This is the History page for SEO-Essex.net

The idea for this page is to document the progress of the website in search but also looking at the activity which is driving the site forward.

You see I am convinced that the SEO industry mis-sells services through loads of jargon and talks about it in a way that confuses business owners. This project should show that SEO is simple, you need somebody that really knows what they are doing and practical application.

Currently small businesses are sold dreams of  volumes of traffic and sales for their monthly fees, in reality this will only happen if you can get the profile in the top three or if you also ensure long tail search is also a target. Then it is down to how a website converts its visitors and that is why SEO and the user experience should go hand in hand, top 3 positions alone will not make for a successful or happy experience.

Anyway here is the SEO-Essex.net Timeline to date

17-04-2010 – Domain name bought
Simple hosting was procurred and there are multiple websites from the shared hosting this domain sits on, I do not know any of the other websites, its just a cheap hosting package to get this SEO project live.

The concept is that in order to understand the challenges of small business websites in search you have to approach it in the same dimension, no fab high speed dedicated server here for me, just the normal everyday hosting that prospective clients will have.

20-04-2010 – Website structure uploaded to server
The idea was to upload a simple website, minimal complexity of code and with the ability to add content easily, a WP theme was used and a simple contact form introduced.

23-04-2010 – Content is added
Content is steadily published to the website, SEO principles are applied to set the correct URL structure and to ensure the correct delivery of keywords and themes.

24-04-2010 – Site appears in Google
There is a robots txt in place that blocks search engine spiders , this creates time for content to be created to theme the website properly, there is nothing worse than creating a bad impression on the first visit of a search engine spider. In my time I have lost count of how many times developers allow sites in development to be indexed by Google, this means all the content is duplicated at another URL before Google gets to read and associate it with the right domain name.

SEO-essex.net appears in search positions despite the fact that the robots.txt disallows all search engine spiders (in theory) that said the listing shows only the domain name and no other information such as description or content etc. This shows how vital it is to lock a site down from hungry search engine spiders until you are ready for them.

29-04-2010 – SEO-Essex.net still moves higher in search results
Well content and further pages have been added over the week, nothing of too high a density but during this time the website has moved to position 43 and thats with the robots.txt still in place. That is stunning progress really considering the domain name is brand new… where is the so called ’sandbox effect’.

I had now removed the robots txt block on spiders and though its a little premature as I would liked to have had more content for the first visit I am still intrigued as to what will happen. Its possible that the website will drop in position once it is indexed, alternatively could it move higher? Maybe, just maybe it might move above some of the established SEO agency websites, agencies that have been around for years…

Now wouldn’t that be something?

01-05-2010 – Indexed and Positioned
Well thats a suprise as today Google indexed and cached SEO-Essex and the site landed its very first attained listing at position 23 just near the top of page 3 in search results. Thats a very good start and shows that my understanding is spot on of what changed last year in both the Google Vince update and the tightening of a couple of SEO factors in Autumn 2009.

06-05-2010
Site is indexed now to 14 pages, looks really great with lovely unique titles and descriptions, urls formatted correctly and a quality document structure in place on every page. In addition the progress is search results has been great with some datacentres showing position 13 in Google, I bet there are one or two agencies wondering why this website is making such sterling progress.

06-05-2010
Other search terms are now starting to show the site in Google results, in addition internal pages are also climbing the ranks, this again shows that for a new domain it is clearly possible to avoid filtering and sandboxing and the industry should stop peddling this myth whenever they are unable to get clients listed in a Google search.

09-05-2010
Off for a well earned holiday and honeymoon, Denis Island in the Seychelles is my destination, it means no linking or posting for two weeks to SEO Essex since Denis Island has no communication network including no mobile phone reception. Should be fun though and makes for a complete break from SEO, that said I have initiated linking so I am hoping for a little progress in my absence.

24-05-2010
Back from honeymoon and as I expected no SEO input from the island as there was no Internet in any shape or form, the good thing is that in my absence SEO Essex stuck into position 12 in Google search and so I am happy with that, its a small push now to page 1.

24-05-2010
A week or so on and there has been an ongoing stability at the middle of page 2 (about position 16) and whilst this is also a little frustrating it shows that the domain has found its level and now the expertise needs to be applied. One thing I noticed is that the site has not been cached for a few days and this is unusual.

07-06-2010
The position in Google has slipped back to 30, this is unexpected and so there must be an issue somewhere, now its time to earn my corn and use my SEO expertise.

09-06-2010
Problem in Google is sorted, I identified some inadvertant duplication due to a sticky post and had my homepage cloned, this has a temporary fix and the position has moved from 30 to page 1 just shows the value of experience and not resting on your laurels.