Analytics Archives - The Rough Diamond Academy

Aesop and Search Engine Optimisation

Aesop's SEO | Search Engine Optimisation | Rough Diamond Academy

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A Hare, A Tortoise, A Moral and Search Engine Optimisation

Despite living over 2500 years ago, Aesop had a lot to say about SEO! Well, sort of. I loved Aesop's Fables growing up, and still do! At the end of every fable there was always a moral to the story. Whether you're familiar with Aesop or not, there's an extremely high probability that you are familiar with the stories. The one I currently have in mind is The Hare & the Tortoise.

Do you know it? Well, just in case, here's a quick synopsis:

This is a story about a tortoise, which is a very slow moving creature, and a hare, which is extremely fast! They are having a race. The hare is pretty cocky. Supremely confident! He knows he can outrun (or hop) the tortoise with ease, so he's not at all concerned. He sets out at a pretty fast clip and is soon far ahead of the tortoise. The tortoise knows he's not quick, but he goes about the race in a slow methodical way, step after step, never stopping.

The hare, who has no fear of losing, stops for a rest... and falls asleep. The hare, step after slow methodical step, passes his sleeping opponent and goes on to win the race! The moral of the story? Slow and steady wins the race! See, you did know it!

Now, if Aesop was alive today and giving advice to businesses on their approach to SEO, I have a feeling he would see more hares than tortoises in the mix. And I'm sure he'd be a little disappointed his wisdom of the ages was being ignored. I see it all the time! People set off at a frantic pace, writing posts and getting content together only to stop for a rest under a tree and falling asleep. And that's when the competition passes them.

I'm not sure it's confidence that causes business owners to fall asleep and give up writing. Often it's because they don't get instant results, or they get distracted, but they stop and that's the point. The trick with winning the SEO race is to keep going regardless of your pace! Because if there's one thing I've learned in all the years of doing this, most people stop, your competitors will stop, and that's when you can win the race!

So, when people ask me for the trick to ranking, or getting seen on search engines, I know they're looking for some magic silver bullet, like how to structure an article, or how long and article should be. And these things do matter, but one well structured article by a business owner who's fallen asleep against a tree is no match for the business owner who writes, one word after another, day after day, week after week. The may be slow and not quite so flashy, but... slow and steady wins the race!

Be an SEO tortoise, not and SEO hare!

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David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

For over 21 years David has been building websites for clients. In 2013 he pivoted from running a web design agency to working hands on with clients to help them build their businesses by reaching their ideal clients. Going beyond the website. The experience of working at the coal face is the foundation of The Rough Diamond Academy. Real life experience for real life businesses. It starts with building a site, but that's only the beginning!

Outsourcing Your Website Management

Managed Hosting | Pros & Cons | Rough Diamond Academy

Outsourcing Your Website Management. Is it a good idea?

Outsourcing Your Website Management. Is it a good idea, or should you handle the whole thing yourself? Well, here's my thinking on it...

Ok, in the interest of transparency, a good percentage of my business is managing websites for my clients. So, clearly, I'm probably going to lean heavily toward outsourcing this for your business. But, there's some things you should consider before you do this, and like most things, you should understand what is being managed and what it means for you and your business.

Hosting

Doesn't my hosting company handle my website? Well, depending on the level of hosting you are paying for, you will get different levels of service from your provider. This will include things like allocated space, bandwidth, backups, etc. In essence though, most hosting is similar to renting an apartment. You get the space, but no the furniture; unless of course you a leasing a serviced apartment.

Web Developer

Well ok, but doesn't my web developer handle my website management? Again, depends on the level of service arrangement you have with your developer. Some developer will have maintenance plans available, sone don't. Just because they built it doesn't mean they are looking after it. Kind of like your home builder. They build it, hand it over and the living in part is up to you!

Website Management

The thing is there's a lot more to website management than hosting and making changes to a website. It's going to be different for everyone that offers this kind of service, so I'll give you a breakdown of what I do for my clients so you can get an idea of what I mean.

But first...

Why does it matter? Well, it's you business website. It's a critical part of your business marketing, or should be, so it should be treated as a valuable and valued asset for your business. In truth though it's often treated as an afterthought!

Ok, here are some of the services I take care of for clients on a Website Management Plan. I only manage sites I've built by the way.

Hosting (obviously)
Domain Name Management and Renewal
DNS management
Daily Offsite backups
SSL Certificate Management & Renewal
WordPress updates, including core, themes and plugins
Plugin licences
Hacker protection, eg if it's hacked I fixed it!

The reason I began doing this is the reason I suggest you consider it for your business. Most business owners think they'll be ok handling all this stuff themselves but either don't have the knowledge or time to actually do it! And usually they think it'll be ok... until they're hacked, or their domain lapses or some other crisis hits. Then, suddenly it's important... super important!! And that's the thing, it is important if you are running a serious business.

