The primary objective of this website is to attract clients to my design business. The two ways I try to achieve this are:
- Get other good websites to link to me with my desired keywords as the anchor text. For example, freelance graphic designer, designer in London, UK design services, are good phrases to explain what I do and I try to get these words a published as a hyperlink to my site on as many sites as possible.
- Write regularly updated content with my keywords scattered around the site, particularly within title tags and headline tags. So I try to write an article a week about artworking, designing, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Quark, logos, packaging, marketing, advertising … the list goes on and on!
This strategy has reaped rewards as I have been employed by some great clients this year (Accenture and MasterCard, for example) who have asked me to help them on a variety of interesting projects. All because they found me on Google, or some similar search engine.
The nature of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is unpredictable. It’s not an exact science as it takes a bit of luck to second guess Google’s secret algorithm – the mathematical equation that uses certain information from a website in order to define its rankings – and get on the first page of search results.
Hi Rob,
This post relates to me as I put a lot of time and effort into getting my site to the top of Google for my chosen keywords, and today that is how I get 90% of my new clients for one of my sites. I just launched my new website for my company, and I am currently working hard to get it highly ranked. I agree with you that performing well on searches is golden, and the ticket to success for services like ours.
I quite agree, Brian. I can’t stress enough the importance of regularly updated quality content with a sprinkling of your keywords throughout to keep the search engines interested! It isn’t as simple as that, of course. I’d be interested to hear other people’s tip and tricks on this subject. At least I’m scoring quite high for “freelance designer london” at the moment. A little bit of effort can reap great rewards!
Its true a few weeks of getting a few links into your site helps as well. Quality content is a big part of if, create a site with plenty of content, and on different pages. The bigger the site, i guess one would assume without going through the site that it is more important. I personally like the idea of plenty of good content.
I agree, New Zealand Web design, I like quality content. It’s what the search engines want at the end of the day – to direct their users to sites that they’ll enjoy or feel benefit from going to.
Continually writing good content is essential and you are doing very well with writing content. I don’t think you will have a hard time getting listed if you are consistent.
Thank you, Vegas Web Design, I plan to write more about the basics of how to market yourself on the web and elsewhere. However I have been seriously considering employing the services of a link-building company to provide some quality links. Anyone know of a good one?
That is very impressive.
I work with SEO and I know how hard it is to get 3 very-relevant keywords. Most people can’t do it. Not even the so-called “SEO professionals”. So you’ve beat most of them at their own game.
I wish I had time to work on my own services and website – but I never bother. All my time energy, time and attention goes for the lucky client at the time.
But still, you really got me there.
Because if someone had approached me asking me to get his website #1 for freelance designer London. I would have said: No, can’t do it, impossible.
So today, is a rare day, where I feel somewhat defeated
Well done again for your result.
This comes from a person who likes to kid himself to be the very best SEO webdesigner in this world. But who now, thanks to you – doesn’t feel quite so sure !
Hello Henry, thank you for this glowing report although I don’t think I’ve beaten the SEO professionals at their own game because I think it must have taken me over a year to do it and I made several mistakes along the way.
The good thing is that I can advise my clients on SEO when I’m designing and developing the websites for them.
Anyway, I’m sure you shouldn’t feel defeated by this. Bear in mind I spent countless hours writing articles and link building for this site – much more time, I would say, than any SEO professional would spend on one client site.
But thanks for the comment because I made me feel really good!
Real SEO professionals spend a lot of time. The cowboys sure, they don’t. There is not easy way to SEO but very hard work. There is no magic trick. There is however a very human element that involves diplomacy, social engineering, politics, networking and so on. SEO is a perfect mix between social science and technology.
The time line for results given by SEO is said to be 2 years. I read that on someone else’s website.
I mean, I get results in less than 6 months. But I would say the very top results takes 1 year so you got your timeline right. I would say only a handful in the world would manage to achieve what you have. And each of them would still sweat and be constantly fearing failure.
I need to establish “music production” and “music producer” for a client of mine. Page 1 in Google. Doesn’t need to be #1. And that is going to be very tough! But your excellent results inspired me to keep pushing now.
OK, maybe another reason is that this site for me is a labor of love so I maybe got deep quality links to some articles from other sites and bloggers as I was writing about something I know very well. But it wasn’t that difficult so I’m sure lots more people can do what I’ve done – that’s why I’ve written about it extensively here.
Wow, to get to the first page of Google for “music production” and “music producer” is indeed a very tall order. It would be difficult enough for “music producer uk”, for example. Do you encourage your clients to write blog posts? That’s what I would do – get him/her to write 350 words every week in a blog and keep your eye on it. They’ll be amazed by what happens even after a few months!
The problem with blogs is that either you do it well or don’t bother. A bad blog – one that rarely updates or that doesn’t get comments – gets voted down by Google (I have no proof of that but that is what I suspect). My experience with clients is that they often don’t have the time or inclination to carry out self-promoting tasks.. So giving them a blog could turn out counter-productive. A static website where I can do the web-promotion myself but from the outside seems a safer bet. About “Music producer” and “Music production” I will do everything I can to make it happen. I will keep pushing. And that is something I don’t like in me, I never quit until I get the results I am after for the client.
Yes, I think you’re right, you either do blogs well or not at all. However, a lot of people could surprise themselves at exactly how well they can do it. I did!
I’m sure you’re clients like the way you never quit! And it’s good to be a little single-minded sometimes!
Hi Rob: When you mention getting quality links, how does that relate to “noFollow”? I thought that was a bad thing. So where are you now? Are you focusing on links or content? If you are focusing on getting quality links, and they are coming from leaving comments on other good blogs, what are you doing to get them? I have been floating up and down between number 17 and 30 or so for the term “freelance graphic designer” in general, but I had NO content on a one page site for about 10 years. I added started the blog and I see I’ve actually dropped a bit, maybe because now the content is taking on more diversity. But there is certainly room at the top for those people that want to take blogging seriously and do quality work and back it up with quality content. You have both!
Woops…I meant links “not coming” from other popular blogs due to “noFollow”. So let me restate. Other than blog rolls, what are good incoming links from authoritative sites? Can you give an example?
I think the best links are the ones you get naturally from writing good content rather than the links that you have engineered directly yourself through commenting on good blogs or through link exchanges. An example of a quality link would be one from a high PageRank and one that isn’t “noFollow”. So if you get linked to from the home page of the CNN website that would be good! Although Google likes links from relevant sites (about graphic design).
Another point I should add is that Google has been reviewing the
noFollowtag recently and it’s fair to say that “noFollow” links aren’t completely useless – at the very least they can cause traffic.I hope this helps.
Check out this post where I explain linking, SEO and PageRank in more detail.
By the way, Douglas, I can guarantee that you will notice an improvement in your SERPs very soon purely as a result of the blog!
looks like a informative read. I’m trying to figure out how to get more links now. might have to pick this up.