• You have a functional set of legs and an understanding of how to use them
• You have (at the very least) a reasonable level of fitness
• And it helps if you’ve done some training and/or other preparation for the big race

None of the above points provide any guarantee that you’ll win – they simply mean you’ve got the basics to participate… but there are a lot of other smaller factors that we often don’t think about, yet greatly impact on how you perform in the race and whether or not you’ll even be allowed to run.

For instance, if you turned-up on the day of the race completely naked or with a bomb strapped to your chest – the only race you’ll be running is away from the cops.

Another random consideration could be your running shoes. While a comfortable pair of shoes isn’t necessary to run, if you were wearing Dutch clogs, you’ll perform a lot worse than someone wearing a pair of Nike’s.

But even owning a pair of good running shoes isn’t enough – the shoes need to fit, plus they need laces and you need to know how to tie the laces (or at least know someone who can do this for you) in order for the shoes to stay on your feet once you start moving.

I could go on and on about every minor and seemingly unrelated detail that needs to happen for a successful race to take place, but you’re probably wondering what all this has to do with SEO?

While all of these points may seem like common-sense when referring to a running race, there are many similarities to owning and marketing a website. Many website owners will be aware of the big things (like having legs and knowing how to use them) and some will even appreciate that they’ll need to have done some preparation and training… but it’s all the little things that are overlooked.

Having a visually unappealing site is not unlike turning-up to a race naked. If you use a content management system which hasn’t been updated/upgraded/patched or modified in years, it’s most likely full of security holes. This means it’s easy pickings for hackers, and once your site is infected with malware it will be flagged by Google and you might as well have turn-up to the race with a bomb strapped to your chest.

If your site is lacking in functionality, has broken links or is simply too difficult to get from one page to another, you’re running wearing clogs. Sure, you will still make it to the finish line, but it’ll take you a lot more time and effort than a site that is streamlined, efficient and easy to use.

Some sites might look nice, are easy to use and even incorporate features such as blogs or utilise other social media. This is brilliant and not only helps with getting your pages indexed faster but also acts as a great marketing tool… but simply having such features and not using them properly is like not tying the laces on your Nike’s causing them to fall-off a few feet into the race.

Like any race, there are no certainties or guarantees – so you should never stop training, ensure you have the latest and greatest running shoes and always keep your ears open to the hints and tips offered by professional trainers and experienced runners. After-all, SEO is more of a journey instead of a destination.

But the sites that tick all these boxes (along with the countless other little factors) are the ones that have the greatest chance of winning. And even if you don’t come first, at least you’ll know you weren’t the overweight, one-legged, naked guy wearing a wooden clog and a bomb on their chest.

On your mark… Get set… SEO!

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Basically Ben comments on a thread over at WMW which indicates that social media is a waste of time and doesn’t yield a great deal of SEO value.

I both agree and disagree with this.

But before continuing, it’s important to understand what SEO is and what it isn’t.

In previous years SEO was all about doing keyword research, applying a few tweaks to the site and then getting some inbound links and presto, you’d be
ranking at the top.

As the Internet and search engines have evolved, many companies are now starting to use the web more effectively, (many still haven’t, but that’s really a whole nother post) so competing with such sites requires better quality content (and more of it), an intuitive and easy-to-use site navigation, regular updates to keep people coming back and a site that looks reasonably aesthetically pleasing.

Now I’m not saying that you can’t rank well without these things, but it only takes 8 seconds for someone to develop a first impression and if your first impressions aren’t great, then you’re fighting an uphill battle to convert that visitor into a sale.

As a result of this, some SEOs started encouraging clients to improve their site’s design, layout, content etc. because all of this would make for better conversions at
the end of the day. This extended the craft of SEO into online usability, which technically isn’t SEO, but it helps immensely with the whole process.

The same comment can then be applied to marketers who focus on viral material or linkbait. These types of promotions, if done well, can drive substantial traffic and work wonders for (or destroy) a brand, as well as attracting links in the process. Once again, not technically SEO, but also a useful means of gaining traffic with the added bonus of some links. Now, one could then go on to argue about the SEO benefit gained from such links, and I’ll agree that some social media links aren’t particularly helpful in passing link juice (take blog comments, twitter, wikipedia and everything else that utilises the ‘nofollow’ attribute). But the goal for a viral campaign is really more about gaining awareness on a global scale, so it really can’t be measured using the same metrics as conventional old-school SEO.

