This document discusses search engine optimization (SEO) facts and fiction. It begins with the author's background and experience in web design. It then discusses the differences between natural SEO, which involves optimizing a website organically, and paid SEO like pay-per-click advertising. Natural SEO is presented as a better initial approach and long-term investment, while paid SEO works best for short-term advertising boosts. The document provides tips for things users can do themselves for natural SEO and things that typically require professional help. It warns against "SEO scams" and advises checking what services are actually being provided if paying monthly for SEO.

1. Introduction
 Started on the web : Age 15 in 1998 (The year Google launched)
 College : to BTEC National Diploma
 Staffordshire University : BSc (hons) Computing science 2004 (The year Facebook was founded)
 Phones4u : Web Designer & SEO 2005 (The year YouTube was founded)
 Staffordshire University : Web Designer & Developer + lecture
 VIBE Audio : Web Design & Digital Marketing
 inLIFE Design : Managing Director 2010
Designed / Developed for:

2. Search Engine Optimisation Facts & Fiction
 What is SEO
 Keywords
 Natural SEO vs Pay per click SEO
 What is Natural SEO
 How it works
 What you can do yourself (no cost)
 What most need a web guru for
 What is Pay Per Click SEO
 How it works
 Setting it up
 Useful Links

3. What we know
 Search Engines are now the most popular platform used for finding business
 SEO is an investment and proven to help to increase profit & company profile
 SEO is a grey area most don’t understand fully
 A lot of people are paying for useless or non existent SEO Services
Wild West Medicine Salesmen
 Google scams
 Monthly SEO company scams
 Google blacklisting
Promise results and move on, never to be seen again.

4. Keywords
 What potential customers enter into Google to find you
 Words relevant to your key area of business
 Relevant to location, services, products
These are often less obvious than you imagine and can often be obscure
 You can find out what keywords send most traffic to your website
 You can also find out popular keywords related to your sector in general
Both free services from Google - See useful links at the end.

6. Natural SEO
Vs
Pay Per Click SEO
(PPC)

10. What is Natural SEO
 More of an investment as its longer lasting
 Web Savvy people tend to click Natural links over paid links
 The foundations on which to build further SEO
 This should be the first step, before PPC
 Once in place PPC may not be needed
Some of this can be
done yourself or by
employees for free

11. What is Natural SEO – Fiction
FICTION
In the old days you would just need to add a
‘keywords’ tag into the code and list your
keyword. Google has advanced since then
however some SEO companies still charge
for only doing this service.

12. What is Natural SEO – How it works
Google have advanced and now use a number of algorithms to decide how they rank
your site, these include :
 How long your site has been running
 How often your site is updated
 How many relevant keywords are used throughout your site
 How the keywords are tagged (hidden in the code) as headers, links, paragraphs etc
 How many relevant incoming links to your website
 How many relevant outgoing links from your website
 Location : Search results near your location
 Social networking links (now less important)
 How well coding is written, adhering to current web standards
 Numerous other technical factors. E.g XML sitemaps
If you are currently paying for monthly SEO make sure
all these factors are included – ASK FOR A LIST

13. What is Natural SEO – What you can do yourself FREE
 How often your site is updated
 How many relevant keywords are used throughout your site
 How many relevant incoming links to your website
 How many relevant outgoing links from your website
 Location : Search results near your location
 Social networking links (now less important)
A pro active approach to Natural SEO is Key

14. What is Natural SEO – What most people can’t do
 How the keywords are tagged (hidden in the code) as headers, links, paragraphs etc
 How well coding is written, adhering to current web standards
 Numerous other technical factors. E.g XML sitemaps
These are the foundations and provide the key
everything else is based on. Without these
everything else will not have full effect
Good websites have a lot of this built in as
standard, as Google bots (the code google
sends out to rank search engines) read through
code.. not a front end like we do..

17. What is Pay Per Click SEO
WAIT : Do you need it at all?...

20. What is Pay Per Click SEO
 You get instant top page ranking
 Great for short advertising booster campaigns
 You can also get banners / links on content related websites
How it works
 You Pay a set amount per click per keyword
 The price per click is dependant on the popularity of the keyword & competitors
 You set a capped limit you want to spend per day, week, month
 Each click ads up to your own set capped limit
 When the capped limit is hit you no longer appear top
i.e 20p per click , with a capped limit of £5 per day will get you 25
clicks until your top spot disappears

21. What is Pay Per Click SEO – Getting started
 This can be set up yourself for free (besides your PPC spend to Google)
 A lot of people set this up wrong and then falsely believe it doesn’t work
 In order to work this requires research, manual keyword setting, Title checking and
cost setting per keyword
 It is worth getting a Digital marketing agency can run these campaigns for you
 Be careful they are not taking a cut of your spend to Google – a set fee for the
campaign setup is usually best

22. Overview
 Search Engines are now the most popular platform used for finding business and
services – SEO can increase profit & company profile
 Beware of Medicine Salesmen : If you are currently paying for SEO ask for a list of
what you are paying for, make sure you are not just paying them to do PPC.
 Natural SEO is the start – you can do some yourself and pay for other monthly
services or pay someone to do everything for you monthly
 Website Coding – Is the foundation your SEO is built on, if this is good the rest will
follow
 You may not need Pay Per Click advertising, check competition
 If going with Pay Per Click make sure you are doing it right

23. Links available at
www.inlifedesign.co.uk/useful
- Check popular related keywords
- Check your own keywords
- Set up PPC advertising
Twitter : @DLWhitehouse