How SEOs Know SEO – Keeping Our Eyes Firmly on The Radar
As a search engine optimisation (SEO) specialist, I was asked what sounds like a simple question the other day. “How do SEOs know SEO?” Illustrated below is a diagram showing how SEOs know SEO. Shown as a radar this is an analogy often used in the SEO world – successful SEO is highly dependent on keeping an eye firmly on the radar and making sure all strategies are well aligned to get the best results. Experience – walking the walk and not just talking the talk Experience is undoubtedly one of the key attributes skilled SEOs have – it is something that cannot be quantified or qualified – good SEOs just have an inbuilt level of experience they’ve gained over the years. A good SEO will have grown up with the internet as it has matured and will have experienced the good, the bad and the downright ugly over the years. Experience builds reputation. In my personal opinion, experience far outweighs qualification – it is relatively easy to bolt on a title, add an award but always look to experience and reputation. Testing – fundamental to successful SEO Testing is a crucial SEO factor – if your client’s website is dependent on high search engine rankings you are not only staking your own reputation but endangering your client’s livelihood. A sound SEO will cycle through all the components in the illustration and ensure that the website is truly optimised prior to launching live. Unfortunately there are actions that can have very negative and lasting consequences. Testing, testing and testing again is critical as is the ability to monitor and analyse. Without excellent analytical skills, SEO has little to show in terms of return on investment.
Monitoring the search engine world Another way an SEO knows SEO is by constantly learning. SEO is incredibly fluid and the ability to learn new techniques is essential. Monitoring webmaster blogs, search engine new releases and updates has to be carried out regularly. Advice – always seek SEO advice The SEO community is large and growing – spawning good, bad and downright ugly advice. Black hat SEO theories, unscrupulous software and techniques emerge daily and a sound practitioner of SEO should be able to read through information to find best practice white hat SEO. Seeking advice is a necessity, be this from the search engines themselves or peers – SEOs should not put off seeking advice because of vanity and ego. Learning as mentioned above is essential and sharing, seeking and providing advice is a must. SEO Community – make the most a large sector The SEO community is large and often very open to offering free and invaluable information. SEOs must monitor and engage with these communities to gain insight into changes, new techniques and proven results. The SEO community is largely very informal through blog style posts, discussion groups and online tutorials. SEO Whitepapers On a more formal basis SEO whitepapers offer best practice guides that are often backed by more quantified and empirical data. Often published by the large SEO service providers or software developers they carry great influence and practical information. Keep these close to mind when monitoring the SEO radar. SEO Research – Find the best practice I’ve mentioned the words good, bad and downright ugly throughout this article. Excellent SEOs will carry out extensive research based on all the information gleaned from the SEO community, whitepapers and advice sought. Seeded among all these sources is the best to the worst information and SEO will only be truly successful if an SEO can filter the information. An SEO will not take a professed new technique or process as given, but will dig deeper to ascertain whether it is credible. Experience plays a huge factor, an SEO veteran will be able to distil the good from the bad and will also recognise sources and individuals whose reputation precedes them. Analysis – knowing that all your SEO is working We’ve spoken about some of the aspects that an SEO must be keep an eye on to make sure the course to SEO success is well placed – but how does an SEO check all is working to the projected goal. Analytics play an elementary role and using our radar analogy, analytics are the tools that show the results, increasingly real-time in SEO. If targets are not being met, the SEO must draw back to the different aspects we’ve covered above. This is why the radar analogy works well – no single process or technique can be attributed to why SEOs know SEO – their knowledge and skills are multifaceted and evolving. Change is the SEO World – Who’s Watching Your Six? Change is constant in the SEO world and a successful SEO will be proactive to and one step ahead of change. Change is most environments is seen as destabilising and a threat but an experienced SEO will not necessarily be worried by change as he or she will already be in a position to counter any change – that’s where the radar comes in – a high-quality SEO will be able to anticipate change. What are the typical changes affecting SEO? A new search engine comes on the horizon – what are the implications, how will this affect my rankings, do I need to alter my SEO campaigns to capture this new search engine? These are typical concerns that a qualified SEO will already have a good handle on by continually monitoring, testing, seeking advice from the community, reading SEO whitepapers, further researching and analysing the impacts. Emerging technologies and trends also present change which must be foreseen and mitigated against. Social media for example has grown exponentially and is an important channel to improve online marketing. A first-class SEO will know how social media optimisation (SMO) can be used to further increase online presence and visibility. Algorithm changes, which are frequent and often unannounced, can often have drastic effects on a website. An expert SEO, with their eye firmly on the radar, will notice community or blog chatter relating to change as well as noticing the impact on traffic through monitoring analytics. One step ahead or certainly walking side by side with change, the SEO should be able to stave off any negative change. Good SEOs know SEO – check their experience and their skills Back to the opening question “How do SEOs know SEO”? I suspect the question was somewhat loaded as I appreciate SEO does get some bad press. Rather than be direct, the question was asked generically. I rambled verbally and hopefully answered the question eloquently but I ended the conversation as I will here. Experience and reputation go hand in hand. If you ever find yourself needing to ask that question but don’t want to do it directly, research the SEO. Find out as much as you can about them, investigate their results, look for referrals and case studies. If they can prove a track record of getting results then I am confident that they, like The WebMarketing Group, are sound SEOs with their eyes firmly on the radar.