So, with that in mind, I’ve put together a question and answer post based on some of the questions I’m regularly asked about SEO. Hopefully it will help to explain some of the more basic ideas behind this tricky subject.

Right, you mentioned SEO – what’s that?

Well, let me give you a quick definition by someone who is an expert:

SEO is the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines

(Source: SEOmoz)

Essentially, it’s making your website popular/useful enough to people to warrant it appearing higher up the search engine rankings.

That’s a strange way to start a conversation. Anyway, I get that, but what does ‘active practice’ mean and what does it actually entail?

Well, this is where I need to exercise a degree of self-control and refrain from attempting to explain every single aspect of SEO. There are hundreds of ways I as a web designer and you as the client can contribute to improving your website’s SEO.

I can:

• ensure content is correctly and efficiently structured, ie – the main content’s title uses heading level 1, the second uses heading level 2 etc
• use alt and title tags for all images and give them meaningful descriptions
• write clean, accessible code that adheres to web standards
• provide a sitemap of all pages on the site
• submit the website to multiple search engines

You can:

• promote your website through various social media channels, such as Facebook and Twitter
• attempt to get other related or mutually beneficial websites to link to you
• write keyword-rich and relevant content for your pages (content is king)
• include a regularly updated blog documenting useful news and information about your business/website
• get involved in other blogs in your field to drive traffic to your site

These are just some of the basic ways to go about it, but none of them will guarantee you a top spot in search engines.

Our sitemap showing our site's structure

Why can’t you guarantee me a top spot in search engines?

Well, let’s think about it. If you have a website that sells pink teddy bears (for example) and you want to be number 1 in Google for when somebody searches on the term ‘Pink teddy bear’, you have to take into account everybody else who wants to be number 1 for the same term. If I search that right now I’m told there are over 3 million results. All of them want to be number one. So why should yours be rated higher than anybody elses?

What affects my position in search engine rankings?

The short answer is more things than I care to look into. A slightly longer answer is that nobody knows exactly how results are calculated. And certainly nobody, other than the search engines themselves, can guarantee ranking positions. Not only do they change all the time but they are also different depending on which search engine you are using. so if you search for ‘pink teddy bear’ in Google, you’ll get different results than if you’d searched for it in Bing. And none of it is controlled by us.

Among the many factors affecting a website’s search engine performance are:

• keyword use in titles
• keyword density of main content
• quality of inbound links
• relevance of outbound links
• site structure and hierarchy
• click-through rate from search engine pages

For a (much) more detailed look at what can affect your search engine rankings, take a look at this excellent article on ranking factors by SEOmoz.

Holy crap, there’s a lot more to it than I thought. What else should I keep my eye on?

So we’ve touched on search engine optimisation. But with the continual rise and increasing involvement in social media, what people say and do online is becoming easier and quicker to spread across the web. Whether you mean it to or not. This has given rise to a new wave of thinking and, unfortunately, yet another abbreviation. This time known as SMO – social media optimisation. Without getting too deep into social media (another cavernous subject) it basically revolves around being active on websites such as Digg, Facebook, Twitter and the like. But more than that, it’s about being active with the purpose of driving traffic to your site by being influential, controversial, insightful, helpful or just about any other way you can think of that will peak people’s interest and tempt them to check out your site.

SMO is going to grow and grow, especially as leaders in the web world such as Google adapt their methods and algorithms for throwing up new and popular content. Let’s look at an example. If you were to search the term “world cup results” in Google right now (at time of writing), you’ll be shown a list of live scores right on the results page. A little further down there is a section called ‘Latest results for world cup results’ which gives you a real-time feed of articles about the World Cup from respectable websites around the globe. Try this with the term “#worldcup” and you’ll get a bunch of live Twitter comments.

Real-time results for '#worldcup'

Conclusion

If your business functions primarily online and that’s where you get most of your exposure, SEO and SMO are areas you have to address. You may not want to or you may not see them as sustainable or viable options, but this is the way the web world is going. As with everything in life, it’s about striking the perfect balance. A balance between a good, solid, search engine friendly website and active online promotion. Cloud computing, real-time search, person to person interaction, personal views and opinions. It cannot be ignored. And with all the benefits and excitement it can bring, why would you want to?

People blog for all manner of reasons. Some have something important to say and what they say is useful to others. Others have nothing important to say. And what they say is useful to nobody. The web is full of writing, good, bad and indifferent. If you own a blog or are looking to start one, finding a worthwhile reason to write consistently, with a goal in mind, however broad or narrow it may be, should be at the epicentre of it all. This post isn’t so much about the technical advantages of blogging that have been reiterated many times over, but more the theory behind some of the reasons people choose to do it.

This is my first blog. I’m already struggling to come to terms with the idea of giving stuff away for free. The stuff being knowledge and/or experience gained from 3 years or so gathering little bits and pieces of useful information that collectively help me to do my job better. I’m not a blogger. I never have been. And at this point I have no idea whether I will ever be a consistently good blogger. Why then have I chosen to start a blog?

