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Use this link to see all the posts in this series: Do-It-Yourself SEO.
SEO: Do-It-Yourself or Hire an Expert?
Doing your own SEO is certainly possible if you have the time and inclination. Here are the challenges:
- Learning what needs to be done
- Devoting time to do SEO
- Continuing SEO activities on an on-going basis
Learning What Needs to be Done
When you’re learning about SEO, make sure you’re learning “White Hat” SEO, as opposed to “Black Hat” SEO. White Hat SEO refers to using techniques that don’t try to trick the search engines into ranking your site. These techniques follow the webmaster guidelines published by the search engines.
Here are the guidelines for three of the search engines, and there are other helpful links on the pages, too:
- Google Webmaster Guidelines
- Matt Cutts Blog - Matt Cutts works for Google and often blogs about SEO issues
- Yahoo
MSN
Black Hat SEO refers to using techniques that may well cause your site to catapult to the top of search engine rankings for a brief time, but over the long haul, will cause your site to be penalized or even banished from the search engines altogether.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the search engines don’t publish their ranking algorithms. They provide guidelines and some assistance like Matt Cutts’ blog. As a result, webmasters and SEO experts must interpret the guidelines and draw conclusions based on their experience.
As you can imagine, information on what works and what doesn’t sometimes starts sounding like the 10 blind men trying to describe an elephant. I think the best advice for someone starting out learning SEO is to read everything you can, and look for trends. There are some things almost everyone agrees on, and those are the things I’d recommend you pay most attention to.
Doing SEO on a Regular Basis
This really speaks for itself. Once you know what you need to do, you can’t do it all at once. By definition, SEO needs to take place consistently over a period of time. So, plan on setting aside time each week, even after your site’s ranking starts to improve.
Hiring an Expert
Naturally, I am biased because the services we provide are extremely effective and reasonably priced. Our clients work with us because they don’t have time to do SEO on a regular basis and/or the inclination to learn all there is to learn.
But since SEO is such a critical issue for most webmasters, there are all kinds of firms out there – some are very good at what they do and some are real charlatans out for a quick buck. So, there are some things to be aware of no matter who you want to hire:
- In my experience, SEO firms who place cold calls or send e-mails to webmasters aren’t the best ones to deal with.
- If an SEO firm cannot describe how they plan to improve your search engine ranking, they’re probably using Black Hat techniques.
- If an SEO firm tells you that they must have FTP access to your website to upload some new pages, be wary. Typically, the pages they want to add to your site aren’t seen by your visitors. If that is the case, they’re usually some type of “doorway” pages, or other types of pages that don’t fit into webmaster guidelines.
- If you are told that your site will appear at the top of Google within 48 hours, they aren’t an SEO firm. They’re probably doing a flat fee Pay-Per-Click service. While you may choose to do Pay-Per-Click to get some immediate traffic, keep in mind that you won’t be making a dent in your site’s long-term ranking capability.
- Make sure that the keyword phrases an SEO firm wants to use to optimize your site are valid. By valid, I mean that the terms have decent usage and not overwhelming competition. You don’t have to go after a term like Atlanta Real Estate, but you don’t want to be stuck with a phrase like New Homes for Sale in Atlanta Suburbs. It might be easy to rank for a phrase like that, but only because no one actually ever uses that term.
- Any SEO firm should be involved in obtaining incoming links for your site. Make sure those links will be from quality sites and not link farms.
Assuming that you are going to do your own SEO, the balance of this series will address the basics you need to know.
