Tips to save your SEO life!
I am writing this Blog in the hope that everyone who reads it will take on board at least one of the SEO tips. Not only can these SEO tips save you time but they can also make sure you get into the habit of doing things in such a way that you’re always safe from losing work, money and clients.
Tip #1 - Clean up your Desktop and Tabbed Windows
Personally I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to keeping things in order and filed correctly; I don’t think it’s a bad thing - it just works well! Firstly, keep your desktop tidy. I don’t think theres anything worse than having a desktop full of icons that you never use. Make sure when you install new software that you only add a shortcut to your desktop if you’re regularly going to use it. The same goes for randomly saved files; if you’re working on a web document for example create a folder for it and save it there, NOT on the desktop where you may forget where it is. My desktop contains 8 shortcuts; one of which is the ‘My Computer’ icon. The rest I use on a daily basis so they deserve their place on my desktop.
The next point is when exploring the internet via tabs; I can’t think of anything worse than having 40+ tabs. It confuses me and I’d rather have the tabs that I need instead of everything I have looked at and no longer want. For example; when I’m validating a document I need the page I’m validating, the previous validation window and the current validation window. There is no need to keep a back log of 10+ validation windows open - they are out of date and confuse me.
Tip #2 - Save your Work
I can not stress this enough. Whilst writing content and other such things you may well forget about it until you navigate away from the page you are inserting it into. You go back and 2 hours work has gone; for nothing.
Get into the habit of saving your work every time you have completed a couple of paragraphs or at least every 10 minutes. This ensures that a lot of your work will be kept safe if anything was to happen in that 10 minutes gone by. This is not only true for content writing but anything. For example, optimising a website involves a wide range of techniques that can be put into stages. Once you have completed a ’stage’ save your work; there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. You should see a project as stepping stones; once you have reached the next one you save your work and work towards the next. 2 seconds every 10 minutes to save work is better than spending another 2 hours repeating previously completed work.
Tip #3 - Create Backups
Another tip that goes well with saving work - create backups of all work! Backups are your lifeline; if something major goes wrong then you always have the backup to go back to. This is especially true with working on websites. As part of the SEO of any website I make sure I have at least two backups due to the fact that I will be editing files.
Before starting any work I will make a full backup of the website and place that in a folder that WILL NOT be touched. I then create a folder that i CAN touch with the exact same files placed inside of it. This ensures that if I edit anything I will always have an original to put back in its place if anything doesn’t work. Backups are also great in case of computer system failure, flooding, fires and any other misfortunes that could potentially arise.
Tip #4 - Use Testing Servers; NOT Live Sites
This may sound obvious but there are plenty of people who will think, ‘I’ll just make this one small change and upload it’. No, don’t. This is one of the reasons websites go down; due to a small little change that has been put live and a programmer has gone on his/her lunch they don’t realise until the client rings up complaining.
Save yourself the hassle and embarrassment, not forgetting to mention the money and use a testing server. You can take copies of websites (Tip #3) and chop and change it to how you see fit on your very own live environment without worrying about changing something that won’t work. Once you are happy with what you have done then you can upload it and make it live.
Tip #5 - Organise your Email
Again, this may sound like a simple thing to do but a lot of people won’t do it. I have a separate folder for every client I have; sent and received. This means I can track back ANY email I have sent/received. This is necessary due to the fact that in todays world there so many emails that I would have an inbox with thousands of emails. A client asks you to track back what they sent to you a month back; good luck - it may take you an hour, it may take you 2 days. This is time that could be well spent doing things you need to do to improve websites and not looking for an email a month old that got lost with the rest of them. Having an organised email account also means you can revert back to anything that has been said with ease; especially useful when speaking about past implemented work.
Tip #6 - Use a Bookmark Website
Bookmark sites are very useful due to the fact that you do not have to be signed in on your computer to access them. As an SEO programmer I have many bookmarks that have websites with bits of code on to Blog websites. All very useful and all viewable by the click of a button. So now you go to help one of your colleagues and you need one of your bookmarks. You can’t access them because they are on your computer! Whereas if you had an external bookmark website holding them you could sign in and get what you wanted within 30 seconds. I use del.icio.us Bookmarks - this website also allows me to add a button next to my address bar which I can click and it will simply add it to my account. This is also great in case you need to format your computer for whatever reason - you would lose all your bookmarks; but not anymore.
Well there’s 6 SEO tips for you there; I hope when reading this you take on board as many as you can. They will make your life easier and potentially save you from losing clients due to silly mistakes.
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