Can I really do my own SEO?

Arghh… this is getting confusing! Can I really do my own SEO?

White Hats, Black Hats, Penguins, Pandas, Web Spam... it can all sound a bit daunting, right?

One of the things I'm most often asked by clients and colleagues is "How do you stay on top of all of this?" and the truth is that it takes a lot of time reading, experimenting, testing, and then reading some more to sort the wheat from the chaff. SEO best practice changes frequently and there is always something new to learn. What was true today may not be true tomorrow but, in this day and age, you can say that about a lot of things and even in SEO there are certain "evergreen" truths that seem unshakeable.

1. Don't spam.
2. Don't cheat.
3. Build a good website.

In short, you don't have to be a chef to make a good meal; you don't have to be a plumber to stop your sink leaking...and you don't have to be an SEO consultant to take control of your website and improve things.

DIY SEO is about understanding the fundamental, evergreen aspects of SEO that will pay dividends when applied properly. If, after that, you still want to hire an SEO consultant that's great - every penny you spend with them should be going into something worthwhile, not into fixing basic things that should never have been wrong in the first place.

Look, I’m really busy. I don’t want to do my own SEO!

“Can’t someone else do it?”
- Homer Simpson

There’s nothing wrong with using an SEO agency, hiring an SEO specialist, and having someone else do all the legwork. SEO is hard, it takes graft, and you may not think you have the time. That’s fine.

But I don’t think you want to risk giving someone else, inside or outside your business, control of something so fundamental without having an understanding of it.

If you’ve ever sat in a meeting and not understood a word of what that person responsible for your website is saying, if you’ve ever thought “that doesn’t sound right” but not known what questions to ask, if you’ve ever stared at a graph or a report and realised that you didn’t know if it meant things were getting better or worse, if you’ve ever had that nagging dread that you’re handing money over to someone and not getting a return on it… this is the book for you.

Francis Bacon was right when he said “knowledge is power”: you don’t have to be doing the day-to-day SEO work to understand how it works, what doesn’t work, what should be happening and how to measure it.

No matter what business I might be in, I’d be damned if I didn’t make sure I understood that part of my business. I’d be damned if I didn’t understand every part. A long time ago, I worked in retail and before you could run a store you had to work in every department. You had to know how every part of the business worked. Looking back, that was a very sensible thing for them to do.

Make no mistake - you need to KNOW this, even if you don’t DO this.

That's the preamble over. Still ready? OK, now let's go!