Can I optimise my website own my own?

[Leonore Johnson]

Good day! I’d like to optimise my business website seeing the many benefits it can give to my overall profit. One of my friends suggested hiring a company that offers local SEO services London. But my concern is, can’t I do the optimisation myself? I’ve seen some people who were able to optimise their websites successfully. However, for someone like me who doesn’t have much knowledge in optimisation, can you tell me how crucial it is to hire an expert? Please share your thoughts.

 

[fisicx]

It depends on what you are selling, to whom and where, how much time you have and how easy you find it to learn and practice new skills. If you are in no real rush than it's worth taking your time to do your own SEO. But if getting ranked is necessary for the success of the business then getting in someone might be preferable.

What is it you want to rank for?

 

[james_firmsites]

Good day! I’d like to optimise my business website seeing the many benefits it can give to my overall profit. One of my friends suggested hiring a company that offers local SEO services London. But my concern is, can’t I do the optimisation myself? I’ve seen some people who were able to optimise their websites successfully. However, for someone like me who doesn’t have much knowledge in optimisation, can you tell me how crucial it is to hire an expert? Please share your thoughts.

You have to decide if it is worth learning the skills yourself for one website, vs paying an expert who will bring experience from a (hopefully large!) number of projects to yours at a fee.

Personally I think its always worth hiring someone as the areas covered are very broad. It's not simply knowing "local SEO" if you want a site to sell. It's understanding how to build a fast, easy to use website with clear calls to action. Then doing tasks like goal tracking so you know when and where conversions are from. Understanding all the marketing platforms so the most appropriate can be used for your business type and then finally executing marketing on those platforms. If that happens to be SEO then so be it, it may be an expert advises your money is better spent elsewhere such as on pay per click advertising.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

The trouble is finding the expert who is not a cowboy waiting to rip you off. The world is full of SEO experts.

Seo takes time, nobody is going to get you ranked on the first page for many months unless you have a very niche site and your web pages are perfect as in most cases there are thousands of others fighting for that position

I would suggest doing it yourself but not expecting much movement for the first year and in the mean time looking at other ways to advertise your web site, you can use pay per click on a low scale, using either AdWords or Bing (Bing is usually lower cost) or Google shopping, local advertising including local papers etc.

There is a company on her that is highly recommended for teaching SEO I forget its name but something to do with Bananas I seem to remember they do a £99 course on dvd for a year. someone will be along in a minute to tell you the name I am sure

After being involved in web selling since 2003 I would still find it hard to identify a SEO expert who is worth their money

 

[Minuteman Press]

Leonore can you provide an indication of the size of your business and potential monthly budget for SEO?

 

[Nochexman]

If it is your business have a go at doing it yourself. There is a huge amount of information available on the web, and it is a great muscle for you to exercise.

 

[Hugh Jampton]

Talking from experience here, I have managed to rank a website on various search terms for London, in excess of 90 search terms, as top 3 listings on Google, some pages I am the top three links.
Not so good on Bing, but I'm working on it.

It consistently gets 60 - 70 calls a month, as a small tradesman, that's a great exposure for me. I've been in this position for over a year now and work on it 5 - 10 hrs a month.

The majority of my "skills" at SEO are all self taught and researched on the web.

If you can make sense of what you need to get exposure for, keywords etc, it can be done, cheaply, easily and correctly.

As said previously, there are a lot of SEO nobody's out there.
Another trades team I know are paying £400 a month and only on page 3 of google for its keywords after a year.
I built him a cheap quick site and already rank on page one after 6 months.
Not a professional looking site, none the less, it's working.

I took an hours (paid) SEO advice from a company in Essex and the rest fell into place.
Once I had an understanding of what was required for me and my site compared to the ranking top sites at the time, I went for it.

SEO does not happen overnight - it takes time.

I think I waited 3 maybe 4 months before I noticed significant change and then it kept climbing.

There are helpful tools if you use Wordpress, Yoast being one of the more familiar ones.
They help but they're not a guaranteed SEO no1 ranking tool.

My opinion, teach yourself and go for it.
Maybe take a course and empower yourself.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

This is my 20th year of running a site and I think it is best to get the best company you can afford
If you doing it yourself you are depriving your business of opportunities
The question should be
Do you want the business you can develop by maintaining the site yourself or would you like a lot more business by using a company

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

It depends upon the concept of your business. Also if u have sufficient time to spend to learn optimization from tons of articles in net, so pls implement the gained knowledge on everyday basis in an appropriate way.

