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The Art of SEO

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In Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as in life, you have enemies and you have allies. To win the Internet marketing (IM) battle we must be vigilant and focused and prepared for the long haul. In reading Sun Tzu’s Art of War we can take but a few of his tips, and turn them to our favor.

Know your Enemies

Being conscious enough to know where you are failing is very important; in fact it is vital to success. What kind of enemies can you have in IM? This list may not be all of them, but it sure applies to me, or at least it did:
1. Forum Loitering
2. Side-track Surfing
3. Website OCD
4. Social Network Zombies
5. Statistics Anxiety
6. Blogging excuses

You may not relate to all of these Enemies of IM, but I bet you are courting at least one. Let’s break these down and have a look at them in a bit more detail.

Forum Loitering

Forum Loitering is an easy trap to fall into. You start off learning from others that have gone before you, you see that Special Offer that could be the big break. Before you know it you are on these forums a couple of hours a day. “So what” you cry, “I AM learning and I AM only spending a couple of hours doing it”. Yes, but it is 2 hours away from IM, and that equates to less traffic to your site.
I turned this enemy around. I chose half a dozen forums that were consistently helpful and added them to my Bookmarks. I ONLY visit these forums when looking for an answer. I occasionally share where I can see I could be of help, but I never hang out there; in and out: a Commando raid.

Side-track Surfing

img http://www.socialmediacommando.com/

This enemy is crafty.
‘I start surfing for an answer to a need, I then see a site that reminds me of another task I need to do, then I come across an interesting bit of info, and in fact, I think I will read the whole post, then the comments…what else is of interest here…… OMG, what was I originally looking for?’
Is this a familiar scenario? If I must go outside of the task I was originally performing I will make sure that I open multiple tabs. Since doing this, instead of clicking from link to link, I can immediately see where I started. I may spend an extra 10 minutes getting side tracked, but I don’t have to spend another 10 minutes working out how I got there.

Website OCD

Website Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a dastardly enemy. You think you are making improvements, streamlining your site, or improving visitor experience through tweaking your best WordPress theme to absolute perfection. Building the site up, stripping it back down again, testing new plugins and experimenting with code. This is a hard enemy to defeat, so as Sun Tzu might advise, we work with the enemy, rather than against them.
To ensure that website OCD didn’t defeat me; I had to make some tough decisions.
• I will work with only 2 themes
• I will only add a plug in if it is a proven winner, and then only to one site at a time
• I will always weigh up a tweak against IM, to which IM will always win
Website OCD is based on aesthetics, not on functionality, and it certainly doesn’t stack up to getting traffic to your site when compared to SEO and IM.

Social Network Zombies

We all know that social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook can be an effective part of one’s Internet Marketing strategy. What many don’t know is that it is an enemy as well, or at least it can be. How long do you spend on Twitter, or, do you side-track surf through Facebook? How long are you spending there?
There is more self discipline to be had here people. You will need to make some hard and fast rules for yourself about social networking use, and here’s the rub, the less the better! If you have a SEO strategy then use it, otherwise…commando operation…in and out, minimum casualties.

Statistics Anxiety – The art of SEO

Where am I placed in the Google rankings this morning, this afternoon, this evening. How many unique visitors have I had? These questions are typical of those that I have asked of myself in the past on an hourly basis. I still struggle with this enemy, but these days understand that there is nothing actually gained by over-analyzing my sites and pages. I can gain some insights, but not the way I was going about it. In fact, I was making life hard on myself. By checking stats every few hours I increased my own frustration and anxiety. Best to keep away from this one. Check them once a day if you have to, less if you can manage it.

If you have not encountered any of these enemies to Internet Marketing, then it is time to look into the shadows, because it may well be that the enemy is within!  Of course this is not the end of the Art of SEO list, it is only the beginning, but for some, that is all that is needed.

Comments

  2. I love how you have interpreted the art of seo!

    I have seen companies use ethical and un-ethical precedures and usually it seems that the un-ethical seem to pay off!!

  3. Hi Tim,

    Interesting choice of title for your post. There is a free ebook with the same title that you can download for free at the “Art of SEO” website, a great guide for starters in SEO.

