I’m John, one of the two newest additions to the Web Vitality’s team of content focused link builders and blog writers. I’ve been working here for just over two months, focusing my efforts on writing and learning as much about link building as humanly possible in time I’ve had. It hasn’t been especially easy, but in the following words I’ll summarise just some of the things I’ve learnt, as well as introducing myself.
For as long as I can remember I have been a writer in some form or another. My Mother was a teacher before I was born, and she’s still teaching now. I cannot conceive that I would have ever started writing the short stories that I did as a young child, had she not helped me to type them out. After school I took my writing skills on tour as I travelled around Europe and began writing my second book, although it was to become my first novel. Upon my return to England I thought only of finishing my book, which I did with ferocious rapacity.
Although I had a great deal of writing experience under my belt already, I initially had very little knowledge about the world of SEO or specifically link building. I was taken on board as a content focused link builder and blog writer, thanks to my previous experience. But there was still a great deal to learn about the world of link building and the ideas and methods which surround it. The following points are some of the things I have learned over the last two months, which have most stood out to me.
5 Things I’ve Learnt About SEO:
- SEO Changes The Tangible World: One of the first things I learnt about the world of link building is that, despite the intangible nature of the process it can have a huge effect on the tangible world of business. Since almost every business is somehow dependant on the internet for something, having SEO is essential for almost any successful business. Without a link building group working on their specific keywords, it is not only easy but also likely that a company’s site will simply be buried beneath pages and pages of potentially less relevant sites. In fact the site at the top of any search engines set of results for a query will get on average 42.25% of all users clicks or “click through traffic”. Even local businesses can flourish or fail based on their standing in search engine results. Statistics suggest that 86% of Googles surveyed users said they use the internet to find local businesses.
- A Game Of Catch Up: It seems as though if you can find a hold in the world of link building that things might suddenly become easier. Obviously once you understand the basics, day to day tasks do become simpler to manage and achieve as do educated guesses. But in the unpredictable world of the internet, SEO companies will eternally be playing catch up with the search engines. Because groups like Google, Bing and Yahoo make their own rules or “algorithms” which change the way their search engines look at (or crawl) everything, from websites and results to links and spamming. And because they choose not to share this information with the public, link building is in an eternal game of catch up with an ever changing world. With companies constantly trying to work out what went wrong and undo their mistakes in order to catch up again.
- Sociability Is Ideal: When it comes to guest blog writing and performing outreach to find locations for the content, honesty and openness are the best policies to have. It can be disheartening at times to have so many of people that you email expect money in return for posting something, which you’ve put several hours into writing. But by telling them you need to include a link from the start and being friendly and sociable, even as far as adding them on twitter and reading some blogs they have written or posted it helps to let them know you’re a real person, and you are who you say you are. In the world of link building and content writing there are a lot of fake people who pretend to be writers in order to gain guest blog locations, but by simply being honest and open people can see you for who you really are and often see through the fakes, which is what they want.
- Writing is Marketing: In terms of writing blogs it can be easy to forget that there are some concrete and some slightly bendable rules of writing blogs, and most of them can apply and be applied to the basics of marketing. For example titles are very much influenced by the idea of marketing, they need to be short and snappy but they also need to lure in potential readers by either asking questions or making statements people want to know more about. It’s important not to make sweeping generalisations where possible and it’s also best to keep opinion out of factual content. Tips and hints actually need to be useful and insightful and not only is it best to try and write about things you actually know about, but if you’re required to create a blog about something you know little or nothing about research is a necessity. It’s also worth remembering that using the term “oneself,” can make you seem like a poor writer, if not a foreign writer posing and English one.
- Intangible Support (getting ahead): One of the strangest things I have learnt about SEO and link building is that it’s always open to interpretation and change. Experts and amateurs alike are always searching for new ways to get ahead of the search engines, or alter their tact in terms of increasing a sites ranking. Each time Google updates their algorithms things change and some methods gain or lose relevance and strength. Interviews may now be replacing guest blogs, and the relevance of niche links pointing to the same type of niche sites is apparently becoming more important. Things have changed even since my induction two months ago into the strange and constantly changing world of link building. But it’s easier to change with it and go with the flow of information than to stick to your guns, and get buried at the bottom of page three.
Whether you like the idea of it or not, link building is an essential part of what makes search engines work. Without companies like this the entire internet would be at the mercy of financial giants in every field of commerce. But at least with an army of different SEO groups working for the lesser known companies we have a choice, and we can see more variety when we type in our daily queries into Googles ever altering search bar.