Which leads me to using social media for business purposes or to help promote a particular site or product. This also isn’t specifically SEO, and can be a huge waste of time if you don’t do it properly. The whole purpose of social media is to share and connect with others – to be social. The challenging part then becomes – how does one be social, while still trying to promote a website?

Blogging is a great way to share and demonstrate your knowledge in a certain area. Take this SEO blog – I try and discuss various SEO related topics that I think people might be interested in and share tips and information that they can help people improve their rankings. By sharing this information, I’m hoping it also shows I have a reasonable knowledge of the industry and if those readers find the SEO process too challenging, they’ll hopefully employ my services to help them out.

The key is to provide information that is interesting and helpful and written with passion. If you can achieve this, there is certainly a benefit to start blogging. The same then applies to other social media tools.

Take Twitter for example – if you only share information like “making a cup of coffee” or “replying to some emails”… it isn’t particularly engaging, nor does it give anyone a reason to follow you. But if you were sharing info about your industry by making comments like “just read this great article about….” or “new legislation for… what does everyone think” etc. You’ve just turned the tool into another platform where you can demonstrate your knowledge while connecting with others who also share a similar interest.

The problem is that most businesses and website owners will do one of three things with social media:

• they’ll create profiles on all the latest social sites and then think “well, that’s social media taken care of… hey, why aren’t I getting any traffic from it?”
• they’ll create a blog/twitter/facebook account but forget that they created it for business purposes and start making posts about the weather or what they had for breakfast that morning… and then wonder why it isn’t helping them with their branding
• they’ll create a blog/twitter/facebook account and spam the crap out of it by pushing their brand and website to anyone and everyone which just pisses people off

So, to sum-up, I think that all forms of online marketing (be it organic SEO, viral, social media, pay-per-click etc. etc.) all has its place and can be beneficial if used properly. Not all of these are technically SEO, but still important when marketing in the ever-changing online world.

Most importantly though, goals need to be set for each marketing method and different metrics need to be applied to measure the performance of each campaign. If you try and track the performance of social media using SEO metrics, you’ll find that it doesn’t yield brilliant results – but that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile – it simply means that social media is different to old-school organic SEO and subsequently can’t be measured in the same way.

The blurred line between what is SEO and what isn’t

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To explain this a little better, let’s look at how the fashion industry works.

A designer will come-up with a ‘new look’ and then as that look becomes popular, everyone starts wearing it. The problem is that once a particular look becomes mainstream, it’s no longer fashionable, so the designers have to come-up with something totally different.

One of the things to take note of is that a particular look doesn’t get dismissed because it was impractical, had design flaws or simply didn’t work. It simply lost popularity because it was too common.

So why am I talking about fashion on an SEO blog?

It’s because the Search Engine’s view SEO techniques the same way society views fashion.

When Google first introduced us to the benefits of links, it didn’t really matter where the link came from, they were all counted equally. After a while the concept of linking from anywhere and everywhere became common knowledge (popular), so Google started devaluing links from unrelated sites.

So then people started finding similar websites to link to (and from) and reciprocal linking was born. This worked quite well for a while until it too became popular and before long, reciprocal links lost some of their weight.

Various other links schemes have emerged over the years, including the buying/selling of links, but like everything else, that too was penalised.

All of these techniques, just like fashion, were all quite successful until everyone started doing them. But fashion doesn’t move at the same pace word wide – fashion in Europe is different to the US which is different to that of Asia etc. etc.

The same with websites – different search techniques that may not work too well in one country or for a particular industry might still yield good results elsewhere… until the time comes when everyone in that niche or geographical location abuses the techniques and before you know it – your site is unfashionable.

So what can you do to keep up with this?

You can do what a lot of people do and keep abreast of the latest trends, read fashion magazines and update your wardrobe each season. Or you can come-up with your own unique style that may not be the most popular, but still looks good and most importantly, you’re comfortable with it.

