Thursday, September 28, 2006

Case Study 1: A typical (good) day in SEO consulting

I spend a lot of time with new and existing clients reviewing their websites, their performance online from the results on their traffic logs. I carry out this task on site, in front of the client, so they are able to see that online marketing and seo is not a smoke and mirrors process or some black art voodoo.

In fact to me SEO is common sense online marketing - give your website users what they want, give them a reason to return (or add you to their favourites list) and/or a reason to tell someone about your website.

I spent yesterday with a new client (and all my clients mentioned on this blog have given permission for me to blog about them and their websites) - Jim Caola of Gem Security Centre Ltd - and owner of www.gemsec.co.uk

Jim was referred to me by Business Coach - Greg Haddock (aka The Profit Doctor) after Greg discovered that Jim wanted more from his website. So I owe a thank you to Greg for his referral of my business.

On arrival I meet with Jim and find he wants to increase the traffic generally to the site but more importantly he wishes to be on the first page on Google for Salto Security Products as his business is a major supplier of these in the UK building access control market.

I point out very quickly why his competitor is first for pretty much everything related to "Salto Security" and we then analyse that site for particular seo strengths and weaknesses. We also take the time to review the back links and anchor text for each competitor website he feels he has to compete with in the UK.

It sinks in on Jim during my SEO consultation that a major key to web optimization is:
  • carefully created ON TOPIC content with a suitable amount of inbound links - and that the more competitive the keyword phrase you wish to target the more work you're going to have to do!
Salto when used inside a 2 or 3 keyword phrase right now is not particularly competitive - in most cases there are less than 1000 websites are competing for each phrase. I do not intend to list them here for obvious reasons!

So Jim and I formulated a plan to increase his website's ranking over time to start gaining increases in ranking on search engines such as Google, not just for Salto door locks but also for other security products his company supplies to businesses across the UK.

I created a specific page on Salto products and also assisted in making changes to the content of the home page (not the design or the code). I also explained and demonstrated the basics of meta tags (title, keyword, description) - which is pretty much do NOT put anything in the tags if you have no intention of putting them in the content on the page otherwise its a pointless exercise.

I have to admit for anyone to start looking at optimizing their website my webmarketing and SEO consultations can be a steep learning curve. But when you see a client put the SEO two and two together and come up with the answer it is really a great feeling for them and for me.

I left the session with Jim's head working overtime on what he can do now to help his website, that SEO is common sense (but like anything does take practice) and that submitting to thousands of poor quality websites is a pointless waste of time.

I hope to report back in a few months time - even sooner if at all possible - that the gemsec.co.uk website is hitting it's traffic targets!

Cheers

ukdaz