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lionize
05-03-2012, 10:07 PM
...and honestly I'm starting to rethink my feelings toward them. I am an amateur designer at best and have zero SEO skills. When I designed my first serious website, I took the approach that if I created good quality original content then I should eventually receive some modest traffic from the search engines and possibly some from other websites related to the subject matter. Obviously I was extremely naive and far too optimistic.
Although I have 80 some back-links from approximately 20 different websites which I never pursued, the search engines essentially ignore my site. Now, not all the back-links are from relevant websites but a good portion of them are and although the content may not be award winning it is well written and all original. So my question is, can the average dude with a very limited budget learn to compete for organic search traffic or...and please be honest...is SEO really just a mystery wrapped in a riddle? Because that is how it seems to me after a solid year of patience.

billbenson
05-03-2012, 10:40 PM
IMO, marketing is the most important part of web site success. SEO is part of marketing. You say you have zero SEO skills. Why? With all that is debated about web design, I have never seen anyone state that SEO is unimportant.

This kind of reminds me of a company I worked for years ago. The president who was an engineer developed a Telecom Switch that never sold. Spent millions in development. He made the comment "customers should buy it because its better". It didn't sell because he made a product looking for a market. He did no decent marketing on many levels for the product including pre design market analysis. He got fired.

I'd say its time to learn web marketing including SEO.

vangogh
05-04-2012, 12:28 AM
Yes the average dude with a limited budget can learn to compete for organic search traffic. I'm a designer like you and after building my first site I wondered how people would find out. I started learning seo and now I get plenty of traffic from search engines and it's been growing all the time. It takes time, but it can happen.

Creating good original content is the start. One important thing when it comes to good original content is that as great as you think your content is, it probably isn't. You have to continuously improve it and continuously create it.

Content isn't enough on its own. You need to promote it in some way at least in the beginning to get the ball rolling. A good way to get started is to build relationships with people. Instead of asking for a link, post a link on your site to them. Instead of trying to get someone to comment on your blog, comment on theirs. Some people will respond in time. You can occasionally promote your own content on social sites like Twitter as long as you're promoting other people's content more and spending some time engaging with people in general. There are plenty of design sites that accept community news and want you to submit links to your content.

When it comes to optimizing don't mistake the forest for the trees. Learn to see the big picture. The details are often meaningless until you've put them in context. With on-page content don't worry about where to place the exact keyword on the page. Instead learn how to structure your content within your site. When writing just write. Don't try to force words on the page because you think one extra word or phrase will make the difference. Write naturally for real people. If you're trying to optimize a page for a phrase, realize that there's likely competition for the same phrase and competition has been at it longer than you. Seek longer phrases with less competition and through a good site structure learn how those pages you can rank for can help build up the pages you can't yet rank for.

With links understand how they work. Understand what kind of links search engines place the most value on and then pay attention to any opportunities that present themselves to get those links. Many sites within the industry ask for guest authors. Find those sites and create content for them. Some will pay you for the content. Nearly all will provide links in a bio at the end of the post. Some will be fine if you add a link or two in the article itself. Quality trumps quantity in links.

Watchdog
05-04-2012, 05:11 AM
Content isn't enough on its own. You need to promote it in some way at least in the beginning to get the ball rolling. A good way to get started is to build relationships with people.

What can you contribute to others in your field or the web site you're trying to promote.

I spent years contributing for the most part monthly technical articles and drawings for a trade magazine which all included a link back to our web site. These articles were also in print that was sent out monthly to thousands of shops around the country. Now the forum I have has been taken over by the industry with related discussion that you can't find in a magazine and my ranking with search engines is great. Once we got the traffic then we added the directory and classifieds with more focus on content.

lucas.bowser
05-04-2012, 10:35 AM
I would say that the number of links you are talking about is not necessarily all that many depending on your subject and geographic focus. For example if you have a lawn service in a town of 20,000 then 80 back links from 20 sites is tremendous. In fact, you probably rank in the top 5-10 for "{town name} lawn service" if you've done a basic amount of SEO work. But if you're writing about raising kittens, 80 links gets you a spot on page 9000 of google search results (unless your back-links are from top ranking resources and educational institutions.) So the first problem you may be seeing is one of scale.

