Search Engine Optimization – An hour a day
As you may or may not know, I run an online baby gifts website called 4little1s.com which can be found at http://www.4little1s.com/. As part of setting this online business up, I needed to understand more about how to get my site noticed by the major search engines. Having contacted a number of Search Engine Optimisation companies it became quite apparent that the costs for me upfront were not possible until I started to get some sales in and making some money.
Therefore I decided to visit that well known Brazilian river online book store and purchased a number of books on the matter. The latest book I have finished is called Search Engine Optimisation – an hour a day, and below I summarise my thoughts and notes.
I guess the ultimate proof is in the pudding for us, has been that after 3 months of reading up on SEO tips and advice, our website has gone from Page rank of 0 to a Page rank of 3. Not that Page rank is ‘be and end all’, I’m sure it does help…..
The two authors of the book offer a really interesting angle in that they offer the right and left brain view on the subject. Obviously experienced in the subject they outline the various stages of putting together a plan of action, putting it into place and then the constant tweaking to keep the campaign going. Interestingly out of all the books I have read so far on SEO, all broadly say the same things, which are:
- Submit it to the engines - Surprising some people don’t !
- Links – Acquire links, inc Directories
- Content – Updated and keep fresh
- Maintain – Housekeeping tasks, broken links, Tags etc
- PageRank – Get one and the higher the better
- PR – Write articles, Blogs etc
- Measure – Where were you last month vs this month
- PPC pay per click campaigns
- Consider paying for worthwhile directory listing
- Wait and wait – 3 – 6 months +
While all good and solid points to help you on your pathway to optimisation and getting seen by the world, this book offers something a little more ‘non technical’ and business oriented, almost like having your own Marketing and PR department at hand.
The book is broken down into 10 chapters of which I broadly detail below:
Clarify your Goal – Like all good business thinking, what it is you are trying to achieve?….how do you know if you have achieved it and how can you measure success / failure if you don’t know what you are trying to aim at. Failing to plan is planning to fail
Customise - As with all projects (SEO included) you need to customise what you are doing and fine tune to your exact expectations, The section talks about which market you are in and who are you aiming at
SEO truths – Brief overview of the various methods Search engines use, importance of keyword selection and the tricks NOT to do !
How search engines work – Discusses how the main players currently work (Google, MSN, AOL and ASK) as well as trend spotting
Teams – You will be surprised how much teamwork there is in the project. While you may not have the resources of many departments, this chapter makes a good point, you either have to wear many hats or outsource various elements.
Baselines and Keywords – Good section on the importance of keyword selection and research. Touches as earlier on the whole idea of having a baseline in which to measure your performance. Finally, as with all businesses, keep an eye out on the competition.
Month one – This now starts to get to the detail of how to do it and tags to optimise on the site.
Month two – Establishing the habit talks about the site structure (spiders view etc) and some good thoughts on R&D as well as Visibility and reporting
Month three – Again talks about visibility and quarterly reporting as well as the very important area of your content. Gives some good troubleshooting tips worth checking out.
Extra credits – If you buy this book and do nothing else, read this section. It gives all the key items you should do if nothing else. I like this book if for nothing else, this chapter.
Author and terms:
4little1s.com is an online baby gifts website located at http://www.4little1s.com
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