Online Marketing Blog from metrocafe311

The importance of search engine optimisation is continuously growing, especially in times when companies are trying to gather the most valuable traffic to their website at a low cost. So what better way to get low cost and valuable site visitors than to rank high in the search engine’s free listings? But when it comes to search engine optimisation, many people ask themselves ‘where do we even start?’ Getting started in search engine optimisation can be challenging, even for those who call themselves Search Engine Optimisation experts. And most people look to reading blogs to get their dose of SEO expertise.

Search is continuously changing and adapting as the Internet becomes a more participatory medium. For this reason, we must remember that we do not learn to become search engine optimisation experts just by reading about it; but by actually doing it. Lisa Baron of We Build Pages wrote an article on this very topic, which inspired the writing of this blog.

Baron outlines that often times, we become so reliant on our industry blogs that “we’re often guilty of paralysing you and trapping you under a mound of information too large for you to ever act on.” It’s ironic that I’m now writing an article that you’re reading about not learning search engine optimisation from reading. But the key is to remember that expertise comes with practice. Reading large amounts about all of the factors that make up a successful SEO campaign alone will not equate to the knowledge held by the experts.

metrocafe311 values the knowledge gathered from reading industry news and blogs, but we make it a priority to put our findings into action and test and retest the suggestions outlined by blogs and industry articles.

With the recent news of the Google Personalisation tools that were released last week, it is even more essential that we do both because the landscape of a searcher’s natural listings may be completely altered. Examples of news like this prove that we must read about industry changes that may affect the way we work with clients and optimise campaigns, in addition to actually determining when to put those learnings into practice.

Lisa Baron makes an interesting point in saying that while she has read several blogs regularly and attended several courses and conferences, “no has taught [her] to be an SEO.” Like the SEO experts here at Interactive Return, we learn by putting our SEO education into action. Understanding the importance of testing and implementing the SEO best practices we read about on the web will significantly help to satisfy your clients’ needs and contribute to your personal confidence as an SEO expert.

Emer Lawn, Online Marketing Executive, metrocafe311