In SEO terms, this means you can either read all the popular SEO blogs and forums, do what all the other SEOs are doing (and then whinge like everyone else when there’s an algorithm shift). Or you can put more time and effort into making your own site as good as it can be and once you’re comfortable with the content, design, layout, you’ll be surprised how many people will appreciate it and you may even gain links without even trying.

By now, I’ve probably insulted all those interested in fashion and completely misrepresented the SEO industry… so if you can think of any better analogies to describe the SEO industry (and possibly get me out of trouble) I’d be really interested to hear them – so please, post some comments.

SEO is like fashion

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In Ben’s post he states:

Now I am not ripping into Pete too far here, but I disagree with his advice. What scares me is the fact that nobody has pulled him up on it. This advice simply would not work it the areas I play in as they are simply too competitive. So perhaps a little disclaimer about the types of serps in the post may have been appropriate.

a. Following this advice would lead my clients sites no where
b. People agreed with the advice (including GerBot?)
c. It’s a little scary to think that this could even work (unless it’s a barebones site ranking by the skin of it’s teeth)
For anyone to optimise past a client in an established niche you are going to need only one thing – LINKS – and not social media links either, they would help, but not the point!

And the thing is… he’s right. The advice I provided was overly simplified and some novice webmasters may end-up very disheartened when they discover their site isn’t in the top 10 after following my advice.

So, why would I try and mislead my readers?

To explain this, I’m going to use another fitness analogy (it worked well in the last post, so here we go again).

If you want to lose weight, you know that you should do some exercise, eat healthier foods, eat smaller portions etc. etc. but just because this is obvious doesn’t stop every personal trainer and fitness fanatic from telling you the moment you mention losing some pounds.

A personal trainer may give varying levels of advice for free, but they won’t write-up a personalised exercise program until you book-in for a proper appointment (which usually costs money).

The advice I was giving in my last post was like a trainer telling you to eat right and do some exercise. You may not lose much (if any weight) and if you’re particularly unfit or obese, then you’re not likely to see any benefit at all because your situation requires professional attention. But at least by applying the advice, you’ve taken the first step to improving your health (or website).

Now for the proper advice if you’re really serious about improving your rankings

If you are in a competitive industry, you’ll be facing an uphill battle as things like the age of your domain name, the number of inbound links and the age of those links all play a critical factor in ranking well in the SERPs.

Unfortunately you can’t make your domain name any older than it already is, nor can you magically make the links to your site any older. Fortunately, you can start building a very solid profile of trusted, topical, keyword specific inbound links.

Although before you do any of that, you’ll need to do a few things…

Clearly identify your goals

Every website is different, and therefor they all have very different goals. Some websites might be trying to concentrate on brand awareness, others want to be found for specific products or services, while other sites are trying to improve their status within their niche.

Each goal will require a different approach, so it’s essential to establish the goals before you do anything else.

As I don’t have the time to write (and you probably don’t have the time to read) about every possible scenario, I won’t go into specifics, but instead, stick to techniques that can be applied to most cases.

Keyword Research

Once you’ve established your goal, it’s time to research the appropriate keywords that will help drive the most qualified traffic to your site.

We wrote a post about it here: 4 Step Guide to Keyword Research or for an even better write-up, have a look at Search Engine Land’s article Doing Keyword Research? Here Are Some Resources To Help!

Link Building

Now when I say link building, I don’t mean getting a bunch of links from sub-par directories, random unrelated websites, linkbait, forum signatures, blog comments, reciprocating links (positioned on links pages containing hundreds of other vaguely related industries) , purchasing links through a broker, linkfarms, outsourcing the process to second-rate agencies etc. etc.

No, when I say ‘link building’ I mean manually contacting highly relevant websites that are specific to your industry, forming a relationship and then encouraging them to link to you.

I’m not saying that the above techniques don’t work, because they ALL do (to some extent). I know this because I’ve personally tried each and every one of them. Some work better than others, some will continue to work for at least another 12 months, some are so worthless that you might as well not even bother.

But if you want the absolute best results which will work today, tomorrow and in years to come, and you have both the time and the money, you can’t go past the manual approach of handcrafting each link request.

Once you’ve found places to link to you, the other factors to consider are the anchor text and the location of the link (both the page the link is on and the physically position within that page). Vary your anchor text and avoid having your link placed too deep within the site (ie. not located on a page 12 sub-folders down) and try and make the link seem like a natural part of the document (not squeezed into a footer with a dozen other links).