VanGogh and Watchdog both have good practical suggestions. But just to marry up the advice with Bill Benson's anecdote, your site needs to be a solution to someone's problem or the fulfillment of someone's desire. But it's not enough to just create it. You have to actively let people know that you have the answer to their problem. So you need to identify what people have the problem. You then need to hang out where they hang out so they can see and talk to you. This can be trade shows, bars, businesses, forums, facebook pages, etc... You need to engage them as they talk about their problem and talk about how you have a solution for them. This will be far more effective in growing your page than waiting to be discovered on Google. The people you help will start linking to you with relevant links. This will build your rankings to achieve relevant traffic faster than just creating content and waiting to be discovered.

lionize
05-04-2012, 11:06 AM
You say you have zero SEO skills. Why?

There are two main reasons really. The first and less important reason is that I had to teach myself web design first as it made no sense to learn how to promote something I could not yet even create. However, it appears that you are suggesting I have put the cart before the horse here. I basically agree with you, except I was not expecting record setting traffic numbers in my first year. I was expecting the search engines to discover well written original content, index it and occasionally list it on one of the first few pages for less competitive keywords when requested - resulting in a few hits per day. If what you are saying is that I need to become a marketing expert in the traditional sense of the word before I can expect even modest success then I would say that there is little hope for the World Wide Web as traditional marketing requires not just one expert, but rather a team of experts and huge sums of money to compete and stay competitive.
Which brings me to the second and more influential reason that I have zero SEO skills. And that is because SEO is the most convoluted subject I have ever researched. It is all driven by a hyper secretive algorithm which is constantly being changed in the name of preventing abuse (which I would claim is a complete failure). The amount of conflicting information available on this subject can only be the result of misinformation being spread to protect the massive amounts of money being made off this industry.
Please forgive me for being so cynical, I do not intend to be, it just seems that learning Chinese calculus would be easier. What does appear hopeful is that people like all of you have found a way to succeed in spite of the many obstacles. That is encouraging, but please try to remember and recognize how difficult and truly daunting the whole process appears to a beginner.

lucas.bowser
05-04-2012, 11:46 AM
While the algorithm is ultra-secretive, the components of it are not. They are primarily split into on-page and off-page SEO. You exclusively control the on-page SEO, and to the extent that you can optimize for it you should, since most of it is not difficult. The off-page is trickier because it requires that other people promote your content. There are techniques for this, but the fact is that in order to increase rankings, you need to get traffic which only happens when you inform your target audience that you're there. There are many techniques to do this. Just spend a day reading about back-link strategies. You'll start to notice a therme.

As far as sources of information, I think one of the best article groups I read on SEO is Noble Samurai - Dojo (http://www.noblesamurai.com/dojo/marketsamurai/). These talk a lot about how to use their product, but the information with-in is good in explaining what the important SEO factors are for ranking well, and how some factors are more important than others.

krymson
05-04-2012, 09:52 PM
To put it in simple terms...

The way I create all my clients websites is I first create and code the design using clean semantic code. Then I'll talk with the client and ask them, "If someone is looking for your product or service what do you think they are going to type into Google?". They'll tell me what that think people will type in. From there I wire it down and tell them to write those same exact words down and write the website copy making sure they use those words in their content and make their content relevant to what their trying to achieve. Put each one in there a few times and once in key places such as headers and what not. This practice os known as "keyword density". I have them create a short description of their site/product/service using the most important keywords that they figured out and put that in the meta description and put the keywords they gave me in the meta keywords. As a designer it's my job to come up with a relevant title for the site as well as label all the images in the site with an alt tag focusing on those keywords.

Then you submit a site map to Google so that it can start indexing your site. Then it goes through a period called "The Sandbox Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_effect)" but if you keep updating your site regularly with good fresh relevant content your rankings will grow. I'm no SEO expert, this is the extent of my knowledge but I've done everything i just stated with my site and I'm ranking in the top 100 links in with my keywords and ranking on the 1st or second page with the most important ones within a week of me changing my keywords and content around, not even changing my design. Patience and persistance will allow you to prevail.

