hi, I’m mike.
An SEO specialist
based in cape town
what an SEO specialist does each day
Many clients, past and present, have asked: ‘What goes into SEO? What is involved, and why the large cost?’.
In an effort to answer these questions and paint a picture on what a typical “day in the life of an SEO specialist” looks like, I give you the below. Tonnes of resources, links, names, brands, concepts, jargon, and more. The internet is a veritable “wild west” and us SEO cowboys try to keep the peace.
I have broken it down into a few categories here, and then below you can see the list of each item
web development
Building a website, migrating one, backing it up, ensuring it is SSL enabled, uses a CDN and more. These types of things help your website to be performant in an age where Google insists that they are.
SEO services
Google admits that there are over 200 ranking factors in their algorithm. I try and focus on the most important whilst not ignoring the lesser ones. Scroll on down to see what that can include.
tools
It’s not possible to do much on a computer without the right tools, and we need many of them! I love being transparent, so read below to see what I have in my digital “toolbox”.
Advertising
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Remarketing on the GDN, and so much more. Although I specialise solely in Google Ads (coupled with SEO) it is vital I have some grasp of (and way of measuring) the above methods of advertising.
Platforms
Much like the tools in the toolbox, there are various platforms, like Google Ads or Analytics, that I use to get the work done. Maybe it is a case of choice wording or semantics but I see these more as the “battlefield”, and the tools as the “weapons”.
Marketing
SEO sits within a bigger function, and that is marketing. To do SEO correctly a “digital architect” would need to know what is happening with sales, marketing, advertising and their respective goals. Learn what areas I cover down below.
The Year I ventured into SEO & PPC
all time clients i have helped
Active Clients i'm working on
Percent of my day I spend learning, and upskilling
now for more detail.
breathe in.
and get ready for lists upon lists….
web development
- Domain purchasing from a registrar like Afrihost, or Namecheap
- Domain hosting from a host like Digital Ocean
- Website migration using SSH, SFTP, or a plugin like All in One WP Migration
- Website build on Squarespace, WordPress, or the lesser known Sanity
- Setting up xml sitemaps, and submitting them to the index
- Site backups on a Digital Ocean Droplet, ManageWP, or other means
- Setting up a CDN with Cloudflare or Fastly
- Caching tricks using Redis, or one of many plugins
- Website maintenance so things are up to speed
- Minifying CSS, HTML, and Javascript
- Crushing image sizes, optimising them, without losing quality
SEO outline
- Backlink GAP Analysis – What links do your competitors have that you don’t?
- Backlink profile – Who is linking to you and using what anchors?
- Bing Indexing – Google is one search engine, and the biggest, but ensure you are indexed by Bing, too.
- Business Citations – Get your company listed in numerous business directories.
- Content Strategy – Don’t just write mindlessly, write knowing what people are searching for. Answer their questions and be rewarded.
- Conversion Tracking – What works and what does not? Set this up to know the difference.
- Keyword GAP Analysis – What do your competitors rank for that you don’t?
- Keyword Strategy – Based on the above, and other work, I can work out what you should try and rank for.
- Keyword Tracking – Importantly, we then need to see if we can move the rankings up for the chosen terms.
- Press Release – In some cases it helps to use this to syndicate awesome content.
- Map Pack Ranking – Generally speaking, a local business will want to rank in Google’s Map results, in what is called “Position Zero”.
- Reporting – Every month I compile a report of key data we are tracking.
- Rich Snippets – Ever seen a search result with more than just a link to a website? Perhaps an answer to a question (like “when is the best time to visit London”) can have you appear at the top!
- Structured Data/Schema – In light of that, you want your whole website coded up in JSON-LD format (where applicable) so that you can appear in these.
Tools
- Answer The Public
- Cloudflare
- Cyberduck
- Divi Builder
- Google Ads Editor
- G-Suite
- Google Docs
- Google Drive
- Google Sheets
- GTMetrix
- Hotjar
- Iubenda
- Lighthouse (for Chrome)
- Loom (Video)
- Mailchimp
- ManageWP
- Moz
- Opteo
- Pingdom Tools
- Screaming Frog
- SEMRush
- Server Pilot
- Sitebulb
- Siteliner
- Slack
- Structured Data Tool
- Terminal (Mac OS)
- Trello
- Google’s web.dev
advertising
- Google Display Network (GDN)
- Google Ads (PPC)
- Google Remarketing
- UTM Tagging
- YouTube
- Reporting on all the above above
platforms
- Atom
- Clockify
- Digital Ocean
- Google Ads
- Google Analytics
- Google Data Studio
- Google My Business
- Google Search Console
- Google Tag Manager
- Mailchimp
- Sanity
- Woocommerce
- WordPress
marketing
- Blog Posts
- Brand Identity
- Google My Business
- Logo Design
- Newsletters
- Social Media
- Source Icons
- Source Stock Images
- Website Design
- Writing Articles
Ensure that your website has “all the boxes ticked” so that Google prefers your website to the competition. I can help.
some of the articles, posts, and
resources from my blog
Rank higher in the Map Pack | The importance of Local Results
Ranking higher in the Map Pack has become a priority in the past year. What does the ‘Map Pack’ mean? It means that nowadays, before you see organic search results, you often see a map with three companies, typically...
Basic Social Media Strategy
A lot of clients ask about Social Media. The usual things I hear are either in the vein of: Do we really need Social Media? As in, it feels likes a shotgun approach and how do we measure what is working? Or We really...
Content Genius
Do you know why I love TaxTim? Because if I didn’t know what amount to pay myself each month in terms of UIF, PAYE, and all of that, they have a free calculator that does it for me! Well, that is the good reason (JP...
Website navigation | How you get around impacts if you will stick around
If you’re reading this, you’ve navigated a website before. If you’re normal, you’ve likely navigated hundreds, thousands, or ten of thousands of websites before. Much like you’ve potentially navigated a car...
Citations, Academia, and SEO
If you know some of the history of Google, you will know that it developed off the back of a PhD project at Stanford. When you write a PhD paper (typically you write four papers, but I am sure this varies a lot) or a...
POPIA | It’s coming to south africa soon, so be ready
Last year, in July 2020 South Africa announced that the POPIA law is finally coming into effect. It had been talked about for years and we always knew that we could delay because our government is quite slow on some...