Onsite Factors

There are many onsite factors that you can tweak to improve your results, but onsite work alone won’t do much unless you have a well indexed domain with plenty of inbound links.

Including your keywords (without stuffing them) in your content, correctly using titles and headings. Meta descriptions (although having no impact on your actual ranking) can help improve click-through rates and research has shown that click-through and bounce rates do have an impact on your rankings.

Mentioning your location can help with localised results and using your keywords as anchor text throughout your content to drive people deeper into your site is also important (for both usability and SEO).

Another usability factor (once again isn’t specifically related back to SEO, but can help attract better quality links and generally improves your clients experience) is to have a nicely designed website.

Some sites also gain benefit from directing the flow of link juice using nofollow for certain pages and if you have a site with dynamic URLs I’d strongly suggest employing some URL rewriting.

Conclusion

I could go into robots.txt files, 301’s, discuss the benefits of registering domains that contain keywords, using location specific domain names and hosting, go into some blackhat techniques etc. etc. but I think that if you’ve made it this far, you now understand that the initial post about having good content and some links was an overly simplified version and for more competitive industries, you really need to do a lot more than just that.

It’s also important to understand that I’m a huge fan and advocate of social media and I do believe it can yield great results… and with the way things have been going, I think it’s essential to be used in conjunction with some (or all) of the factors above for optimal performance.

You will also find me using some of the link building techniques that I said are not the most effective (obviously after explaining the implications to the client and gaining their approval to do so) because even though they aren’t the best, they still work when combined with more traditional techniques.

Ben, you’ll also be pleased to know I fixed the footer (recently had the blog redesigned and there were a few minor things like that which were overlooked, so thanks for bringing it to my attention)… and the reason I didn’t drop rank when I changed our title (which was an intentional change) is because of the anchor text used in our inbound links (but I shouldn’t have to tell you that)

You might also want to fix-up your hidden text and the indexing of all your category pages to avoid canonicalization issues.

For all my other readers – sorry for the length of this post and lack of images. I quickly threw it together and tried to cram as much information as I could which will result in errors and omissions.

Love to hear your feedback on the types of posts you’d like to see here in the future – detailed posts such as this one or more generalised posts like the last one?

Some clarification about maintaining your rankings

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It turns out that the client sacked their previous SEO firm after a few months once they started ranking for their selected keywords. The site performed well for quite a while, but because they simply didn’t do anything with it for a year, their competitors caught-up and overtook them.

Having a website audit conducted, building a handful of links and submitting the odd article to some social media sites isn’t going to keep your website listed at the top of the search results for ever (and in a lot of cases, it won’t even get you there in the first place).

Maintaining good rankings isn’t just a matter of ‘not doing anything wrong’, it’s about ‘consistently doing what’s right’.

In many ways physical fitness and search rankings are quite similar. Regular exercise and a healthy diet will keep you in shape and physically fit. Depending on your exercise routine, you may even maintain some reasonable muscle definition… but if you stop exercising, it won’t take long before you’re fat, out of shape and have no muscle tone left at all.

Keeping a healthy website is the same -

• Make sure you maintain a good website structure using sitemaps.
• Perform a full website audit and even look at doing a complete redesign every year or two.
• Regularly add new content and source links from relevant sites that point to the new content.
• Be involved in online social communities that pertain to your industry niche.

By following these steps, and doing them the right way, you shouldn’t have too many problems maintaining a good search ranking.

Maintaining Your Rankings

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At a business networking function towards the end of last year, I met a woman who was promoting a charity cook book designed to raise money for premature babies at the Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital.

The One-Armed Cookbook is a collection of easy recipes (supplied by friends, family, chefs and even a few celebrities) specifically designed for busy people wanting to create tasty food on the run.

Some of the chefs include UK celebrity cook Gordon Ramsay, media personalities Mel and Kochie from Channel 7’s Sunrise and award-winning Australian chefs Phillip Johnson (from Ecco), Alastair McLeod (from Ready Steady Cook) and Brad Jolly (from Alchemy).