Writing is theraputic

Writing provides an emotional release. To turn something that used to be intangible and liable to forgetfulness into something you can see, read and refer to can be a very refreshing feeling. Sometimes it can feel like what’s in your head doesn’t exist or isn’t true until it’s written down in front of you.

It can provide a much needed break from your daily routine. Especially if that routine involves trawling through code without a clue as to what it’s trying to do or attempting to fix CSS bugs in Internet Explorer. You get to take yourself out of that constricted environment and plonk yourself in front of an empty screen, with all the potential in the world at your fingertips.

Sometimes there are things you just have to say, you have to get them out. It’s not feasible to run around telling everybody you meet the same thing over and over. What you need is a broadcast tool. Blogging has become well known for its ability to turn nobodies into mini celebs over night through the process of a well targeted rant. It’s even been known to affect force governmental decisions.

For a lot of people, it’s how they feel most comfortable expressing themselves. Not everybody enjoys face to face communication. Even telephone conversations can be intimidating to some. When you write, there are no awkward pauses. No expectations. No social protocols. Of course, that’s not to say there aren’t any protocols at all. Just no immediate ones.

Writing helps you organise your mind

When your head is a mess with thoughts, ideas and opinions, it helps to write it all down. Working a full time job and freelancing in every spare hour leaves me with little free headspace that isn’t wholly consumed by over-ambitious ideas, cashflow stresses and a recent niggling ache to blog about something worthwhile. List-making is the only answer. I have lists on paper, lists in Excel, lists in iPhone apps, lists in Textpad files, lists on my whiteboard. Lists everywhere. I need a list of lists. That may sound (probably is) going slightly overboard, but the alternative is to let everything that goes through my head enjoy its few seconds of intense focus before fizzling out days, hours or minutes later when the short term memory finally takes charge.

The humble list is all-powerful. Simple yet refined. Easy to compile, but so heavily relied upon. Make use of him.

Good writing will bring you fame and possible fortune

Although my intention for writing this blog is for neither of these, there are, I’m certain, many people who are chasing them. It is a fact that good, consistent blogging will get you noticed. These days it seems even consistent writing alone will get you an adequately sized following. Though it is unlikely to bring you much fortune. Manipulating your thoughts and converting them into beautiful prose is what separates the good writers from the bad. For those of you that are talented and skilled literary conductors, there are plenty of options at your disposal through which to earn your lunch money. About.com is perfect example. Their entire community is built around freelance writers who write about their hobbies and passions. The site gets over 70 million visits a month. That’s a lot of opportunity to sell your content.

A chance to give something back

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve spent a lot of time collecting and collating useful info, tips and techniques and a truckload of inspiration posts from various sites around the web.  From traversing forums and knowledge bases, to directly contacting people in the know. One way or another I’ve managed to get past each and every problem encountered. I’ve had precious few real life mentors (cue tiny violin). Not a lot of people are willing to give up their time to help out those that are new to the industry. The ones that do so should be commended and kept close at hand.

My motivation for this blog, like many for theirs, is built from an amalgamation of reasons. I want to have my say. I want to give something back. I want to help others. I want to simplify the web for the casual surfer. I want to contribute to the progressive enhancement of my industry. But more than all of that – I want to write. If I can work all of these things into what I write about, I’ll be happy.

Conclusion

There are a hundred and one reasons people choose to blog. The open nature of the web makes doing so a completely free and unrestrained activity. Sometimes it can feel daunting when you look at other blogs and realise how prolific they are in hitting the right subjects at the right time. But this is no reason to be put off if you genuinely have something to offer. Passion for what you do is the strongest tool at your disposal. If you have it, you’ll hit the right subjects at the right time. Who knows what benefits you’ll uncover if you give it a go. This is my go. And my head already feels a little less cluttered :)

You came for stats. Here they are:

• 2/3 of the global internet population visit social networks
• visiting social sites is now the 4th most popular online activity – ahead of personal email
• time spent on on social networks is growing at 3x the speed of the overall internet rate, accounting for ~10% of all internet time

(Source: Nielsen)

• It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners. Terrestrial TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users. The internet took four years to reach 50 million people… In less than nine months, Facebook added 100 million users.
• The online bookmarking service, Delicious, has more than five million users and over 150 million unique bookmarked URLs
• Formed in 2004, Flickr now hosts more than 3.6 billion user images
• Universal McCann reports that 77% of all active internet users regularly read blogs
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populated place in the world. This means it easily beats the likes of Brazil, Russia and Japan in terms of size

(Source: Econsultancy)

• the average time spent on social networking sites is 4.6 hours per user per month
• between May 2008 and May 2009, Facebook saw a 56% increase in unique visitors
• between May 2008 and May 2009, Twitter saw a 3,226 % increase in unique visitors

(Source: ComScore)

Stats are cool to look at it. But they should never be the basis of any major decisions by themselves. Use them with caution. And if you still aren’t convinced of the power of social networking, have a little look over this slideshow.