    Most of is webmasters are dealing with the same “enemies” you outline daily, though they have a pretty good reason to exist.

    Thanks for sharing.

  4. Hi Ana,
    I have ended up only using Twitter and FB on my iPad, and I dont have it anywhere near my computer, so I only check them out during ‘down time’.
    If you really are guilty of all of the SEO pitfalls, just work on one at a time.
    Good luck.
    TimW recently posted..Kodak Playsport ZX3 Video Tips

    • Hi Tim,

      I’m fine now, but I was a disaster in the beginning.

      Having those only on your iPad is a great idea. As long as I keep them away from me, I’m fine.

      Cheers,
      Ana

  5. 1. guilty
    2. guilty
    3. guilty
    4. guilty
    5. guilty
    6.guilty

    I had to remove Twitter and Facebook from my bookmarks, and make Firefox forget my username and password for all sites. Therefore, I have to think twice before I decide to spend some more time there. Luckily, I’m lazy to type my passwords million times a day.

  6. I am certain that I am a victim of social network zombies. You see I thought I was interacting with prospects then suddenly we’re talking way out of my niche. But the conversation is tempting. And the pictures and updates also make me becoming less productive. Thanks for the reminder Tim!

  7. SEO isn’t about instant gratification. Results often take months to see, and this is especially true the smaller you are, and the newer you are to doing business online.

  8. It is clear and easy to understand, excellent division of topics, and improvements can be made after almost every chapter. It also gives a more holistic knowledge of how the web works in general without giving you a history course. Thanks!
    Robert Benwell recently posted..Robert Benwell Bio

  9. Nice article TimW!
    It ‘very easy to spend hours at the computer, without concluding anything
    And many do not even realize
    Paul recently posted..By: network

  10. “Side-track Surfing”

    – I’m very familiar with this scenario LOL Most of the time, I tend to forgot what I should be doing because of I found new interesting post or site while browsing. In addition to that, as a music lover, I always visit Youtube that can eat up much of my time online. So overall, I spent lots of my time doing useless stuffs rather than spending my time working online.
    Mark recently posted..I have found that I am healthier than I have ever been before, and it is all because of the P90X system

    • Side Track Surfing just seems to happen so naturally. One moment you are focused and ‘doing’, the next you are happily wandering from one useless site to the next…..
      Thanks for dropping by Mark
      Tim recently posted..Samsung Q10 Camcorder Review

  11. SEO has grown itself in leaps and bounds in the past many year. There are people who still do White Hat SEO and there are people who still use Black hat. The post will be helpful for people to understand various techniques and how they are different.

  12. For every battle knowing your enemy is a vital part of every SEO campaign. Knowing your enemy will enable you to see where to hit them and where they are strong. I always spend 1 day each week to track down my selected competitors and know what they do and know what they will do next. By doing this it allows me to plan out a strategic SEO Attack and dominate them eventually.
    Übersetzungsbüro recently posted..Neue Sprachführer

      • Oh did I let another irrelevant comment through…??? It is really hard to tell if the comment is related to the article when I am approving from the dashboard… Hmmm

        • Mitz this is a toughee, I decided to take G.A.S.P. off my sites for a week and have had that many spam comments, although Uber’s is at least remotely related! I have made the decision that if somebody doesn’t make a comment reflecting that they have read (or even part) of my post then it is not going to be allowed. Even the ones that say “I loved your site I have subscribed” or ” I love your site I will be back”. As somebody new to IM I am thinking that these are most likely spam comments but not 100% sure?
          jan recently posted..Books vs Kindle

          • Hi Jan..I have gasp and akismet…thats it…That has cut my job down ten fold.. But I am only human and if they pass these channels sometimes they get through me too… It is the sheer volume of comments that is my problem…I agree about the generic comments but you also have to be careful because sometimes your regular visitors like to add a general comment just for the sake of it…And they expect their comments to get published…Moderating the comments is the hardest part of this business because there is no clear cut perfect comment.
            My list of rules for commenting is getting longer and longer… 🙂

  13. SEO has really the art but it is also a business. This is really a great information for SEO newbies.

    • Hi Nik
      I have been guilty of loitering and I still do it now but only at certain times..I have a timetable to stick to…loitering and learning is leisure time for me…..:)

  17. Great article. I’m surprised I have seen more articles like this as these are probably challenges we all face on a daily basis.

