I’ve learned in my time as an SEO consultant, SEO technician, and SEO copywriter, that there is no learning substitute for hands on work. SEO is not something that I’m sure can even be taught all that well because there’s a certain level of intellectual curiosity and engagement you have to have to stay with it.
It takes so many hours to learn to do good SEO work and a lot of it is trial and error. Let me show you what I mean.
The Real Work of SEO
I have a client I picked up a few months ago who was doing fairly well in rankings for certain keywords. The client does large architecture and construction projects. Looking at their Google Analytics, I saw that they were getting found mostly on keyword variations of their company name.
That’s not bad but if most of the keywords in your Analytics account are variations of your company name, you’re mostly getting Googled by people who already know about you. I see this so often when I first look at a client’s Analytics. Most clients don’t stop to think about the fact that if their company name is not generic, they’re probably going to rank well for their business name.
Keyword Krazyness
When I first started SEO, I would have been at a loss to know what to optimize for to replace, for example, the Title tags that had little more than the client’s company name. I would have been guessing or I might use Wordtracker but I didn’t have a solid sense about what I should be using for keywords.
My keyword strategy evolved quickly out of necessity but, my god, it took a lot of experimenting and then trying the keywords out on the pages. And it took a lot of experimenting to find out what worked in terms of changing tags, body copy, creating certain kinds of links, registering with directories, article marketing.
Your SEO Toolbox is Unique
So over time, you end up with a set of tools that are unique to you as an SEO. Someone else might use similar tools but I find that my process is unique in the way I analyze and execute an SEO strategy for any specific website.
For me, that’s a lot of the fun and this is where the intellectual engagement comes in. When I find a new way to do something, I get very excited to duplicate it across several websites to see the effect. When it moves the ranking needle, it’s very exciting (and fun to tell clients about).
What Was I Talking About?
But back to the SEO copywriting aspect. I’ve really discovered there is no such thing. Copywriting alone is not enough to move the needle very far. And I say this as a very long-time writer and someone who started out thinking SEO copywriting could be enough. Copy CAN help with conversion; turning traffic into leads and sales.
No. It’s a bigger nut to crack than that. And pretty much every website is different. It’s no longer at all difficult for me to sell SEO Campaigns since I no longer believe that a one-time optimization of a site is going to get you far in the long run. For one thing, the search engines keep changing the rules and competitors do new things and keywords drop in global monthly search volumes.
It’s an ongoing process and it keeps us on our toes. But, it’s fun.
