What is Search Engine Optimization Really About?
I have noticed that at more and more non technical people are getting into Search Engine Optimization and Marketing. While it is great to see the growth of industry and that is it being incorporated into mainstream marketing by professionals I questioned how successful SEO’s can be without some level of technical grounding.
While it is extremely possible to be very successful at SEO by using content management systems, plugins and out sourcing technical aspects of web design, web development and site administration it is important to understand the technical side if you want to maximize your success.
A few months ago I decided I wanted to install my own servers and host some of my web sites from my own servers in Australia to make the most of having a local Internet Protocol (IP) and owning my data storage for my company information. I was initially planning on installing Red Hat Linux as thats what most people in Australia I know seem to use however I ended up having Ubuntu installed instead after reading some good reviews.
While I have a pretty decent grasp of technical concepts when it came to actually installing the web, dns and email servers I had to do some reading and seek advice from some of my more experienced technically inclined friends. I am pretty much finished however I still have to install an Oracle 10 or 11 g database and Java platforms so that I can run the Enterprise Resource Planning I have selected to make managing my ventures and projects easier, not to mention my accounting. For now I have chose to use Compiere a french open source Enterprise Resource Planning suite with combines accounting software, customer relations management and project management.
Why did I select Compiere?
Well first of it is Open Source which means I avoid the $30 000 entry level cost for having to purchase a system like SAP. The other advantage of Compiere was that they have a solution tailored for Professional Service businesses which fitted my criteria perfectly. The ability to handle my business finances, sales, services, ecommerce and project management all in the one place seemed very attractive to me. Especially when the price equals free plus a bit of my time and a great learning experience. There are some other great open source and customer relationship management (CRM) suites available, in particular CRM software however I think Compiere is the most complete solution for my business right now.
I also went and had a look at some of the Content Management Systems (CMS) available on the market and chose Joomla as my default CMS. The reason I liked Joomla over some of the other content management systems was it had a look of the hack-ability that Wordpress offers and was flexible in design parameters. It has an extensive range of great plugins available including some great SEO hacks and multi site features which are perfect for my business and my time and project management.
I will probably use different Content Management Systems for different types of sites I work on and I am considering using
So What does this have to do with SEO?
Well at the end of the day Search Engine Optimization is marketing and generating leads and sales using the internet. A lot of SEO’s do not used search engines to generate the bulk of their traffic. SEO is really increasing a businesses credibility and trust while also marketing and branding it in the search engines. Google relies on relevance as it’s core competence and key competitive advantage over companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo. This is why the credibility and trust of your web site play an essential part in obtaining high search engine ranks.
Since most web pages issues are to do with site structure mostly due to design flaws or lack of a proper internal linking structure it is important to understand the technical skills and issues you need to handle. From restructuring the htaccess file (or similar on a windows server), to understanding the flow of information through your site. It is also important to understand server, database and network information from IP/TCP protocol layers through to the structure of the businesses databases and your ability to provide optimized commercial data to specific landing pages on your site.
While CEBIT in Sydney last week proved that SEO is growing in Australia which is fantastic for our industry I’m not sure it’s quite time to swap out the technical wizard SEO for the blog savvy, social media expert, marketing executive SEO manager.
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Comments
CEBIT was great Lachlan, plenty of people there and it was good to meet many fellows in the industry and notice what they are doing and learn from some of their experience.
The reason I chose an ERP solution was because I run multiple websites and domains and I’m involved in offline business so it allows me to keep track of both in the one place. The biggest advantage is it makes accounting and project management streamlined which is a big advantage for me.
Hi Peter,
Interesting article, what made you decide that you needed an ERP solution for your business?