Every company, society, club or even individual now wants to have a web presence. Setting up a basic site can be quick, easy and cheap (if you want a static site). All this is fine until you want to be found on the web. This is where Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) comes into the frame.
There are some basics of SEO that can be achived as a DIY job and there are various tools on the web that can help to achieve this. This initial SEO can be cheap costing the webmaster only his time and effort and the initial rewards can be quite good.
…but herein lies the problem… If everyone is trying to improve their ranking and if this is cheap and easy then most site owners will put in the time and the effort to do the initial optimisation. Basic SEO then becomes the norm and you have to at least meet the these basics before you can improve your ranking.
So, if you want to improve further, you have to use more advanced tools and techniques to climb the search engine ranking ladder but other people will also be competing for these rankings and will be doing the same thing and as soon as they see their ranking dropping, they will do something to further optimise their site. I think you can see where I am going…
Search Engine Optimisation is a competition, you have to understand your competitors, you have the best tools available to you at the time, you have to spend the time to improve, you need to monitor your performance and most important you have to see this as a competition and you have to have the will to win!
This is what the group “More than SEO” on LinkedIn is all about. The group doesn’t preclude basic SEO, but it builds on the basics to advise those that WANT TO SURVIVE ON THE WEB.