SEO is Business As Usual (BAU)

SEO is Business as Usual

SEO in the search world is an acronym for Search Engine Optimisation. But I also like to think of it as the Simple Easy Option. People over complicate things a lot and website optimisation is no exception.

A friend of my sister’s who owns a dress agency in the high street asked me for help with her website. She did not understand why her site wasn’t coming up and how she could increase traffic to her site.

The trick is to keep it simple, one step at a time. As the owner did not have the files for her site, we could not amend the content or the code. So the only realistic and effective option was to build links to her site. Create a buzz about it .. too easy. Her shop is different to the other clothes shops in the high street. It is a dress agency where women sell their designer clothes which she then sells in her shop to other women looking for a good deal.

After we checked if the site was indexed (which is wasn’t) and checked for the number of links to her site (which was 0), we worked on the keywords. We decided to optimize for only three as it has just three pages, simple. We looked at her competitors as well. She is lucky as there aren’t many, and the competitors didn’t have well optimized sites but they did have links. Easily done.

So let the link building commence….Did we do directory submissions I hear you ask? No no, we did not, well only to one business directory. What we concentrated on, was good old fashioned press releases. In a press release we can build links back to the site, have our key terms and even include an image which will appear in the search results. In addition, the owner had contacts with the local councils, both in her residential area and where the business was located. So one press release, sent to two councils published on two websites and in two newspapers. Easy…

Financial cost = nothing Resources = time.

So you don’t need to have a lot of money or be some tech guru to get involved with seo. You just need some patience and think of SEO as the acronym for the Simple Easy Option.

What is an expert in seo?

So you want to get into SEO but you are told you cannot because you are not an expert.

What do you do?

Well, all experts have to start somewhere. The first thing you need is passion and enthusiasm.
I tell you, this gets you a long way. This will drive you to pick up those books and more importantly read them and the other blog posts on the internet about seo.

Then I suggest you practice those skills. Take a website of a close friend or family, a small one, of five to ten pages. Go through that site and conduct a “site analysis”

This is where you will look at:
1. The title tags
2. The meta keywords
3. The meta description
4. The alt tags
5. The internal links
6. The outbound links
7. Anchor text
8. dynamic pages

Then I suggest if you have access to the site, to try out your new found skills.
First thing is to do keyword research – find out what the competitors are doing. If there is a lot of competition for a word, try and be creative. Include commonly mis spelled names eg champagne can be mis spelt champane. Combine words together like Louis champane or roederer champane.

Upload these keywords into the content management system and try finding your site with these words. Remember to change the terms often as it can be a very competitive market.

Remember to also install google analytics so you can track the number of visitors to your site and see how it increases dependent on your work.

Continue to work on a wide range of websites. I guarantee in a few months, your confidence would have grown and within a year’s time you will have an impressive portfolio. And by managing different websites you will have also gained experience in the account management field. Keep on top of the news in seo and you will be the “expert” you have always wanted to be.