[Sigia-l] Beginner to SEO

[Louise Hewitt]

Tim:

> I deal with people on a daily basis who are under the impression that
> sprinkling magic SEO dust on their site will get them more pageviews,
> build their brand, create more conversions, etc. This impression,
> sadly, appears to be rather widespread. As such, it seems worth
> repeating here what I say over and over again to said people:
> 
> 1. Create meaningful content.
> 2. Mark it up properly.
> 3. Use appropriate metadata.
> 
> Blammo! Your site is now "Search Engine Optimized."
> 

You're right Tim. But I'm glad of the phrase.

Having banged my head against the client (and designer) wall for too
many years now, I have found that the one way I can successfully
convince people to invest in good quality content and metadata, rather
than blowing their whole budget on a flash intro, is to brand it SEO.

Essentially the service we provide is the same thing - making websites
better - so I don't care if I cloak it in defunct phrases like SEO.
There'll be another fad along next month and I'll brand it that too!

In a sense these people are right. Good content is Search Engine
Optimised by default, and will therefore is the best way to achieve
all those magical goals. Call it 'user friendly', 'usable', 'plain
english', 'search engine optimised', whatever - Let's face it, most of
the people who commission this work and bandy these terms around have
no deep understanding of the discipline, so let them have their fun.
Leave the semantic knot tying to they guys who love it, like us!

And to Stewart's point: 

>In my view if a sites where built, coded and tagged correctly there would
>be no need for the world of SEO.

Ah, Nirvana indeed. But this is the real world mista. So lets keep
sneaking in the back door if we can.

Nice to be back.

Lou 

.....


Louise Hewitt
Freelance Content Professional
louise.hewitt at gmail.com