WTF SEO
AKA Worst To First SEO
I became an online business owner in 2009. That’s when I launched my first website, where my goal was to make money. (Way back in the summer of 2002, I had a blog on Angelfire. I was an angsty college kid in need of an outlet, but in hindsight, my Angelfire experience was a harbinger of things to come because I spent more time learning HTML than I did writing. But I digress.)
In the good old days, launching a new website and receiving traffic from Google was pretty easy. You didn’t have to know what you were doing. You just wrote, hit publish, and people magically found your website. That’s definitely not the case these days.
Now, if you don’t put in the extra work to make sure the search engines know your website exists, well, then your website might as well not exist because they’re not going to send any traffic your way.
I know that sounds cruel.
But it’s like the old adage of the tree falling in the forest. If nobody sees a tree fall, did it actually fall?
Simply having a website is no longer enough. To receive organic search engine traffic – meaning unpaid traffic from people specifically looking for your type of business – you must optimize your website.
If you don’t, you are literally ceding traffic to your competition.
OK, But… WTF is SEO?
I see you there, rolling your eyes, thinking, “OK, OK, I get it. It’s important. But WTF is SEO anyway?”
The easiest way I can think of to describe SEO is that it’s a puzzle.
A puzzle made up of 1,000 individual pieces that work together to create one beautiful picture.
SEO is 1,000 little things you can do to your website to give the search engines a clear picture of what your business does.
When search engines know what your business does, they can send website visitors – AKA potential customers – your way.
Lisa’s SEO “Horror” Story
This is a true story.
The way I made money with my first website was through affiliate marketing. If you’re unfamiliar, I could post about items I liked and earn a commission if people clicked those links and made purchases.
My website, Shop Girl Daily, was tailored to women with disposable income who wanted to shop for themselves. As such, I wrote a post about Bloomingdale’s Friends and Family Sale.
Since this was the Wild West of the internet and search engine optimization wasn’t really a thing, my little blog ranked higher than BLOOMINGDALE’S.
Yes. THAT Bloomingdale’s.
So, when people were searching for information about the site, many of them clicked on my website first, got redirected to Bloomingdale’s, and I earned commissions on their orders… to the tune of $10,000+.
Now there were two problems here:
1. My website shouldn’t have outranked Bloomingdale’s.
Because search engine optimization didn’t exist, my small but mighty website beat goliath. But, let’s be honest… people searching for the Bloomingdale’s Friends and Family Sale should have seen the Bloomingdale’s website at the top of the search results.
2. I didn’t understand how or why my website could outrank Bloomingdale’s, so I didn’t know how to maintain my position in the search rankings.
The answer to both problems?
Say it with me…
Search Engine Optimization.
Bloomingdale’s needed to optimize their website so it ranked first for its sale. I needed to understand how to improve my post and website so I could continue receiving traffic when people searched for “Bloomingdale’s Friends and Family Sale.”
We Know You Hate SEO
Over the past few years, we’ve met so many small business owners who look like they want to shrivel up or scream whenever the topic of search engine optimization comes up.
More than a few people have told us about the bad experiences they’ve had with “SEO gurus” (we call them scammers) who charge the big bucks to “fix” a website’s SEO issues, only for absolutely nothing to change. They promise immediate results, including lots of website traffic and more customers.
Look, I’ll be blunt: Most of those scammers are liars.
Those scammers know that small business owners don’t really know anything about SEO, so they can charge what they want and do absolutely nothing to your website. (We even met a small business owner who paid $10,000… and the SEO company they hired never even logged into the website.)
So, when we say we know you hate SEO… We know you hate SEO.
What if it didn't have to be this hard?
At Start Something Studio, we try to make the ins-and-outs of SEO understandable and replicable. We don’t ask you to pay us the big bucks to make your website perfect from an SEO-standpoint. There are two reasons for this:
- SEO is constantly changing. Google, the world’s largest search engine, doesn’t even TELL US what the magic formula is – it’s mostly a guessing game. (An educated guessing game, but a guessing game nonetheless.)
- We don’t really want to get into the SEO game.
Instead, we want to provide you with the know-how to make your website rank better on Google.
Start Something Studio's SEO Services
(I love alliteration. Can you tell?)
Workshops & Webinars
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1-on-1 SEO Review
During an SEO Review, we will sit down together (in-person or virtually) and discuss ways that your website’s SEO can be improved.
Hire Lisa to Speak
Lisa is an accomplished speaker who teaches the basics of SEO in an approachable manner. She is available to speak at Chambers of Commerce, networking events, business groups, and more.