SEO Carbo-Loading
SEO is a whining, needy and bloody annoying child. To get – and keep – good Google rankings requires your near constant attention. I thought it was time for some chocolate-laden reward.
With a nod to the success of any good 12-step programme, read on for my official SEO Carbo-Loading programme. I welcome new recruits.
1. Choose a cake
Find a recipe that will really work. Need fudge? What about height? Is frosting real estate important to you? Where butter and sugar collide, why look elsewhere than nigella.com?
2. Make a cake
From scratch. It’s not hard. Betty Crocker’s gross and we’re all about learning new things here. Make a cake. Cool the cake. Circle it, examining its chocolatey perfection.
3. Get with the programme
Here’s the weird part you didn’t see coming: freeze it. We’re training now and you’ve got to earn that sucker. Why a cake you’ve made from scratch locked in the freezer?
- It’s immune to any cheating snack binges (girls?) because it’s frozen.
- You didn’t make it and then lose the chance to ever have it.
4. Sucky boring-ness
Compile a list of all your website’s current keywords. (Ya, ya it’s boring. Do it. Cake!)
Where do they currently rank? You can take a lazy estimate or an anal, scientific approach. We’re just lighting fires here.
5. Game on
Check in with Google Analytics for your keyword search results. Could they be better? Probably? Want some cake?
Scrutinise your results. Have a dig through Google and look at what’s in the way of your site now and where you want it to be. Narrow your eyes to slits. The enemy is at hand. In road race terms, what training have you neglected? What’s the hard, boring stuff, the lap repeats in the freezing rain, that you’ve been avoiding? Do you need new equipment? To cross train a bit?
Whatever it is, stare it down and ruin it.
6. Target practice
On a Post-it note, write down your targets.
- General traffic level?
- Bigger and better online presence?
- Fattened content section that does the work for you?
- Healthier rate of internet inquiry?
The note goes on top of the cake. Put it in the freezer and say goodbye.
7. Call in this guy
Pull out every SEO stop you can. Make sacrifices: give up some YouTube or Facebook time. Get up ten minutes earlier. All that crazy hardcore stuff that Olympian athletes brag about doing. It sucks, but do you have any idea how much cake Michael Phelps would eat?
8. Breakfast of champions
These 3 sites are a good start to a healthy regime:
SEO for people who love cake
9. No excuses
Do it. All of it! Like a maniac! Every day, uphill, through 5 miles of snow in the pouring rain (or whatever your parents used to say).
10. Are you winning?
Check on your results. Your eyes will either narrow in hatred to the damned man who has not yet relinquished your spot (OR) glaze over in greed: things are about to get chocolatey.
11. Victory?
12. You betcha
SEO techniques are tedious and gnaw-your-arm-off boring. It has to be a ridiculous game or you’ll go crazy.
Welcome to the club. Send photos.