Another factor you have to take into consideration is the age of your domain if it has been submitted to Google (what I mean by that is a sitemap). If you have not done that yet do it quick, get the ball rolling otherwise you're going to see yourself in the same spot.

lionize
05-05-2012, 08:02 PM
So the first problem you may be seeing is one of scale.

I think you are right, this may be part of the problem. The website I'm referring to is a .ca domain but essentially focuses on the domain industry in general, which is a global industry. So I would assume that I am competing with every domain related website on the planet...boy is that ever discouraging.
I also took a second look at the back-links in WebMaster Tools and I suspect that these sites are not significant enough in page rank or authority to make an impact. Which brings up a question - why would any well respected authoritative website offer to link to my site without getting one in return? I mean, I obviously need them a lot more than they need me (there's an understatement). If I remember correctly, vangogh suggested these types of back-links are essential and require them to be one way. I understand that they may consider allowing me to write content for them with a link included, but aside from that I can't imagine anything else valuable enough to them to warrant such a thing. Additionally, how long would that article be published on their website? It seems to me that the article and therefore the back-link would have a limited life span, requiring a new article to replace the original once they decide to remove it from their site. Seems to be labour intensive, unless I would also be able to use that content on my own website and possibly other 3rd party sites. Is that an acceptable practice in this sort of arrangement or do these companies demand exclusivity?
I have also considered the "on-page" question of the value of my content to my target audience, which I admit needs to be improved. The content is not nearly substantial enough in terms of quantity and the product I am promoting could definitely be presented better.
Before I forget, I really want to thank you lucas.bowser as well as everyone else who has taken the time to share your knowledge with me here. I am sure you have repeated these things a million times to people like me, so please know that I sincerely appreciate the help you've provided to me - this is a really great community and I hope that some day I will be capable of offering someone the same kindness you have given me.

billbenson
05-05-2012, 10:01 PM
Lets look at what you really want. You want a site that sells the customer when they get there and Google likes enough to give you good ranking. That means that SEO things like inbound links, optimized pages, etc are interweaves with landing pages that sell or have a decent call to action (whatever the page objective is).

I'm not a web designer / developer or a SEO expert. I do know a fair amount about both, however. Here are some thoughts:


Content is king. Write pages with quality content for your site visitor. Ideally, the content is so good that people will bookmark your page or link to it.
Write a lot of pages optimized for different keywords. Each page should be optimized for one and only one keyword / key phrase. Use the quality content mentioned above.
Use the html tags appropriately. Use the title tag, H1,2... strong, etc to reinforce your content. This does not mean abuse them. Use them to tell G what the page, paragraph etc is about. Be very subtil to G in your usage of tags ie don't spam keywords.
Use your site stats to find new keywords and generate a page around the ones that make sense.
Use Adwords to test keywords and generate more data in your stats. Adwords requires SEO and unique landing pages most of the time, so it's not necessarily a trivial process.



In the end, you end up with a resource site that G likes and is fairly large. Oh, and it sells!

Others may disagree or have strategies that they prefer. So see what everyone else has to say.

lionize
05-05-2012, 11:57 PM
Use Adwords to test keywords and generate more data in your stats. Adwords requires SEO and unique landing pages most of the time, so it's not necessarily a trivial process.



Thanks for the list billbenson, it has focused my attention on what is most important - something I desperately need to do. The last point in the list however, makes little sense to me. I assume I should create ads to test keywords and generate more data, but what do you mean "Adwords requires SEO and unique landing pages"? My success with Adwords is just as pathetic as my organic search results which is another scar I will spare you the details of except to say, it seems that google doesn't even like the way I write my ads. This may present an obstacle for me but I will have to address it again once I better understand what you are suggesting.

Oh and this...


In the end, you end up with a resource site that G likes and is fairly large. Oh, and it sells!

...although, it's still a pipe dream, would be worth all the effort I have put in.

billbenson
05-06-2012, 01:58 PM
Thanks for the list billbenson, it has focused my attention on what is most important - something I desperately need to do. The last point in the list however, makes little sense to me. I assume I should create ads to test keywords and generate more data, but what do you mean "Adwords requires SEO and unique landing pages"? My success with Adwords is just as pathetic as my organic search results which is another scar I will spare you the details of except to say, it seems that google doesn't even like the way I write my ads. This may present an obstacle for me but I will have to address it again once I better understand what you are suggesting.