Tara (one of the key people responsible for the book) explained they had done a lot of great off-line work over the past 12 months, but sales had started to drop and she didn’t know how to re-create the hype and keep the momentum going…

With 100% of the proceeds from book sales going directly back into the hospital, plus the cause being so worthy, I couldn’t help but offer our free assistance.

Over the last month we’ve been using social media to generate additional traffic to the site and within days of launching the campaign the unique visits to the site started sky rocketing. Even though these results are very good, when sick kids are involved, “very good” just isn’t enough – now I’d like to ask your help to raise further awareness.

If you’re a fellow blogger, SEO or just a concerned and caring reader, we would really appreciate it if you could help spread the word, perhaps write a post or send some link love to the One Armed Charity Cook Book.

It also looks like we’re not the only SEOs with a soft spot for charities – Lisa Barone (from BruceClay.com) is currently running a SEO Charity Contest.

When was the last time you used your SEO powers for the greater good?

SEOing for the Greater Good

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This is yet another great SEO resource, but when reading through it, I couldn’t help but think how much search engine optimisation is like astronomy. You see, Astronomer’s dedicate their career to investigating (and essentially ‘best guessing’) the stars and the universe as a whole. We have probes, satellites and have even sent people into the vastness of space, yet really we still know very little definite information about it.

SEO is very similar in the sense that very few of us really know the exact workings of the search engines. Sure, we can make some pretty good guesses based on years of experience working with many sites, investigating patents, reading forums and blogs, attending conferences etc. etc.

But no one really knows… well, other than the search engineers themselves – but I sometimes even wonder if Matt Cutts really knows the intricacies of Google’s algorithm or if he is only privy to certain aspects of it through his Batman Utility belt of search spam tools.

Here’s how WikiPedia defines Professional Astronomers:

highly trained individuals who typically have a PhD in physics or astronomy and are employed by research institutions or universities. They spend the majority of their time working on research, although they quite often have other duties such as teaching, building instruments, or aiding in the operation of an observatory.

Here’s my take on Professional SEOs:

highly trained individuals who typically have a high-level understanding of online technologies, coding, scripting and marketing and are either self employed, employed by an SEO firm or provide in-house SEO for a much larger organisation. They spend a majority of their time working on research, although they quite often have other duties such as teaching, building widgets or plugins, concocting linkbait or contributing (and often aiding through moderation or guest posting) one or more search forums or blogs.

What do you think?

Why SEOs and Astronomers are so much alike

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In my recent skimming I noticed a brief closing statement on a post which read “Sure, SEO isn’t for everyone…”

Even though the statement was only very small and didn’t really reflect anything discussed in the rest of the article – it was the one thing that stuck with me.

The fact is – Search Engine Optimisation IS for everyone!

Having a website allows your clients to get info about your products and services outside of standard business hours – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; It raises awareness about your company (which in turn can help legitimize your business as well as improving your authority within your industry); and as a byproduct of all of the above, it can increase your sales.

But if your clients cannot find you online – then none of that will make any difference. In essence, without applying (at the very least) some basic search engine optimisation techniques, there’s really very little reason to even having a website.

To get an idea of some of the basic things you can do to SEO your site without having to spend any money, have a look at our post about SEO on a limited budget, purchase yourself a copy of Aaron Wall’s SEO Book or have a look at some of these great online resources:

• Search Engine Land
• SEOBook
• SEOmoz
• Search Engine Roundtable
• Sphinn

If you’re a blogger and aren’t sure how to apply SEO to your site, check out the Blogger’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization. If you aren’t a blogger, then why aren’t you blogging?

Or if you’re really serious about improving your rankings, contact us about it.

SEO is not for everyone… Wait a minute – YES IT IS

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Landon found this post thanks to our recent review on ProBlogger and made the suggestion:

It would be interesting to explore what businesses expect SEO is vs. the work that actually goes into it

So… What do clients expect?
I read a post by Samuel from Wake Up Later and he sums this up beautifully with his statement:

you know, the lady who has been thinking about selling dog sweaters online and has a $100 budget for an e-commerce site, 1000 brochures, and a guaranteed #1 Google search result for the words “dog”, “sweater”, and “love”

Some clients have unrealistic expectations simply because they don’t understand two simple things:

1. There are over 11.5 billion web pages currently indexed on the net… and the more generic the search term you’d like to rank for, the more competition you’ll have.
2. There are over 200 factors that help to determine how a website ranks in each of the various search engines.