I disagree it is more profitable for the owner to apply that effort to the business
I ask myself this
Are we a courier company or an SEO company

If we did it ourself there would be things we would miss and we would defiantly miss out on keeping up with day to day google developments and changes that an SEO company is on the ball with. This would result in less business

 

[James Rae]

Although I do agree with @JEREMY HAWKE to some extent, I am a great believer in 'learning how to do it for myself' so then I know the value of using an 'expert' and whether I am being sold the emperors clothes. Google provides masses of information and although it may take time to assimilate, I for one would organise my time to invest in the learning process. Then, when you understand the subject and your cashflow can afford it, employ a service/person who has great credentials.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

There is many different things you must learn to be successful at business; and unfortunately those who don't put in the hours seldom make a go at it.

You don't need to be the master of them all but should for example be able to read a Profit and loss without being a accountant.

 

[SEO Lady]

I've been delivering SEO training since 2009, to web development agencies with 10 designers, to 1-2-1 UK Nationwide full day courses in an office, Skype/Telephone consultancy sessions and here at my home office in Somerset.

Off the top of my head 90 out of 100 people haven't had the time to continue SEO, or after initial training still don't understand a browser is not Google and forget what CTRL+C is. One time I had a student not understand what a double click of a mouse was.

There's a vast difference in abilities from people wanting cheap / DIY SEO and in my experience I'd recommend hiring a freelancer unless you know the basics of updating Wordpress plugins, how to access Google Analytics and link to Search Console.

My favourite students without question are web developers. So easy to teach and away they go with gusto.

I still get emails from students/clients from 2015> saying "You trained me a year ago and I've forgotten everything because I didn't have the time/inclination to learn, please can I pay you to do the work for us now?"

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Quite honestly I am not surprised by the 90%, who you are trying to explain a complex item in one day, there minds must go home very confused. Most people would follow a course spread over a longer person just like any other further education, starting with the basics and then advancing

By your own admission its failing, yet you appear not to change things, not a good example

 

[SEO Lady]

What I failed to say was that most people book 60 minute consultations, as opposed to the full 8 hour day. Incidentally the full day training comes with 30 days on call support as I agree, one day is not enough to impart new information on a newbie - unless they are a web developer.

If you re read my comments I highlight that people who have little keyboard skills and no website experience think they can learn SEO. My 60 minute taster sessions give them the lightbulb moment about how difficult and complex it is then pay me to do the work for them.

@Chris Ashdown Back in 2011 you came across as feeling that all SEO's shouldn't be trusted and most are 'Con artists and cheaters'

Is your outlook still the same in 2018?

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Well I am struggling after 20 years so I don't know what you can learn in a day and I'm no mug
Only on Thursday I had a meeting with The Yell area manager and I explained to him the dangers of dodgy backlinks in great detail !

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Well 7 years later I would suggest maybe 25-30% or thereabouts of SEO experts will be of good commercial benefit to companies, whilst the others will probably understand the basics but not the company they are working for and its market and therefor not add any real benefit to the company

Maybe you could give your views on the worth of most SEO companies

 

[Hugh Jampton]

"With the Yell manager" & "I'm no mug", possibly a contradiction in terms.

Oh dear, is that the reason for your earlier opinion of letting someone else take charge of your SEO?

Is your website the one on your profile?
Did Yell create that?
Did you consider any different content?
Or was it always intended to be the same page content, different keyword?
Your GT Metrix score is above average.
It wouldn't take much to get it "A" rated.

I learnt so much in a half day SEO course, it was the best money spent.
It's shown me exactly how to structure and implement a successful SEO campaign.
Then, from there learning more tweeks to improve the rankings further.
I have campaigns working and ranking really well.
One of them ranks for the whole of London in a competitive market and is constantly no 1 positioning for various terms.
Yes - I do have to keep the SEO alive and put the time in to keep them "topped up" to stop them slipping.

Anyone that wants to learn could take a good training course and run with it.
20 years? You can't be getting the right advice, if any.

My advice would still be to the original poster - learn and take advantage of how to be in charge of your SEO.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

"With the Yell manager" & "I'm no mug", possibly a contradiction in terms.

Oh dear, is that the reason for your earlier opinion of letting someone else take charge of your SEO?

Is your website the one on your profile?
Did Yell create that?
Did you consider any different content?
Or was it always intended to be the same page content, different keyword?
Your GT Metrix score is above average.
It wouldn't take much to get it "A" rated.

I learnt so much in a half day SEO course, it was the best money spent.
It's shown me exactly how to structure and implement a successful SEO campaign.
Then, from there learning more tweeks to improve the rankings further.
I have campaigns working and ranking really well.
One of them ranks for the whole of London in a competitive market and is constantly no 1 positioning for various terms.
Yes - I do have to keep the SEO alive and put the time in to keep them "topped up" to stop them slipping.

Anyone that wants to learn could take a good training course and run with it.
20 years? You can't be getting the right advice, if any.

My advice would still be to the original poster - learn and take advantage of how to be in charge of your SEO.