This is the way I do adwords. There are other approaches as well: Bunch of key words -> an optimized ad includding keywords and a keyword in the url the add points to -> a unique landing page for that keyword. If I do a dynamic site you can use htaccess to point to the page with with the keyword ie hpprinters.com/hp/Photosmart5510.html. I write that page just for the one adwords ad. I have 100 plus adwords ads and as such have written 100 plus pages for the adwords ads. It goes without saying that this must be a call to action page as well (although if you are just collecting data that may not be necessary).

_______________________________________________


...although, it's still a pipe dream, would be worth all the effort I have put in.

Every successful business takes a lot of time. I put in 12 hour days and weekends. An online business takes just as much time. If you are looking for an easy way out, this isn't it.

lionize
05-06-2012, 09:34 PM
That is very clever, I will give it a try. I can't afford to do it on the same scale but should be able to replicate the effect. Thanks a lot.

billbenson
05-06-2012, 10:05 PM
Remember time passes fast. Do a little bit each week and one day you are there. If you do it wrong from the beginning its time wasted.

vangogh
05-07-2012, 12:03 PM
I was expecting the search engines to discover well written original content, index it and occasionally list it on one of the first few pages for less competitive keywords when requested - resulting in a few hits per day.

You still need to do some work to get search engines to find you in the first place. They won't simply discover your content just because it's there. Even once they've discovered you, which it seems they have, you're in competition with plenty of other sites and pages. I grabbed some text from articles on your domain development site, typed them into Google and your page showed up first. Google knows you exist. If you aren't getting traffic from them it's not because they haven't discovered you.


If what you are saying is that I need to become a marketing expert in the traditional sense of the word before I can expect even modest success then I would say that there is little hope for the World Wide Web as traditional marketing requires not just one expert, but rather a team of experts and huge sums of money to compete and stay competitive.

It's your business. You have to learn everything you can to make your business successful. No one is going to do it for you and it's not going to happen automatically. You don't need a team of experts and huge sums of money. I'm a web designer like you. I do my own marketing. I've never spent a dime on advertising. When I built my first site no one visited it. I realized I needed to do some marketing. I read a couple of books on business and marketing. I subscribed to a few blogs from marketers. Learning about marketing and seo became part of what I did. You don't need to be the foremost expert on marketing and seo. You do need to spend some time learning how to market your business or pay someone else to do it for you. Every business that's ever existed has had to. You're is no different.


SEO is the most convoluted subject I have ever researched. The amount of conflicting information available on this subject can only be the result of misinformation being spread to protect the massive amounts of money being made off this industry.

It's only convoluted when you skip the big picture and try to dive into the details for quick results. The basics of seo don't change and they're pretty easy to understand. Yes there is conflicting information online. Yes there is misinformation. The better your foundation of knowledge the easier it is to tell the good from the bad information. Sometimes you need to do something yourself and see if it works or not.

Learn the big picture before getting caught up in the details. Here's marketing and seo boiled down.

Create something people want (content). Figure out who those people are and where they spend their time (keywords). Build a presence in those places to let people know you have what they want and convince them to choose you (links).


why would any well respected authoritative website offer to link to my site without getting one in return?

There are other things you can give respected authoritative websites than links. Creating content for them is one. You'll find too that if you build relationships with people those people will gladly link to you without you having to ask. You can do things like link to them first without asking for anything in return. Leave thoughtful comments on their blog posts. Go to conferences and meet these people in person. Create something they want to link to.


Additionally, how long would that article be published on their website?

Forever most likely. People don't remove content from their site all that often. Most sites don't publish articles and then pull them a month later. Sometimes an article will be removed from a site, but so what. If you've been repeating the process of getting links then no one link will be so important to your success.