    One of my solutions to some of these, is an RSS reader. I think RSS readers are hugely underutilized. It brings all the blogs I want to follow into one area, and I can quickly scan for the important articles, and am a lot less likely to get sidetracked while I do.

    Using an RSS reader has probably cut hours a day off my web surfing.
    Norm Miller recently posted..Six New Sleek CPA Website Styles

  18. Hey Tim !
    Excellent writeup.Great tips to get rid of negatives…and being a seo i truly believe SEO is an Art..and about that “social network zombies” point, i do agree with that,they have some cons too.you shouldn’t be wasting time if you dont have it in as your SEO strategy.
    Very nice post

    • No he didn’t.

      Flattery will get you far, but this is still spamm.
      I thought this blog moderates all comments?

        • A good way to get your comments published is to leave more than a one liner and also leave your name..like you have above..

      • Hey Danny
        If you only saw the job I have of moderating!!! The comments are crazy and most are rejected..

        and your right it is spam..I probably wouldn’t let that one in at all. But I have now and I will give Smith a chance to do better..

        • Hey Mitz,

          I didn’t mean to attack you.
          I do not know how much comments you have to moderate, I am sure a blog like this (and your other blogs) will get a lot of comments, many of them spam.
          I hope you don’t take it personal.
          And it looks like Smith is not one of the bad guys/girls.

          • Oh no I do not take offense I am just making excuses for myself…Smith is lucky to get through with that comment and now I see he is a real person… Maybe people just don’t know how to comment… Maybe I will write about commenting…

  20. Great article!
    When you started with “Know your enemies” I immediately thought of analyzing my competitors site and getting/stealing/copying backlinks from them.
    But the enemy within is easily overlooked.
    I do find myself spending a lot of time on blogs and fora “learning”. And yes I do learn things, but it should not be done during “action”-time.

    I’m in China so it is very difficult to get on Facebook, twitter and youtube That means it is difficult to do IM there but it also means I’m not wasting my time on “social” websites.

    I don’t fully agree on Website OCD, a plugin that is a winner for someone else doesn’t have to be good for you, I think testing is still an important part of optimizing your blog/site. Just make sure you try to improve on things that actually matter and not on useless details that only you as a perfectionist will see and appreciate but other people don’t see and/or care about.

    I check my stats once a day (they only get updated once a day) But I don’t spend much time on them, a couple of minutes max.
    Once a week I take around 30 minutes to check my rankings and analyze my stats a bit deeper. If there are changes in my stats and rankings that would make my SEO Plan not optimal then I take some more time to adjust it.

    I think email is still my biggest enemy, it takes a lot of discipline not to check it every hour.

    • Great reply Danny, thanks for taking the time.
      I guess I could have been clearer in describing what I think Website OCD is. I too test plug ins and tweak my sites, but early on I was OCD about it. I would spend an inordinate amount of time on it. I reckon everyone needs to work out what works for them, but I wouldn’t recommend spending hours a week tweaking a site. These days I pretty much don’t touch them, and anything that takes me away from gaining traffic has to be pretty important.
      Bit bit bit, over time, I have gone through each of these stages, and come to a realization that they were not ‘bang for buck, that they were not influencing my traffic, and therefore for me, my income.
      Can’t believe I didn’t add emails 😉

      • Great solid advice!
        Once you have found the plugins that work for you and structure etc. Then the time spent on testing and changing things should be minimal.

        You probably didn’t add emails to the list to save some time so you can check some emails.
        First thing I do when I hear or read the word email is check my email.

  22. Very common distractions! I know them all and it can be tough to resist them! I just would add checking emails.

    Its important to keep your focus on the things delivering results!

    @John = Its not only SEO, its marketing in general! I´m seeing TV spots with completely other eyes since I´m using seo and IM!

