That’s it! I’m cracking the snitz (my young daughter once said to me), this is a couple of days after she said “Mother Trucker!” – my wife and I burst out laughing…..how could you possibly get angry at a year 7-year-old saying that…
Let me be very clear about something that people have been taking the mickey out of for too long….
You don’t do SEO!
It’s not something you can do! If I had a dollar for every time somebody said “Yeah we’re doing SEO!”, I’d be a rich man. You don’t do a run, you don’t do a marketing plan, likewise, you don’t do SEO!
Here’s why I think people “Do SEO”
Because they don’t know what “doing SEO” actually entails. And so crafty digital marketing agencies invented this concept of paying us to “do SEO” – and that my friend is baloney! You shouldn’t be paying an SEO agency to “Do SEO”! It’s time to cut the crap.
So let me clear it up for you, here is what you “Do” when you are doing good SEO:
- It’s all very logical => it makes sense, you are actually marketing your business.
- It’s simple => do the right things and Google will reward you accordingly (Now, I am not saying it’s easy).
- It will pay dividends short-term and long-term.
Here is the starting point
The 1 thing that nearly everybody overlooks: Google’s mission is to categorise the world’s information and show in search results what it thinks is the most relevant, expert and applicable website/piece of information 1st and so on down the list. The way you rank well is to actually be that relevant, expert and appliable website/piece of information that your target audience is searching for.
1. Have a great website
People do judge a book by its cover and Google is no different. Half the battle is having a really good website that engages your target audience. That clearly communicates your marketing messages, how you are different and why you are the company of choice in your field. This is the easiest, quickest and best investment you can make.
2. Create great content
To rank well, you must have great content that is highly relevant to what people are searching for. And by great I mean really good, quality over quantity any day of the week. It needs to come from your head, the person who has been honing their craft for 10, 15 and 20 years – your target audience wants what’s in your head, and so does Google – it’s interesting, it’s unique, and it brings a new perspective to things.
And it’s the only type of content that will rank well!!!
Outsourcing your content to somebody else will never perform as well as when the ideas come from you, and most of the time outsourced content never works/ranks as all that author has done is search the web for other people’s ideas.
And we have some great ideas on how you can create great content reasonably quickly – reach out we’re happy to share.
Don’t forget to share your content – you do need to boost and put money behind it if you want people to see it too (which we do!).
3. Do the foundations well!
There are some SEO foundations that you need to do and do well:
- Attractive onsites (titles, descriptions, H1s etc) – but this is just good marketing, you should be doing this every time you create a new page.
- Web presence – create good listings in all the general and industry directories and citations (there will be 40-60 of them per industry).
- Backlink analysis – you want to remove any crap links coming through to your site.
- Make sure your website is technically ship shape (it loads well, has no broken links etc).
These are all just common sense things that you want to do for your target audience anyway, and this is what Google is looking for.
4. Be a leader in your industry!
If you want Google to believe you are the authority in your space (and indeed you need to be if you want to rank well), the simplest and most guaranteed way to do this is to actually become that authority figure!
- It starts with creating great content
- Speak/support your industry body
- Support good charities
- Publish great articles in your trade magazines/media
- Support young people trying to get into the game
- Run events for your target audience
- Market your business well!
- etc
This creates all the great backlinks that Google values (as does your target audience). It’s not paying somebody to create backlinks for the sake of creating backlinks (this process is going the way of the Do Do if you hadn’t realised).
Don’t Do SEO
It’s time to get real clarity on what great SEO looks like and do great marketing, don’t “Do SEO”.
And most importantly – Don’t pay somebody to “do SEO”.
It’s bullsnitz!
