In Part 3 of our Q&A about Google with Distilled's Head of Search Marketing Tom Critchlow, he explains what sellers need to know about SEO and how to get up-to-speed. You can read Part 1 of the interview here, and Part 2 here. You can also learn more about Distilled here.
AuctionBytes: It seems many merchants could benefit from the expertise of SEO experts, but there are also a lot of consultants out there who could end up hurting an ecommerce website's standings if they try to game the system. What should online sellers know about choosing a consultant - and when is the time right to hire expertise?
Tom Critchlow: The first thing to note is that SEO isn't about "gaming the system". Anytime you try and "trick" Google you stand the risk of being penalized. I would be wary anytime an SEO consultant or agency talks about any of the following:
- Tricking the search engines
- Automated link building
- Buying or renting links
By far the best way to hire an SEO is to learn enough about SEO yourself (see the next question) so that you can understand what it is an SEO company will do for you and see if it fits with best practice or not. Often, once you understand what SEO is then you can handle the tasks required in-house. A good way to find an SEO company is via a referral from a friend or alternatively SEOmoz have a list of recommended suppliers here
AuctionBytes: What's the best way for small sellers to get up to speed with SEO to help them talk to experts or do some DIY on their own?
Tom Critchlow: For anyone interested in SEO, the SEOmoz beginners guide is a fantastic place to start here. It walks through what SEO is and how you do it alongside best practice tactics and what to avoid.
For small sellers, Rand from SEOmoz put together a great guide for the Etsy community on how to do SEO for your own micro-site here. The PDF download and the video all talk about Etsy, but the same advice applies to Ebay or any other similar site.
I very much hope that my responses have cleared a few things up and helped some of your members. My apologies for not having all the answers - if you have any specific questions then the best place to look for feedback is to post questions on the Google Base forums here. You'll get help from respected community members and from Google engineers so it's a great place to go to if you are having problems with any aspect of Google Base.
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