Yadabyte SEO Primer 1: Kicking Up Trouble, a Confession and an Introduction

In the late mid 90s we were selling the first version of our TomeRaider Ebook software for the Psion Handheld. This was before Google, virals and mainstream SEO. There were various forums online for the Psion. In one of them, I got into a bit of a slanging match with a guy or guys. I can't remember what it was about (you would be amazed at what techies are prepared to tiff over), but what we noticed was that this forum argument had a direct correlation to downloads, and thus sales, of TomeRaider. If we let the tiff die down in the forum you could see sales and downloads slump. So, staying maximally friendly and equally antagonistic, we kept these arguments rolling and reaped the benefit of the traffic for a good while. Nobody got hurt.

You couldn't do that now, people are way too clued up. You would be branded a spammer and a flamer and in the long run your web presence would suffer. Since those "days of thunder" everything has changed. The internet crashed, Google arrived, social networks and blogs form the dominating substrata of the net, and there is a morality about what you can and can't do online. But one thing hasn't changed:

if your website is going to be a success, it needs good traffic.

Good traffic isn't just lots of traffic. Good traffic is visitors who want to be on your website. It's visitors who might need what you are offering.

This is the first part of a series I am writing on Web Presence, Traffic and Search Engine Optimisation. If you own a website and you're not an SEO Pro it might be worth reading. I want to achieve three key things with this SEO Primer:

1. To provide a clear no-nonsense and easy-to-understand account of the philosophy and practice of SEO. Something the reader can take away, for free, and make use of in tangible ways. Well, tangible for the internet at least - there is nothing in these posts that you shouldn't be able to do.
2. To show the myths of SEO - A lot of people make a lot of money from SEO, and often all they are selling is myth and ignorance. If I can prevent one person spending a bunch of cash on an SEO Company that merely carpet bombs the net with link farm submissions and SEO Spam then hey, my work here is done.
3. To get new SEO Clients. Although Yadabyte Websites have been improving our own site's web presence for years, we are now feeling confident enough that we can do beneficial SEO for our clients. Thoughtful, bespoke, holistic SEO that will work. So, if what you learn in this series sounds clear but you don't have the time or inclination to implement it, then feel free to hire Yadabyte Websites to manage your SEO.

SEO is a often punted as a "dark art". It isn't. Subscribe to this blog and see the light.

SEO Primer 2: Web Presence, will be published shortly.