I get a lot of compliments about my website. In fact most of my clients say they really like it. It’s informative, easy to navigate and not too salesy! On the other hand, I suppose those people that hate it with a passion wouldn’t bother calling me to hurl insults down the phone, so the feedback maybe somewhat skewed.
As a Life Coach I regularly deal with people that have their own business and thus their own websites. Some are good, some are awful and some are in-between. However, what most of them suffer from is poor optimization. What I mean by that is that even those that have great sites frequently struggle to get them found by that behemoth of search engines, Google.
If the work I am doing with a client is based round their own business I will usually check their Google page ranking to see if they are missing out on opportunities to get more traffic, which more often than not is the case. I usually then get sucked into a lengthy conversation about search engine optimization.
This is all well and good because I like talking about SEO work as it interests me. It’s a little bit like why 3 years after leaving sales I still read sales books! Some call me very sad I prefer to think I am deep. Ok maybe a bit sad, but I have cancelled my subscription to ‘Railroads Illustrated’ so I’m getting better. Sorry railroad fans the world over that was cruel but then again so is life.
Anyway, having said all that I am a Life Coach and not an SEO guy. I am a fairly well-informed Life Coach when it comes to SEO work but I am nowhere near being an expert. I know what I need to know to understand that my guy is doing a good job and that’s about as far as I want to take it. Otherwise I’d have no time to concentrate on what I do well, which amazingly enough, is coach people.
When people start up their own businesses they spend way too much time doing work that they are not good at. Taking hours to do some book-keeping that a pro could do in ¼ the time, trying to do marketing based around what they like, designing a website that looks like somebody threw up on their monitor and attempting to be a sales person without any training or understanding of the sales process. How insane is that?
I understand that money issues can mean that businesses usually don’t have the capital to spend big bucks on outsourcing everything, but I also know that it can be false economy to try and keep everything in-house. More often than not you end up doing the lot badly and actually spending more money in terms of wasted time.
Do what YOU are good at and wherever possible use others to do what THEY are good at. If you want more information on SEO work read some of the blogs out there. However, don’t read them and then think you’re an expert, because you wont be!
That would be like me reading Grays Anatomy and then attempting to remove my own appendix using a butter knife a coat hanger and some duct tape. I may get the little sucker out but I’m going to have to bring in the experts at some stage and there will have been a lot of wasted time, pain and frustration in the meantime.
Tim Brownson is a Certified Life Coach and has been unsticking people and helping them reach their true potential since 2005. If you would like to know how he can help you