Is DIY SEO Worth The Effort?   by Ade Lewis

in Search Engines / SE Optimization    (submitted 2011-10-31)

Google is usually the first place you will go to learn how to self-promote your website through search engine optimisation (SEO). It is a complex and involved process that requires understanding of many aspects related to the structure and content of the website as well as the current format for being ranked by the Search Engines, this is a complicated procedure for a professional in SEO let alone a beginner. It is vital to understand exactly what SEO is before you start looking around at how to DIY SEO which takes time and lots of effort. The time it takes to research is time your professional skills are taken away from your own business.

Once upon the DIY route, you may ultimately find that it is not cost-effective due to reasons such as: your time absent whilst researching SEO and promoting your website yourself. Therefore, you stand the risk of being distracted from what you are trying to promote in the first place i/e your business. In an extreme situation you could inadvertently put yourself out of business. A good way to calculate whether it is better to utilise a professional SEO company or to carry on with the DIY option, is to work out how much your hourly rate is versus theirs, and you may find that ultimately you will be better off leaving this type of work to the professionals whilst you carry on with what you are best at.

SEO is a rapidly growing and competitive industry, website promotion and Search Engine Optimisation methods and workings change constantly; external links, business competition and the impact of Google updates are a few examples. It is very important to keep up with these changes to ensure your DIY SEO is positively effective. If your DIY SEO is not executed correctly, it can have an adverse effect on your business, you must be thorough and vigilant or there is the risk of Google banning your site, deleting it or placing you low on the ranking listings which means that you might as well not be there anyway and your time and effort were in vain. Even if you could stay on top of the constantly changing scenery, you also need to be able to write your promotional text and incorporate the vital Key Words into that text whilst keeping it coherent and accessible. The writing skills required are not strictly essay writing in an academic sense, but conversational and promotional, in order to attract readers to follow the subject and understand it with ease.

A professional in SEO will constantly assess your product and monitor any changes that happen in the world of SEO, they will adjust and alter your information to fit in with what is currently happening, so that you don't have to. It is important to remember that a professional in SEO is a specialist in that area with training and years of industry knowledge, just as you are in your business, which means that is better for you to concentrate on operating your business and leave the Search Engine Optimisation to the professionals.

About the Author

SEO Bristol agency Willow Tree Design has created many successful, high ranking websites for small and medium sized businesses. We can give you help and advice on setting up your new business website and offer SEO services to help you make your new site successful. Bristol SEO.