5 Things I Learned about SEO from Taking a Few Days off
A spontaneous trip to the sea
I took a few days off this week on the coast of the Baltic Sea. We just went there without booking a hotel or something.
I don’t know about elsewhere but in Germany the term apartment (ferienwohnung) is one of the most competitive tourism related keywords.
How do I know? In fact I started my SEO career back in 2004 optimizing for the travel sector and mainly for that keyword.
Where to sleep the night?
When we arrived we were already in a hurry to find a place for the night and to go to the beach before sunset so we just drove around looking for an apartment.
Most apartments were of course “occupied”. Then we noticed a huge “bed and breakfast” (in English) sign. That was it and a mobile number on it.
Most of the apartments just sported a small sign saying apartment in German and displaying a local number.
After stopping I tried two of them because they looked nicer from the outside but to no avail, there was nobody on the phone.
How it really works
In contrast the mobile number led me to a friendly and forthcoming guy. He quickly offered me a room right there.
At the same time called his employee to come over right away which she did 15 minutes later. Now guess where we stayed!
Half an hour later a man from Norway asked us about the room so we weren’t the only ones who noticed the sign.
Afterwards I was amazed at how similar i behaved to the average searcher. So I want to tell you 5 things I learned about SEO from taking a few days off:
- Be on top! Be number #1, be the first one to catch the attention. Show the biggest sign in the boldest letters.
- Make your banner, landing page or sales page as simple as possible.
- Write in English to reach an international audience.
- Offer potential customers a simple and reliable way to reach you, here the mobile number.
- Be there quick, react swiftly and minimize the fuss. Time is money so to say.
Then we went to the beach. Next post: 5 things swimming in the cold Baltic Sea taught me about SEO ;-)
Last updated: April 18th, 2018: replaced teaser image.
;-) nice story and great points and indeed the basics of good advertising are the same, online or offline.
For those who advertise their blog in web comments, the same concepts work:
1. You have to write one of the first comments.
2. Write a comment that is in context and enahnces the discussion.
3. Include a link for people to find you blog/site.
4. Have the tools on site to quickly communicate with people: chat, feedback, etc.
A professional company in this field that can outsource it for you is commentino http://snipr.com/nuydd
Cheers!
These are great points. I think that Keeping things simple is the best point in the entire post.
Ironically when I first read the title of your post I thought one of the things you learned on your vacation was patience…The will power give your seo actions time to work…nice tips
it looks like relations betwee nature-human mind and work ; )
maybe i’ll go to the Baltic Sea to get some new point of view for SEO : )
The photograph is beautiful. I am happy that you had a nice time. Sometimes in life unplanned trips teach you a lot. The points you mentioned regarding SEO are all great and understandable.
I love The photograph :)
Thanks for the post. This can be applied to anything, provide a good service, and the customers will come.
search the google then find your site.
that is a really excellent post.
Thanks for the post.
5 things swimming in the baltic sea has taught me..
1) Dont go in if its cold!
Hello,
nice post, I agree with all 5 points. It is important to have simple and clean layout so you will not frighten your audience. Also English is the must when you think about international audience.
Keep up with interesting articles.
Excellent advice it’s really the one I looking for.This 5 advice will be very useful.
Your comments make common sense. Keep it simple and make it easy to find the objective.
Nice story!
Amazingly it’s taken me about 4 years to come to the conclusion that less is more on the home page.
In the past I’ve gone for lots of words & information & I think that just leads to information overload for the visitor, so for my latest project for a friend of mine (the website is spanishtranslation/org/uk) I’ve just gone for a very simple approach making it obvious where to click for each part of the service & then sticking to the benefits only without any blarney whatsoever.
The site went live today, so time will tell but I have high hopes for her.
I so agree with this: “Make your banner, landing page or sales page as simple as possible.” who would like to read a very long ad. Make it nice and simple, it attracts more audience. This really works for me.
Karen Davis
san diego computer repair
The best trips are the ones you dont really plan and have nowhere to stay. I could tell you some stories my friend :-)
Nice one mate. I feel SEO is a very challenging field to be in. Nothing’s easy here. Its not just hardwork that’s required but also knowledge and ofcourse experience. I still curse myself for not having got into this industry many years back when it was just new, just defined. I too have learnt a lot about SEO and my biggest point is : ‘Be There First, Before All’ and ‘Stay There’.
I agree that it’s important to take days off from working online. The great thing is that when you take days off, you end up thinking outside the box and discovering new ideas :)
It’s all common sense really – keep it simple and point them in the right direction