The general theme I'm getting from your posts in this thread is you've already given up. There's a defeatist attitude in the things you're saying. If you expect to fail you will fail. You have to keep working at all this stuff. None of it necessarily comes easy and most of it requires a lot of hard work. You do what you can, see what is and isn't working, and then try again. When things don't work how you'd like don't get down. Learn from it. Try your best to understand why you didn't succeed in order to increase your changes of succeeding the next time and then try again.

lionize
05-08-2012, 12:27 PM
The general theme I'm getting from your posts in this thread is you've already given up.

Thanks for all the helpful advice and a fantastic forum as well. I can understand why you would get the impression that I have given up but this is not the case, I am simply trying to avoid wasting the very precious spare time I have to work on this project. I know that you are well aware of all the work that goes into launching and maintaining a commercial website so I am sure you will agree that the avoidance of wasted time is extremely important. This is why I started the thread by asking whether it is reasonable for me to expect to be able to learn SEO or not. I admit that I am frustrated by the lack of success and the SEO madness I must now sort through in order to become successful. That however, is more the result of becoming aware of the difficult reality I still face after an already challenging year or two and not a prelude to surrender.


No one is going to do it for you and it's not going to happen automatically.

This really bothers me, I know you meant no harm but it could be interpreted the wrong way. I have worked exceptionally hard the last couple of years without any help from anyone. I had to first learn how to efficiently design a very basic website because I could not afford to pay someone to build my websites for me. I did this in my spare time and could not afford to take a course to expedite the process. After a lot of research, reading and mistakes I then had to obviously conceive, design, launch and maintain my website, which I have done 4 times now in an effort to improve my skills. I tried to approach this project as logically and realistically as I could, never expecting too much. I specifically waited a full year from the launch of domain development before evaluating my own success to ensure I wasn't being too impatient. I am not asking anyone to do this for me, I really just need some help sorting through all the information available now that I know it is possible to do this myself.

The information that I am getting from you and your friends on this forum is clearing up many of the misconceptions I had about SEO, that is terrific and thank you for that. I actually feel more hopeful that I (someone with limited resources and no formal education) can learn this skill and as a result compete for organic search some day soon.

vangogh
05-09-2012, 01:34 AM
This really bothers me

My apologies if I offended. I meant my statement more as a general thing than specifically directed at you. My bad if it didn't come across that way.

To answer your original question again, yes you absolutely can learn seo. It's not going to happen overnight though. I agree with you that there's a lot of misinformation online. Some of that is the nature of the game. Search engines don't tell us how their algorithms work so people have to do their best to figure it out. They try things and run tests, but even then it's nearly impossible to run scientific tests. There's always a bit of guesswork involved in seo. Also algorithms change so something that may have been true 5 years ago, isn't necessarily true today.

To help you better understand seo take a step back and see it in terms of the big picture. Ultimately search engines want to show you results you consider to be good for your search query. That's impossible to do since you and I can both search for the same thing and think different results are the best. But know that's their basic goal. As a site developer you want to build the best site you can for real people, since it's the best web pages search engines want to show in their results.

Here are a series of posts I wrote for someone on seo basics.

Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Best Practices – Part 1/3 (http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/beginners-guide-to-seo-best-practices-part-13/)
Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Best Practices – Part 3/3 (http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/beginners-guide-to-seo-best-practices-part-23/)
Beginner’s Guide to SEO: Best Practices – Part 3/3 (http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/beginners-guide-to-seo-best-practices-part-33/)

They should help point you in the right direction.

Again though, seo isn't something you'll pick up overnight. The basic concepts are fairly easy to understand, but the details can get confusing. Most people don't need to understand more than the basics though. If you do the basics, create the best content you can, and do a little promotion for your content, a lot of seo has a tendency to work itself and fall into place.

lionize
05-09-2012, 09:56 PM
No worries vangogh, I just wanted to make it clear that I am prepared to do the work once I understand how. Plus I have way to much respect for you and all the help that you offer to others.
Well, I have to go...can't wait to read the "Beginner's Guide to SEO: Best Practices". Thanks for everything.

vangogh
05-10-2012, 11:27 AM
Hopefully my articles help. Do ask questions if you have any. And again remember this is stuff you can learn. Don't let the confusing information get you down. There comes a point where it all starts to click and it becomes easier to tell the good info from the bad and it all starts making sense.