Wearing the White Hat
Hi, my name is Anna Corbett (previously Appenzeller) and I work for Base Creative. Most of you will know me as the project manager here, but I recently (well it's been almost a year) had a baby and since I got back from maternity leave I have been concentrating on a different side of Base Creative. Anora is now our lovely and super efficient project manager. I, on the other hand, am now delving much deeper into the world of SEO.
Those who know me would hopefully say that I do not accept any less than perfect when it comes to web design and development projects and all things we do. At home I drive an Audi, my baby's buggy is a Buggaboo and I have a Sony home cinema. So I always strive for the best. (Or, just like to have nice stuff, I guess). I am now trying to carry on this attitude into my SEO endeavours...and here lies my struggle.
I have been very lucky to work with a superb team who made it seem easy to deliver top quality websites with stunning but functional designs, running on our brilliant Website Management System. SEO, however, is a different kind of game. Even if you develop your website with SEO at its heart and get you site optimised for your specific keyword(s), you are never guaranteed to get into the top rankings. And here is why: SEO is a very competitive game. The race for the top spot is like competing in the Olympics (at least for the more competitive keywords) and on top of that you are swimming with sharks on steroids.
An awful lot of SEO success is still linked to techniques that nobody can be proud of. While Google and the other engines try to keep Spam low, it seems that they are fighting a loosing battle at the moment. More and more search engine results are littered with spammy sites that have no or little relevance to the thing you are looking for. These sites make the rankings because of their aggressive "Black" or "Grey Hat" SEO.
I am not interested in getting involved in any of such practices, so getting involved more in our SEO strategies was certainly challenging. However, I do believe that quality will prevail and I am certainly determined. So here are my TOP 5 suggestions on how to beat the competition (whether "evil" or not).
1. Optimise your site. I know it seems daft, but your site is the basis of all SEO you are doing. Make sure your site sends out the right signals (or rather keywords).
2. Keep your content up to date. Provide visitors with a reason to come back. Whether it is news about your company, products or industry or a personal or company blog, you need to keep growing your content. If the visitor (and therefore search engines) can see that your website is up to date and growing, they will come back and rankings will improve.
3. Build your reputation, offline. SEO has a lot in common with general marketing and PR (and also relies on the two). Even if you are getting your "brand" out there offline, the message will spread. The more people that are aware of view the better.
4. Build your reputation, online. Inbound links are probably the biggest factor when it comes to rankings, so get people to link to you. Whether it is through directories, partners, affiliates, news coverage or social media, try to find link opportunities. Linkbuilding is such a huge subject, with so many possibilities, so that's a topic for another article.
5. Get involved. Read blogs about your sector, follow "movers and shakers" of your industry. Above all, start getting involved in discussions, forums, facebook groups, blogs and twitter-ings. If you can get their attention, you have already won!
Above all, wear your "White Hat"!