The overview

Social media is the concept of interacting with others through various forms of online technologies. This can be through commenting on a blog, sharing photos, sharing videos and a whole range of other approaches. Wikipedia give a pretty good definition:

Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many).

(Source: Wikipedia)

Right, but what does that actually mean?

Well, rather than speaking at people….you can speak to people. It turns one-way communication into two-way communication. Too many companies are all too willing to promote themselves or their products but are not interested in listening to their customers….unless it is in a sale situation. How do you expect to build a good customer relationship if you aren’t willing to listen, learn and adapt?

Whether you choose to believe it or not, social media has developed into an essential tool for every successful company out there. You probably already interact with various forms of social media every day and you may not even realise it. Every time you log into facebook, every time you create a new tweet, every time you visit YouTube, every time you upload to Flickr, every time you browse Wikipedia, every time you check your RSS feeds – you are engaging in social media. You may not be uploading videos to Youtube yourself and you may only use Facebook to see what other people are up to, but you are still playing a part in online social interaction. Just to varying degrees. Every action you take in these situations will have a consequence. Hopefully positive….sometimes negative. Learning to manipulate these situations in your favour is all part and parcel of mastering the social media sphere.

What benefits does all this online sharing and chit chat have then?

It’s very easy to dismiss this area of the web as wishy washy and unnecessary due to its difficulty to measure in terms of conversion-goals and ROI. So let’s look at it from another perspective using a basic example.

Example:

The time comes when I need to buy a new laptop (more regularly than you might think!). I log into Twitter to find that a whole bunch of my friends have all recently purchased new laptops, of which 90% went for the exact same model and are tweeting like crazy about how good it is. It’s going to take a lot to get me to think about buying any other model. This is because I’m likely to to be more open to my friends’ suggestions than say Google’s results for ‘Top of the range laptop’, simply because I’ll know the results haven’t been generated by a cold, calculated algorithm like Google’s. These results have come from real life people who I know and trust and can give real life feedback. The results from my friends are personal. I know them and they know me. I know what they need to do with their laptop, and I now know whether the product they’ve opted for would suit me.

The same principle can be applied to just about any situation. People are far more likely to trust a friend’s suggestion over one where they don’t know the source of where it came from.

Search engine rankings

One particularly important aspect of developing a good social media persona that people do not often realise, is the effect on their website’s search engine ranking. The more you engage with websites such as Twitter, Flickr and Youtube etc, the more links you are likely to generate to your website. These links can come from people who are interested in what you’ve said, want to use your article/post/message to explain something to others, or any number of different reasons. Once you start to develop lots of incoming links and establish yourself as an authority on any topic, search engines will reward you by moving you up the rankings. This will likely result in even more people visiting your site. It is a continuous cycle that continually promotes you and what you do.

Cost effective

The majority of social media outlets are extremely cost effective….because you needn’t pay a penny for them. It takes nothing more than a passion for what you do and little bit of time to set yourself up. Yet the returns can make a huge impact on the success of your business. Any remotely sane businessman will be able to see benefit in that.

Human recommendation and interaction

The goalposts are constantly moving. People are becoming so used to the endless advertising they are faced with every day that it’s becoming easy to ignore it, and although people will tire of banner ads and posters, people will never tire of communicating with other people. As previously mentioned, the persuasive powers of individual people you know and trust are far greater than something that has been created as a catch-all as a result of a few half-witted board meetings. This is why we have testimonials, even though they are not necessarily always reliable sources. This is why just about every large corporation out there has a blog of some description, and quite likely somebody monitoring Twitter for instances of their name cropping up that they may be able to address.

Lead generation

Being involved in online social media opens up new avenues for lead generation. With so much link exposure and brand promotion as happens through sites like Twitter, it is possible to stretch the reach of your brand and business further than you can with any other media outlet, save for TV ads. But the ace in the pack for social media here is that while TV ads are broadcast at people, those who go online in search of something will be proactively seeking it when they stumble across a link to your site. Lucky coincidence? Or excellent brand management by yourself?

Summary

If used appropriately, social media can be far more rewarding than you may realise at first. People like to talk to people. Having a website is one thing, but if you don’t have an evident human side behind it that is easy to access, people won’t be comfortable approaching you. People like to know that once they engage you, you will be there with them to answer questions, troubleshoot and generally help them out if they need it. So if it’s becoming more of a requirement to show this human side, why not go a step further and use these plentiful social media outlets to your advantage and promote your best qualities through them?

It’s both a blessing and a curse that the web moves so quickly. But one thing is certain. If you don’t keep up, you’ll get left behind. Those who prosper will be those who understand the importance of a well-rounded online persona.