog, only and only if you have a passion for writing (so it doesn't feel like a chore) and you are willing to commit to at least post 1 post per week (so that your blog actually has content). If you don't meet both requirements, you're better off doing guest posts at other SEO blogs and answering questions on SEO forums.

There are many other ways to Brand yourself. Like Ian said, start writing on other guest blogging platforms, share your real-time experience with the readers. Do guest blogging Start forum participation in popular forum websites like, SEOChat, V7n, WarriorForum etc. Do comment on most relevant and popular blog posts and share your experience there. Be active on social media community, share with your fans/followers what you read and throw your opinion along with that. If you are experienced enough and have great info that could be worth to the huge audience then you can also give it a try to speak at conferences. (If this is something you'd like to and if you can do) On top of everything above, if you feel that you want people to know you more personally, about your work, about your skills, about your thoughts then you can give it a head start with your personal blog. I hope this will be helpful.

This has been a challenge for me as well. I tend to think that if a topic is being covered very well (and the SEO topic is saturated with good content and it isn't difficult to find), then it's not worthwhile to add a "me too" post. This type of thinking won't be very helpful. What I've been doing is trying to write for a specific type of person or niche (outside of SEO world). I imagine that person and write for them. They won't be reading SEOmoz. These are the things I try to keep in mind: 1. Not everyone in the world is reading the same things you are reading. That means there is still room for your input. 2. Don't try to be anything other than who you are. Bring your own experience and thought to a topic. Don't worry about being an authority (for now). 3. Participate in places like Quora, Twitter, and the other places as has been suggested. My take is to have a blog. Be yourself and speak directly to the needs of who you believe to be your audience. You're better off getting the game sooner than later. Your experience will build upon itself, so it's best to get that process started.

Why not try to start a popular SEO Youtube channel?  Video is becoming more and more important, but SEO isn't always easy to visualize, so most people just write about it.  (Yes, Rand Fishkin does Whiteboard Fridays, but that's just one day a week).  If someone can see you all the time on a video, you're automatically branding your face/personality/work style.  Add a company logo in there everytime and you could gain some real traction for your business.

I am 101% agree with my all fellow members starting and participating in social media communities, guest blogging forums like seo chat, v7n forum, warriors forums and great platform like YOUMOZ from Seomoz . Yes, these tips are really very helpful to establish the brand yourself in Internet marketing industry. But everywhere you need good content to write. In all of these above mentioned great places for branding there is a option of link your website.  Where you can URL of your blog or website. Having a BLOG or website is not compulsary thing in Internet marketing industry but if you have few hours of time in a day and good knowledge to share new and interesting thing what you are reading and studing on WEB then you starting a blog is Like a cherry on cake for you. If you are establishing brand yourself then others people really want to follow you on twitter. linkedin and your blog too because everybody is hunting here some new ideas and knowledge on WEB. So there is no harm to start a blog and Kristi Hines the http://kikolani.com founder write a article on how to start a Wordpress blog and everything is mentioned about on how to start a blog. http://kikolani.com/how-to-start-a-wordpress-blog.html And dear friend when you start writing on others blog and take partin social communities then you should motivate automatically to start a blog.  All the best  :)

Start a website like a food blog as a side business that is highly trafficked. It's a good way to show customers that you can apply your theories of seo and get results.