Hugh I don't want to be messing around with this stuff
our site is the highest ranked courier site overall in the South West of England
No use in having a fancy site if nobody ever finds it

 

[Bella Rose]

Personally, I suggest that a better content writer and an SEO expert can do it better for you because the ranking takes quite a time that's why if you are not properly getting your required results you will be tired of your work. So hire a good SEO expert and once you get ranking then it will remain stable for quite a lot of time.

 

[RjMaan]

Yeah, you can do SEO of your site all by your own. SEO is a bit tricky but it is not as much difficult as people think

 

[The Longley Sales Academy]

SEO, especially if you use white hat techniques (which you absolutely should), takes time to produce results. You can spend a small fortune on SEO 'experts' with zero guarantees. I decided to do it all on my own and I learned you have to invest a lot of time. Also, you need to get savvy with the back-end of your website. But it's doable and it can be quite rewarding.
I'd recommend Brian Dean's website - Backlinko to get started, and follow his checklists and tips.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

SEO, especially if you use white hat techniques (which you absolutely should), takes time to produce results. You can spend a small fortune on SEO 'experts' with zero guarantees. I decided to do it all on my own and I learned you have to invest a lot of time. Also, you need to get savvy with the back-end of your website. But it's doable and it can be quite rewarding.
I'd recommend Brian Dean's website - Backlinko to get started, and follow his checklists and tips.

It would not be wise to use SEO companies with zero guarantees You would use a company in the UK with proven results That are experts in their field

Again its a question of do I want our sales to be the best they could possibly be or the best I could achieve

 

[sarniadonkey]

Of course you can optimise your own website! Is it hard? Not if you know what you are doing. There are hundreds of on-line tutorials out there. It all depends how much time and money you have.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

If you manage to get a expert to do your seo then you would expect to pay well and probably have to wait to be taken on as fully booked up as nobody wants to leave them

Unfortunately how do you identify this expert from the rest, they don't do degree courses in SEO, so normally it comes down to self learnt and vastly different levels of knowledge and very high prices for probably a maximum of 2-4 hours work a month after the first month's whole day

Do it yourself and your results will probably never be as good as that expert (if you can identify them), but over say a year spending a few hours a week and knowing your products and intended customers you may well get close to the expert in the long run and at the same time have a far better understanding of e-commerce

 

[Jay Shields]

Regardless of whether you offer eCommerce, international, or local products and services, ensure that your site is locally optimised. This is about maximising local claim not limiting the site to location.

Next think about the value and purpose of each page of your website. If you struggle to see a purpose consider removing/redirecting those pages or building into them genuine user value..

 

[Nick Arthur]

First of all i will suggest to you. you must study on your competitor product Market Strategy apposite your website or any product then you can use digital marketing or SEO tactics on your particular products

Regards.

Make it stop

 

[Seo Doncaster]

You can make sure about couple of things at least:

- your website is on fast server (target load time for under 2 seconds),
> to check it right click in chrome, then click inspect element
> then click network tab and disable cache, after that reload and in the bottom of the status bar you will see how long it took to load

- again, free tools are great, maybe your images are to big?
> use google pageinsights to check what google thinks
> while you have your developers console open (advice above) go to Audit tab and start audit

This will show you probably the list of optimizations that are probably simplest to introduce.

- make sure your content is unique and has good amount of text (content is the king, still : P)
> you can use for that free plagiarism checkers (google it, they're free and paid ones as well)

Get friendly with Google tools:
- create gmail account if u dont have one, then add your website in Google Webmaster Tools
- add google analitycs to your site so you can see bounce rates on pages en errors
- then enable Search Console, it will give you amazing stats.

So the above are simple examples of on site-seo, just technicalities that can be sorted out pretty fast.

- have a blog or news section, updated often so your pages positions nicely

If you'll drop 4 articles/news, each 600-700 hundred words and publishing them every couple of days might be better than dropping one huge text and then not updating site for months.

For any new page (or existing) just link it up on twitter and reddit.

So basically there's a lot of things you can check or do yourself.

 

[Lee Oakley]

Good day! I’d like to optimise my business website seeing the many benefits it can give to my overall profit. One of my friends suggested hiring a company that offers local SEO services London. But my concern is, can’t I do the optimisation myself? I’ve seen some people who were able to optimise their websites successfully. However, for someone like me who doesn’t have much knowledge in optimisation, can you tell me how crucial it is to hire an expert? Please share your thoughts.

Hi Leonore,
I think its great that you want to get involved as any business owner should get involved in the elements of their business that they can provide a benefit towards and delegate some of the parts they cant offer benefit, or get some assistance.

There are always some things you can do yourself and as the owner you will likely offer more insight into great content and user experience and what your target market will find you for on Google etc than some SEO person who only focuses on the technical side.

SEO is one element of the marketing mix and if you have the time to spend a couple of months adding content, doing some social engagement (if appropriate) and link building and measure the results and see for yourself how easy or difficult it is to gain some movement up the Google rankings for your target keywords then go for it as it will help you understand where you currently stand and give you an indication on if you can achieve results yourself or if you need to ask for some assistance.

