Does SEO really work?

[Gaynor]

Hi guys.

I have a couple of sites which include blogs. I've never really 'bothered' much with SEO. I just write, and usually my pieces are quite long and comprehensive - I like to think I know what I'm talking about. I don't post that often either, maybe once or twice a month. It's a time thing. So my hits are fairly low (although I've never compared them to anyone else's).

Writing is a bit of a passion for me and I think if I had to research which words everyone else is using and include them it might be a bit of a killer. So, what I want to know is if anyone else has REALLY had a lot of success with targeted SEO or PPC and has seen a dramatic increase in numbers?

[JoeK]

It works really well.
If you are targeting a local audience you can rank high on Google quite quickly. For an international audience it is a bit more difficult but with the right keywords you will get results. I highly suggest investing in good keyword software.

[Gaynor]

Thanks JoeK. Do you have any software you prefer?

[GertH]

Gaynor, I can see that you're not very familiar with SEO, so I'd advise you to not look for some app or software that "does SEO". You will waste your money and time, guarenteed.

SEO is not something that you can just do quickly with an app. Sure there are some apps to help you along the process, like Keyword Research, Title Optimization, PageSpeed Optimization, Link-building etc, but no one app will "do SEO".

I see your website is built on Wordpress, you can download a plugin called "Yoast SEO". This will help you optimize your posts for certain keywords to get your on-site SEO a bit better, but 50% of SEO involves off-site SEO. Off-site SEO refers to things you do to improve your rankings on external websites and platfroms.

Let me know if you need some help setting up Yoast or anything really

[Citizen X]

My layman thoughts, if a million people visit any given site and not a single product is sold, then it doesn't work

[GertH]

My layman thoughts, if a million people visit any given site and not a single product is sold, then it doesn't work

That means your SEO efforts are working at least, it's the product or service that's the problem...

[HR Solutions]

Gert How long have you been going ?

[vieome]

I think Google has long killed S.E.O. How do you optimize your site when you are in competition with the search company that is selling paid per click advertising.
One can pay for S.E.O to try to get to the top of the rankings, or one can pay google adds, who do you think will get you to the top of search?

[Xplosiv]

The nature of SEO has changed, but SEO still works.
One of the old methods was keyword stuffing, but these days search engines don't even look at keywords anymore (that is, the <meta name="keywords" content="all your spammy keywords"> tag).
It is still important to define your keywords and try to use them in your title tag, first heading and early in your content.
Keyword density is also a thing of the past. If you try to use it more than seems natural, the search engine algorithms kick in to mark your site as suspect.
If you have a blog, it's better to post regularly. Search engines don't like stale content.
Social media also helps, so link your blog to Facebook, Twitter, Diggit, Pinterest or any other such site(s) that you are active on and tweet, comment, pin and or like often, especially on related subjects.
Just a few ideas, but done properly, SEO works without Google Ads or PPC.

[Marq]

That means your SEO efforts are working at least, it's the product or service that's the problem...

More likely , your site sucks.
People would not have clicked if they did not need the service or product.
Design is a key factor which will retain interest and your bounce rate will be a lot better if you have something good to look at which has been well presented.
Relevant content, regularly updated seems to work the best along with your key words in the url and sprinkled around the site.
I am not sure how Google weighs in with back links and resources these days - they used to have it way up the weightings but seem to be keeping quieter about it now.

[GertH]

Gert How long have you been going ?

Long enough to know what works

[HR Solutions]

Long enough to know what works

Well I have been looking for someone to do some work for us (as you might have seen from another thread) , but with a snotty comment like that ..........

[GertH]

Well I have been looking for someone to do some work for us (as you might have seen from another thread) , but with a snotty comment like that ..........

No, I haven't seen this from another thread. My comment wasn't meant to be "snotty" either - you're question was a bit vague, "Gert, How long have you been going?". I wasn't too sure what you meant by that, so the best assumtion I could make was that you we meant; how long have I been doing SEO for and if you've been in the SEO game or know anything about it, you would know that saying "I've been doing SEO for X years" means absolutely nothing.

I've been working with a few people that claim they are SEO's, and some of them have even been doing it for over 10 years, but yet they don't know much, they can do the basics but when it comes to large corporate sites, they have no clue where to start. The guy that introduced me to SEO and taught me about 10% of what I know right now, has been doing SEO for over 8 years, but today he's techniques and skills are so outdated it's not even funny.

So to come back to why it might have sounded "snotty", I didn't want to say "I've been doing it for 4 years" (which is the true amount of time) as that statement means absolutely nothing so I thought a better answer would be; long enough to know what works. Hope that makes sense

Oh and about the work you want done, I don't do "odd jobs", but I'll gladly refer you to a couple of guys that's doing some great work at the moment, it all depends what you're looking for. Are you targetting local, national or international audiences? Product or services? Niche etc?

[HR Solutions]

Gert - do you not ever consider that when you are asked how long you have been doing something - people are trying to gather some info because they might not want to use someone that has been doing it for 2 months !! We are a medium size company with LOTS of "IT" work to be done. As you may know or perhaps don't know there is a shortage of IT people. There are lots of people who say that can do IT, but they can't - hence my question.

Oh any by the way I wasn't looking for someone to do "odd" jobs. You seem to be totally on the wrong path here .... perhaps it is the Cape Town thing.

Did you not perhaps at all think that your signature might just get someone interested ....... or now not interested in this case ?

You are just around the corner from us ...... therefore my interest.

[GertH]

Ah, I see, I hope you didn't gather that I've been doing SEO for 2 months based on my initial comment on this thread.

Also, I doubt I'm around the corner from you. If you're refering to the location of the company in my signature, I do not work at their office, a friend of mine owns the agency and I help them out as much as I can They do solid work and cater for small to medium SME's.

I totally agree with the lack of IT related skills in SA, especially in Cape Town... Walking into businesses and having to work with their "IT" team that barely knows MS Office is quite worrying...

Do you you own www.2hrs.co.za? If you do, you can start by building some solid citations. Your current link profile is pretty much non-existant, with a link to domain ration of 12:2.