Part 2? Have you read Part 1 first?
Here's the second part of my post on the myths of SEO:
SEO can be done once and then stopped (even if you’re top ranked)
I can imagine many people reading this are saying to themselves.. “Hayden, you’re an SEO consultant. Of course, you’re going to tell us that you’re still needed once you’ve done your job”. However (with some poetic license and a very high-level perspective) there are only 4 factors that affect a website’s organic positions:
Each of these could change on a daily basis. You only have some control over the first item (the content, code and other technical things), a little control over who links to you and then no control over the third and fourth factors.
Or more succinctly put… whatever search engine ranking position you have today (and yes, even if you have managed to get to the top) may not be the one you have tomorrow. And with no effort devoted to maintaining what you have achieved, it is increasingly likely that you will drop in the rankings just as quickly as you rose.
Ranking is the same for all users in all locations
There used to be a time (a long while ago) where you only got one set of global results from a search engine. Then things improved and now, even for the same brand of search engine (Google, Bing, etc.) you get different results if you are:
- In a different country
- In a different town
- Logged in to your Google account
- On a different device – see below
Note: This does make life difficult for SEO people who have to tell clients “I know you think you’re not on the first page, but you are on my device” or vice-versa.
Desktop and Mobile versions of Search Engines rank sites the same
No. They. Don’t!
And now… if you think you’re able to get away with creating a responsive website that shows just the same heavy images in desktop view and in mobile view, but just scaled down using the browser… as of this month, you’re probably going to get a surprise.
SEO is a ‘black art’ practiced by techies
Sure, there is a certain amount of technical optimisation that must now go in to any organic improvement piece of work. But there’s loads you can do as part of your marketing or PR day job for SEO.
1. Write articles you want to read & share, on topics relevant to terms you want to place for in the search engines
2. Structure your content to make it scan-able, readable and understandable.
3. Ask for links back to your website from partners, suppliers, journalists, etc.
4. And finally, stop believing in SEO myths
Here's the second part of my post on the myths of SEO:
SEO can be done once and then stopped (even if you’re top ranked)
I can imagine many people reading this are saying to themselves.. “Hayden, you’re an SEO consultant. Of course, you’re going to tell us that you’re still needed once you’ve done your job”. However (with some poetic license and a very high-level perspective) there are only 4 factors that affect a website’s organic positions:
- What goes into creating it
- What other sites link to it
- What changes the search engines make
- What your competition (or their SEO agency) does
Each of these could change on a daily basis. You only have some control over the first item (the content, code and other technical things), a little control over who links to you and then no control over the third and fourth factors.
Or more succinctly put… whatever search engine ranking position you have today (and yes, even if you have managed to get to the top) may not be the one you have tomorrow. And with no effort devoted to maintaining what you have achieved, it is increasingly likely that you will drop in the rankings just as quickly as you rose.
Ranking is the same for all users in all locations
There used to be a time (a long while ago) where you only got one set of global results from a search engine. Then things improved and now, even for the same brand of search engine (Google, Bing, etc.) you get different results if you are:
- In a different country
- In a different town
- Logged in to your Google account
- On a different device – see below
Note: This does make life difficult for SEO people who have to tell clients “I know you think you’re not on the first page, but you are on my device” or vice-versa.
Desktop and Mobile versions of Search Engines rank sites the same
No. They. Don’t!
And now… if you think you’re able to get away with creating a responsive website that shows just the same heavy images in desktop view and in mobile view, but just scaled down using the browser… as of this month, you’re probably going to get a surprise.
SEO is a ‘black art’ practiced by techies
Sure, there is a certain amount of technical optimisation that must now go in to any organic improvement piece of work. But there’s loads you can do as part of your marketing or PR day job for SEO.
1. Write articles you want to read & share, on topics relevant to terms you want to place for in the search engines
2. Structure your content to make it scan-able, readable and understandable.
3. Ask for links back to your website from partners, suppliers, journalists, etc.
4. And finally, stop believing in SEO myths
No comments:
Post a Comment