Friday 17 January 2014

re-thinking SEO support

I've read so much advice from Google and global SEO experts that there is no more storage capacity in my brain and some of the stuff has probably fizz-popped with overload, never to be recovered. So what have I discovered?

Here is some of the conflicting data:
  • websites with lots of in-links are riding high in the Google charts
  • websites with lots of in-links are being black-holed by Google
  • Google values websites with several pages, several words on each page, unique content
  • Google is starting to say that in-links are not so important
  • websites with good content but very few in-links are nowhere to be seen
  • Google values websites that have been around a long time
  • many older websites contain irritating out-of-date information
...and so on.

I've always tried to follow Google's guidelines but sometimes they are ambiguous and sometimes errors and misunderstandings occur. But... there are many small-business owners that are encouraged to use a range of tools from social media and blogging to reach as wide an audience as possible - companies that cannot afford to hire a Google guru; people who are enthusiastic about their products or services; ordinary non-technical people who will completely innocently raise the wrath of the mighty omnipotent one.

Plus, there are ordinary bloggers who genuinely stuff their posts with links to pages they like - not all links are created for commercial purposes. For example, if you find a fashion or travel website with pages that you love and want to share, you may create a whole list of links, e.g.
  • Google black T-shirt
  • Google black T-shirt
  • Google red T-shirt
  • Google grey T-shirt
  • Google black T-shirt
  • Google blue graduated T-shirt
  • Google maps blue T-shirt
  • Android T-shirt
  • YouTube white T-shirt
  • YouTube black T-shirt
  • Chrome white-blue baseball T-shirt

The foregoing list of [links removed] was not in line with Google's guidelines because (a) there are too many links to a single site and (b) this post is not about clothing.

What I could do, of course, is use rel=nofollow for each of those links.

I digressed a little there, so what conclusions have I reached regarding the support I offer to clients? None really. Not yet. I still know more about the internet, websites and SEO than a typical business owner so I shall continue to offer best advice but I may re-think the content of my monthly SEO services packages.

I've streamlined the SEO services over the years and no longer focus on link building via third party article submissions. In order of importance, I optimise website content, write a few blogs (both on-site and off-site) and set up / manage social media.

We also help clients manage their domain names, hosting and emails and, of course, website design and build for clients takes up the rest of the time.

Well, glad to have got that off my chest!

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