Once the points above have been explained, some clients are happy to listen and learn about what needs to be done to achieve their desired results. The ones that get scared away have the following reactions:

1. The client begins to understand that making a million dollars online isn’t something that just magically happens without investing a considerable amount of time, effort and money.
2. The client goes into denial believing that our views about online marketing are completely incorrect and they go looking for a company that will tell them exactly what they want to hear.

Patrick Burt added a very relevant comment on the original post saying:

Pete, if what the clients are doing is running for the hills at the mention of the price, you need to really sell them the concept before money’s ever discussed.

Whilst I fully agree with Patrick, I think that mentioning price (and potentially scaring some people off) isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It helps weed-out the clients who have unrealistic expectations and allows us to spend more time developing relationships with the clients that do appreciate the amount of work required.

So… What work is actually required?

An overview of some of the most common techniques are listed in the post SEO On A Limited Budget. So you’re probably thinking – Why would I pay someone when I can do a lot of that myself?

If you were to develop an illness – you could look online and find a hundred different articles listing your symptoms suggesting what the illness could possibly be. All this information could be correct under the right circumstances, but without years of study and experience you’d have no way of being able to accurately diagnose the problem. So you’d go to a doctor.

Exactly the same applies to search optimisation and online marketing – every website and every industry is completely different, meaning that different techniques will be more/less effective.

If you’re serious about promoting your website online and achieving your goals, it really does require a professional’s experience and expertise to gain the best and quickest results.

Why SEO Pricing Scares People Off

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This isn’t because our SEO prices are outlandish – the client simply doesn’t understand how keyword research, link building, tweaking their page structure, adding more content and interacting with social media will somehow get more people looking at (and hopefully purchasing from) their website.

Instead of putting the hard-sell on these clients, I encourage them to save their money and try a few things for themselves.

Keyword Research

The first step is to perform some keyword research. This will ensure you’re targeting the right terms that will generate the best traffic for your site. Here’s our 4 Step Guide to Keyword Research which explains the process quite clearly as well as pointing you to a bunch of free tools that will help make the process easier.

Website Audit

After you have your keywords chosen, it’s time to incorporate them into your website content. Whilst you’re doing this, have a read through these 10 On-Site SEO Tips which will help identify the most important areas to focus on when you’re updating your site.

Social Media

If the term ‘Social Media’ is foreign to you, have a look at the Beginners Guide to Social Media. If you know what Social Media is and you simply haven’t done anything about it, then these 7 Reasons To Embrace Social Media might make you change your mind.

Even if you decide not to interact with online communities or other Social Media sites, at least think about adding a blog to your site.

Blogs are a great way to continually add new content to your site; they attract regular readers who’ll keep coming back to see what’s new and what’s even better is that some of these readers will have their own blogs or websites – which means they’re likely to link to you if you write interesting content.

Link Building

When one website links to another, it’s the online equivalent of a personal referral. It’s like one website saying “hey, have a look at this site… it’s got some great information that pertains to what you’re currently reading”.

Whilst this sounds pretty simple, getting people to link to your website can be a lot trickier than it sounds. Here are some basic Link building techniques (along with some tips about what people often forget to mention when discussing the topic). Don’t forget that it isn’t just the quantity of links, but also the quality of those links.

Local Search

Another method of gaining a few more links and attracting some quality local traffic is by listing your site with some targeted local directories.

If you aren’t familiar with the search industry, you may not realise that the search engines return results based on your geographic location. The article Localised Search talks more about the topic and for slightly more advanced reading, 7 Geo Targeting SEO Tips explains how to use this to your advantage.

Other Resources

Good search results are a trade-off between money and time. If you don’t have the budget to hire a professional search engine optimisation company, then you’ll need to put in the time and effort to learn how to do SEO for yourself.

With a world wide web full of free and useful information, there’s no reason that you can’t achieve top rankings – it will just take a bit longer than paying someone to do it for you.

Here are some other excellent resources to have a look at:

• Search Engine Land
• SEOBook
• SEOmoz
• Search Engine Roundtable
• Sphinn

SEO On A Limited Budget

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