    Best regards
    Ben
    Benjamin Hübner recently posted..Onpage SEO Checklist

    • Great comment Ben. Yes emails are a common problem and I have read so many people have it. Personally I have never had the urge to constantly check and/or reply to emails, I am comfortable leaving them where they are.
      “Its important to keep your focus on the things delivering results!”, yes and that is what this post is all about.
      TimW recently posted..Top 10 Kodak Playsport ZX3 Features

      • I really love my emails and finding out what people have posted on posts that I am following, so sometimes I can download 60 at a time! So if I have something that I just really need to get done, I just don’t open my email at all, it’s the only way to avoid the distraction.
        jan recently posted..Kindle 4 and the Kindle 4 release date

        • Ha ha ha…I am the same…Emails are my relaxing time because it is like chatting and commenting…I class this as leisure time…Writing and SEO is work.

  23. well, “Social Network Zombies” is a new phenomenon, one has to be balanced in time management. spending too mush time may have adverse effect on the overall marketing campaign.

    interesting article…keep it up

  24. if you get traffic to your site, search engines will index your webiste, and also it will take your keywords and give importance to your keyword. so traffic is the most important thing in internet,

    there are two things:
    1) one is traffic
    1) second is quality traffic

    am talking about a website which has a 500 arround alexa traffic rank, and about 6/10 google’s page rank.

    get a free back link from this site, get a lot of free traffic, in this site you get free credits, and with that you get free traffic.
    Shan recently posted..5 Tips To Coping With Unemployment

    • Good on you for having a say Shan,
      SEO is, in my opinion at least, equally important. It is what gets the search engines sending you traffic. Good SEO will also get your site ranked well in the search results….if you have ever had a keyword in the 1st or second position you would know what I am talking about. the increase in traffic is incredible. You are right in that we need traffic coming from multiple sources, and linking to other sitesis one of these.

      • Just a quick follow on this discussion about “traffic” and SEO.

        I subscribe to this formula. Quality SEO should bring quality traffic which must bring conversions. You can work your tail off to build your SERP and increase your traffic, but if you are not realizing a benefit in conversions is it really making a difference? That is one reason I am happy that Google is placing so much more weight on content, social sharing, bounce rate in their ranking algorithm. The ultimate test of relevance is results (conversions).
        Good article, by the way. I, too, find the daily fight between productivity and activity to be a challenge. This is especially true in IM. You can burn through hours being active, but not very productive.
        James St. John recently posted..More Unbounce Conversion Fest Friends

  25. SEO is not only art, it’s lifestyle. Since I started doing seo I can’t look normalyy on web pages – I must see the PR and site structure… 🙂

  26. That’s a great post Tim and it would probably describe a lot of newbies! But some good advice, love the picture in your opt in box as well!
    jan recently posted..The Kindle DX

  27. I know people are curious about their statistics and they can be helpful, but you really can waste a lot of time analyzing them. Spending 15 to 20 minutes per day adds up to a lot of time in a given month. Not to mention if you spend more than that with them every day. A quick peek once per day is more than enough for me.
    Ray recently posted..Scheduling WordPress Posts

    • Hi Ray, I did reply to your comment earlier, but it hasn’t shown, so if it does, my apologies for the double up.
      Before I became conscious of my ‘statistics anxiety’ I would spend more than 20 minutes on sussing out where my sites sit in the rankings.
      Over time I have taught myself to forget about it, to a degree. Now I just ‘check in’. It is much more important to do the work that actually improves traffic to my site.
      TimW recently posted..Top 10 Kodak Playsport ZX3 Features

  28. it’s actually an advantage knowing SEO a lot.. it’s very useful to all the bloggers out there specially to the newbies.. it’s a great way of promoting one’s site.. i would love to learn more and more about it..
    mean recently posted..pc game angry birds

    • There are many more articles about SEO on this blog as SEO is the main ingredient for a website. SEO is the key to everything.

  29. Awesome! I think SEO is not only art its bring us for a life style and without SEO we don’t know how we find PR, seo is very important for my work. anyway thanks for the info.
    Janna recently posted..tips angry birds

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