SEO - To do it, or not to do it!! urgent!

Booner! · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:14

My boss has asked me whether I would like the opportunity to take up a position doing Search engine optimisation which would bring in small revenue to our large company.

I already have a nice job dealing with small time problems and i am not a coder/developer so really unsure.

Anyone have any experience with this? Should I go for it or not? it would be for 3 months...

Is it difficult and would it be boring?

Mat · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:20

For the sake of 3 months, you might as well give it a go. What have you got to lose and it will look better on your CV and make you look better in the eyes of your manager...

wizard91 · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:21

Go for it,

Booner! · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:22

I cant code..

zain · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:22

Depends how you do it, it could be boring and you do need some knowledge on it otherwise you could get stuck.

I would do it, he said small revenue so must be small jobs? If it is, it is worth it as you get experience from it!

Adam · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:23

Booner! said:
I cant code..

You can't do the job then. Depends if you get training or not?

Taking a job you know you can't do is asking for trouble. Different story if they will pay for you to learn though.

Beansprout · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:23

I don't know!!! lol my boss asked me if i wanted to be a doctor but im not a medic lol?!

But seriously - SEO isn't rocket science and Google is your friend, so go for it if you want to try something else

iCraig · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:24

Booner! said:
I cant code..

Not really programming orientated.

It's more content optimisation, standards compliance, trend observance, result and figure analysis.

You'll need HTML and CSS knowledge though for the standards and optimisation bit, but it isn't difficult.

Dave M · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:25

Why do you need to code?

If he's making big changes he might need to code but generally in large design agencies the people who are really good at search optimisation don't code - their time is too precious - the coding can be done by any monkey once they're told what to do.

Mat · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:25

Booner! said:
I cant code..

Tell your boss that and if he changes his mind so be it, otherwise there's nothing like a good reason to learn something to help you learn something (as opposed to learning something for the sake of it... if you catch my drift) ie: you'll be fine. Do it.

wizard91 · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:27

Cant you just get Google Stats and Google adds on the site, its quite scalable and business orientated. I know that Blizzard use Google Stats for wow-europe.

zain · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:30

wizard91 said:
Cant you just get Google Stats and Google adds on the site, its quite scalable and business orientated. I know that Blizzard use Google Stats for wow-europe.

that doesn't seo a site though.

Booner! · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:34

See i am confused , i have never done this before!

My job role is R&D based at the moment and so they would help me to do it, but the silly thing is that the Dev guy used to do it full time .. so he might end up doing it, it would make sense!

iCraig · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:39

Booner! said:
See i am confused , i have never done this before!

You'll need to do it properly, and document what you do. Generate reports, and compile results.

SEO can be a slow process and it can take months for results to happen. You need to have evidence of your work for if — and perhaps when — your boss starts asking why peoples' ranks don't seem to have moved.

Booner! · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:46

I don't think it's for me... dunno how to break it to him

helmet · 5 Apr 2007 at 15:59

Booner! said:
I don't think it's for me... dunno how to break it to him

Over dinner

.

Ask him for more time, give yourself the weekend...

Al Vallario · 5 Apr 2007 at 16:08

I've been out of the loop for a while now, but last time I checked, Search Engine Optimisation was a bit of a joke. Short of completely rehauling a website to be as standards compliant, content-rich and semantic as possible, you are not going to see much difference in search engine rankings nowadays. The days when SEO consisted of throwing a few meta keywords on each page and cramming the odd page full of keywords — strategically *cough* placed right at the bottom, in a small font, in the same colour as the background — are long gone.

SEO is such a slow and unpredictable process, it just doesn't strike me as a full-time role for a single person. SEO should be an integral part of the website design process, not a separate entity handled by an outsider. Ideally speaking, SEO should not be factored in at all — if a website is well made in the first place, the search engine rankings should come with that.

shifty_uk · 5 Apr 2007 at 16:31

Al Vallario said:
I've been out of the loop for a while now, but last time I checked, Search Engine Optimisation was a bit of a joke.

Maybe, but there's still a lot of companies specialising in SEO and making a lot of money from it

nikebee · 5 Apr 2007 at 16:31

Booner! said:
I cant code..

i work as an SEO and programmer in a welsh web design company.

SEO really has no coding in it at all.
it's more to do with content optimisation, link building.

if the websites dynamic, then knowledge of ASP, PHP or whatever the site is programmed in can help as you can do dynamic links, alts, titles etc..

Most of it will take a lot of time to do, watching stats and trends.
There are lots of decent tools out there that can help, WebCEO, Advanced Web Ranking... Google Analytics is the best free stats package out there.

Booner! · 5 Apr 2007 at 17:24

To be honest this is more or less adding to my existing role...which is jam packed.

he is asking for 3-4 months for me to join the marketing team.

To be honest I am quite happy with my new position organising the whole UK Gamestation's Print!

thing is, this is totally out of my field and more of a learning curve towards I.T, I am trying to steer the other way..

:confused:

mega confused, as if i do the extra SEO and make some revenue, I get access to a 10% commission pot from our main website!

nikebee said:
i work as an SEO and programmer in a welsh web design company.

How and where did you learn about this? Uni?