 

[Khurram Aziz]

SEO is a huge undertaking, if you get really really deep into it, and, with any skill, knowledge, there's reward in just understanding the subject. However, this may be overkill for your purposes.

If you're just starting out in business, I would, personally, learn a little of what you need to know in terms of local SEO and implement the basics yourself.

Once you're ready to grow, you can brinig on an consultant.

But remember, bringing a consultant on should not mean signing a blank cheque. There are many charlatans who will exploit your lack of knowledge and take you for a ride.

If you hire someone, make sure you know exactly what type of SEO they are doing. If they are building links for you - you need to have knowledge of where your current SERPs are so you can quantify how their link buildings efforts are affecting your rankings. You need to also be aware of the types of links they are building and what the benefits/drawbacks of these links are.

No one is going to spoon-feed this knowledge to you, but the worse thing you could do is give someone money blindly and watch them DESTROY your online rankings and not really know why.

Having said that - the "on-page" SEO should be simple and you can have that implemented in house. So will basic local SEO - such as getting listed in Google Maps and submitting your company to business directories - you can do all that yourself in a matter or minutes.

 

[Leonore Johnson]

Hi everyone! ... Thank you very much for your kind reply, I truly appreciate it. I am doing SEO by myself and really enjoy it.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Hi everyone! ... Thank you very much for your kind reply, I truly appreciate it. I am doing SEO by myself and really enjoy it.

Are your efforts getting the results or more importantly are the results better than the comeback from investment that you would get from using an SEO company .

The idea of SEO is not to enjoy it

 

[fisicx]

If you are enjoying SEO work you are probably doing it wrong.

What is enjoyable is making money after optimising. If this isn’t happening somfin’ ain’t right.

 

[Nochexman]

Hi everyone! ... Thank you very much for your kind reply, I truly appreciate it. I am doing SEO by myself and really enjoy it.

Good - you should enjoy it!

 

[HostXNow]

I think it's best to learn it yourself. After a few months, you should see some good results. If not, keep on researching.

You may hire someone to do the work for you, but still good to know how SEO works before that so you can more easily verify what they have or have not done, right.

 

[SEO Ninja]

"I think it's best to learn it yourself. After a few months, you should see some good results. If not, keep on researching."

Not the best advice if this is the main source of income. I'm afraid the mortgage and staff will not wait for have a go SEO.

 

[comperio]

It depends on the size of your business and your marketing budget.

As a beginner it is common to make errors that may lead to a drop in rankings, and this could cost you a lot in lost revenue. Are you going to do your accounting by yourself as well? Do what you do best, and let others do for you what they do best.

Whereas by using the services of seasoned SEO experts, you will have a higher success rate, assuming you use a qualified SEO service company. Such SEO service provider will have a better idea of managing expectation and plan a clear strategy. But only if you have the marketing budget for it would that make sense.

 

[HostXNow]

"I think it's best to learn it yourself. After a few months, you should see some good results. If not, keep on researching."

Not the best advice if this is the main source of income. I'm afraid the mortgage and staff will not wait for have a go SEO.

I'm talking in general. Even if there is a rush to increase income I wouldn't recommend relying on SEO for that whether by doing it yourself or using a professional for two reasons:

1) SEO results can take months to take effect properly
2) You could be using SEO person/agency who are not that good which would be even worse than trying to do it yourself with a bit of proper research!

If after quick results then best to hire someone for PPC rather than SEO, IMO.

SEO is more of a long-term thing. Nothing worse than paying several hundred or a few thousand for SEO when the results from it may not even show for a month or two, and even then it may not even help with generating sales.

Best to do PPC short-term but only by using someone very experienced with it and who will not waste your money. Can also start working on SEO at the same time and keep doing it. SEO never ends.

 

[fisicx]

SEO results can take months to take effect properly
SEO is more of a long-term thing.

Depends on what you are targeting. It's possible to rank for non-competitive but lucrative keywords in a matter of hours.

 

[lazypbx]

If you are running your own e-business it makes sense to try to SEO yourself. Once you have a basic handle on it, you can outsource (and be in a much better position to evaluate the outsourcing). There are many 'SEO experts' out there who prey on the naive, it can be an expensive mistake. Learning SEO will also help you refine how you communicate your service/product to customers and get better understanding of your sales pipeline.

 

[HostXNow]

Depends on what you are targeting. It's possible to rank for non-competitive but lucrative keywords in a matter of hours.

Yes, it's easier to rank better for the smaller things so you can increase sales by improving things like clickthrough-rate by optimising title tags and descriptions. But the big stuff can take longer due to how SERPs update. The SERPs can be a bit wobbly for a week or two or a few months (or if the site is newer) several months due to it having less trust factor.