So, if you're going to handle the management of your website yourself, ask yourself if you really have the time and knowledge to do it, or if you're trying to save a few bucks at the potential expense of your business?! Ask yourself whether it's worth the risk of being offline, or hacked, or losing your entire site... forever! My view? Put your time and energy into doing what you do well, and get a pro to look after the management of your website. It's like insurance for your business website.

David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

Just Push Publish!

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Analysis Paralysis

Do you find yourself hesitating before publishing your posts? It's quite common actually, but next time you find yourself in this position I want you to hear my voice in your head...

Just. Push. Publish!

I get it. At point of publishing you suddenly doubt yourself. You begin to question whether you are worthy of writing on this subject, or whether you may have made some mistakes, or whether anyone would want to read what you have to say, etc.

Just. Push. Publish!

It's true. There might be others with more experience who are, or could be, writing about this subject. Good old imposter syndrome! But, not one other person on this planet has your unique perspective, and that's a valuable thing. Your unique take. It's something to value. It's a gift and you shouldn't hold it back!

Just. Push. Publish!

It's true. You might have made mistakes. We all do that. but it's not a reason to hold your work back. If you find you've made a mistake after you've published, fixed it and move on. If it's a simple thing like a typo, just update and forget about it. If you've made a technical error that needs to be highlighted, do exactly that. Put an amendment notice on the post for anyone who might have read the original. Then move on.

Just. Push. Publish!

It's true. No one might be interested in what you've written about. Actually most people won't be interested. That's perfectly ok. You're only interested in servicing the people who are interested. Funny about that! We can't be all things to all people. If you felt it was important enough in the first place to write about at least you're interested. and that might just have to be enough. But, odds are, if you're interested others will be too. That's why I always say write for yourself first.

Just. Push. Publish!

In the end, you are letting fear and doubt get in the way if you are hesitating tp push publish. That over thinking, that over analysing is a form of analysis paralysis. The easiest way to get over it is...

Just. Push. Publish!

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David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

How Long Should a Blog Post Be?

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Q: How Long Should a Blog Post Be?

A: As long as it needs to be to get the message across clearly... and not one word more!

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David Fuller

CEO - Rough Diamond Academy

Analytics: Don’t Fixate On One Metric

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Website Analytics

When looking at analytics for your website it is important to take a multi metric view. I see so many business owners fixate on one aspect, or one metric of their site analytics. For example traffic numbers.

It's All Feedback

For several years now I have been on a fitness journey. About 4 years ago I decided to turn my life around and get back into shape. I had drifted for years and allowed myself to get lazy and overweight. Now, like most people in this position I was focused on one metric only; weight! Everything I did was around losing weight, but the scales I have come to learn, are very misleading. They are but one metric in the mix. A more balanced approach, which is the one I take today, is to use a number of metrics to gauge my progress. For example:

weight
measurements
how clothing fits
how I feel
blood pressure
sleep cycle
macro balance (nutrition)
exercise progress (weight increments, sets, etc)
resting heart rate

You get the picture. Focusing solely on weight doesn't give me the whole picture.

Six months ago I employed a new trainer. A body composition coach. Together we track a myriad of metrics to track progress. Interestingly enough my weight is exactly the same as it was 6 months ago. If that was the only focus I'd be disappointed, perhaps even demoralised. But in the same period I have dropped 6cms around my chest, 8cms around my waist, trimmed my legs, and grown my biceps and triceps and added muscle across the board. So, I can clearly see progress because I am measuring a broad range of metrics.

Business is exactly the same. If you are only tracking a metric like traffic from your website analytics you are in danger of misinterpreting the results. You may become overly enthusiastic or equally disappointed. Traffic alone won't tell you what's really happening. I like to think of traffic as people walking past my business but not necessarily coming in. It's important to know the difference. If you get excited by 1000 people visiting your site a day, but no one is engaging... there's really nothing to be excited about! There's something wrong, but if you're not digging deeper, you'll never know what it is! Conversely if 10 people a day visit your site and 5 of them engage, that's an amazing result. You're clearly doing something right, and if you could get more people to your site, you'd probably continue to get great engagement. The problem is, without knowing what you're doing right you could change something and the whole thing might fall in a heap.

So, you need to track a number of metrics and you need to understand what they mean. For example, you might want to track metrics such as:

traffic
traffic source
bounce rate
time on site
pages visited
where they exit
do they engage: fill out a form, call the contact number, etc
add product to cart
abandon cart
complete purchase

And so on and so on. Knowing a broader range of metrics gives you a more complete picture of what's really going on. It's important to measure. You can react and test and evaluate based on the information you're getting. The feedback. Informed feedback, not just hunches and guesses.

Keep digging my friends, there's diamonds in that data!