Meta, SEO and Brand Awareness Part 2

After writing my last post, I received an email, which in part, asked me ‘why’ I don’t provide a ‘one-stop-shop’ with regards to building WordPress websites and doing all the SEO on them.

I’ve made it quite clear that I no longer develop websites. In saying that, I leave myself open. On the one hand, I ‘do’ build websites.

What I do, is present clients with a number of WordPress ‘themes’ to choose from – there are literally thousands to choose from. The client purchases the theme, and provides me with information they want on their website. I may make suggestions, adding further information, or I may go the other way and say that certain information should not be included.

It’s a process. I won’t go into detail here.

Some clients, if not ‘most’, just want a presence online. They want the ability to add a domain name to their business cards, letterheads etc.

Which is fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. If your website has relevant content to your business, and includes basic meta tags – your website will still rank.

The video at the top of this post is from Google. It’s straight forward and explains everything you need to know about SEO.

The most important thing you need to know / understand, is that SEO is a specialized role. That is, there are professionals out there who spend all their time crafting their SEO skills.

On the other hand, my skills are about building websites that look good, and contain relevant content. My side project (I’ll finish it one day) – ListedForSale.com.au  ranks #1 for ‘property listed for sale’, without any SEO work done.

When I’m ready, I’ll more than likely use the services of Jim Stewart, from StewArtMedia. Jim, and his team specialize in SEO.

The moral of this post? Well, I’m here to say that I have not studied SEO, nor am I interested in ‘boosting’ anyone’s website. I’m not an SEO, I’m a WordPress Professional.

People need to understand that there are differences in the kind of work that web-based professionals do.

I have never, nor will I ever, promote myself as something I’m not.

There is an abundance of work for WordPress freelancers like myself, who can pick and choose the work we do. We do it, because we can.

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Meta, SEO and Brand Awareness

So, you’ve hired someone to ‘boost’ your website, to hopefully make your website rank higher in search engines and allow people ‘searching’ to find you.

Well, it’s not as simple as that. How many websites will rank from 1 to 10 on the Google web results page? Well, 10.

How many businesses like yours, are operating? Inserting Meta Tags, working on your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is only part of the equation. I’ve dealt with clients who complained because they weren’t getting enough ‘hits’ online from their website.

Your website is, again, only part of the equation.

If you have a weak Brand, or your website isn’t maintained / kept updated with the latest trends, contact information etc, what would be the point of having that presence in the first instance?

For example, if you operate a restaurant, you would ‘want’ to be constantly updating your menu, social media and perhaps provide a functional booking system that allows people to make bookings online. There’s nothing worse than driving for an hour (or more) to a destination, only to find out that you are either closed, or booked out. How many times have you called a restaurant and the phone was engaged – or not even connected? Give people a choice.

There are cases where your online presence could either make or break your business, especially if you neglect your website and don’t update contact details, for example.

At the end of the day, you need to balance your website ranking, with your Brand. If people know your business, and visit your website organically, the search engines will naturally boost your page, because they can see you have a good Brand, and a good reputation with clients – based on the fact that they already know you.

When you start a business, and want to build your Brand, make sure that you can get all the Social Media Usernames that are the same. These usernames don’t necessarily need to be the same as your business name, but try and incorporate the usernames (call it a ‘pet-name’ for your business) into your business. That way, you are building your Brand Awareness.

Done right, your website can boost your business. Just don’t rely on search rankings to boost your business.

Now, go and build your Brand Awareness!! And don’t forget those social media usernames!

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WordPress 5.0

In the age of DIY tools, the internet still manages to confuse a lot of people.

Anybody can download a copy of WordPress and build there own website. It really isn’t that hard, but then again, is it?

Unless you know what you are doing, you are going to be constantly on your phone (or sending emails) to your host, telling them that there is a problem and that there must be something wrong with THEIR hosting. If there’s one thing people never do, it’s accept that they messed up. Having the tools to do something is one thing, but if you cannot manage the tools, you’ll run into problems.

Problems CAN be solved, but what if problems were never ‘created’ in the first place? I get it, I do. People want to save money. They register a domain name, find an extremely cheap hosting company, sharing their website on the same server as hundreds of other people – sharing resources, and they are attempting to build their own website because their friends or someone else online has told them it’s just ‘too easy’ to build your own.

I’m not going to sit here and tell people who they should host their websites with, or tell people they shouldn’t build their own websites – because, people can. But, can you?

The WordPress Platform does use a lot of resources. Theme Developers, although very talented, need to develop themes that are not only functional, but also can be used by an end-user without waiting minutes for pages to load.

There’s a balance that we need to make, and even though I’ve been doing this for a day or 2 (I joke), I still need to explain to people that with WordPress, you can’t always have your cake AND eat it.

As the video on this page, by Stefan Mischook explains, the new WordPress update (5.0), is attempting to challenge the new breed of online website development (tools) such as WIX and SQUARESPACE.

Also, as Stefan states in the video, the update will not do away with the ‘need’ of a WordPress Professional, because (as an example), people will still need help from those of us that understand coding.

Another issue is Plugins. There will always be plugins that are not compatible with your theme and other plugins. WordPress Professionals can ‘make’ them compatible, via customization.

At the end of the day, if you feel confident in building your own website – give it a go. Be sure to download and use a ‘maintenance’ plugin, so nobody can see what you are doing on the backend, and if you need help, Contact me or search Google for a WordPress Professional closer to you.

If you’re interested, watch the video. Stefan answers some common questions people have asked him.

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