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About this site and me

 

Hi there!

About the site:

I know, the name of my site is perhaps a bit overdone, and the lay-out is probably not what you expect for this kind of information. But I did that on purpose, to highlight that the content is serious food for you. Because the results of wrong SEO and bad web design can cause real nightmares for you and your business, just like Freddy did on Elm street. Suddenly drop of rankings or even disappear when Mr. G. is updating his servers. The fear of introducing a new SE filter (which you didn't know yet). Or, why can't anybody find my website? Or my site doesn't rank anymore for my major keywords.... are often discussed in Webmaster forums. And every now and then you will read some blog post about a real horror story.

 

For these reasons I have created his site. Not to teach you how to build a website or practice SEO. But to publish the most used worst SEO practices and bad web design, which can harm your rankings. I often discover websites that still use unethical methods to achieve a faster or better ranking. Even the old techniques are still used. And sometimes you probably won't even know if your site is using bad design or SEO which can result in lower rankings than your site probably deserves.

 

My personal opinion is that you always should have 'control' of your website's performance (proper design, smart SEO, successful ranking and a high ROI).

 

Many site owners don't have this control. The control is in hands of your Webmaster or Web developing department. Or perhaps your neighbor who happened to know how to build a website. With large companies, your SEO is probably outsourced to an SEO firm. But if you are running a small business and have to do all these tasks by yourself, you probably don't have the time to run your business. You have to build and analyze your Adwords campaign, analyze your web statistics, check and optimize your content, check your rankings and do a general 'health check' of your site every now and then.
The question in both examples is: Do you have control over the performance of your website? Or are you totally depending on others?

 

The reason I have created this website is that people often ask me questions and advice about web design and search engine optimization. I have friends all over the world, so I thought, why not making a website with a compilation of these frequently asked questions. It is easier for me to maintain one website, then answering many single emails, which often have the same question and same answers. I am not an SEO Consultant by profession, therefore this is not one-of-the-many SEO guides. If you really want to learn SEO by yourself, then I recommend to start at an online SEO training and community center. There is nothing you can't learn there.

 

The goal of this site is to avoid as much as possible possible mistakes, errors, and penalties related to your website. You can use my chapters as a regular checklist. You can use my chapters to ask questions to your web design team, SEO Consultant or whoever who has control of your website design and performance.

 

About me:

My name is Bart Dirks, live in The Netherlands and my profession is ICT Consultant at an Airline Company. Beside that, I build websites for specific small projects. I also build websites for my own use, like testing and information sharing.
In 1999 I had my first website at the 'old' geocities.com, one of the first social web providers.
I used this site to connect with people with similar interests using the virtual highway. In 2001 I had my first own domain names and started to build informational websites. These sites still exist and still work properly. The same year I got interested in search engine optimization and search engine marketing. Since then I spend at least 2 hours a day in reading SEO/SEM articles and discussions, participate in forums and currently I am a member of the best online SEO training and community center there is.

 

Since 2003 I also started to build websites for others. It is not my main business, but I still do that for specific projects (most on nonprofit base). I am very selective, because I want to keep web design and practicing SEO as a 'hobby' too. It must be a challenge for me. I don't want to get into some SEO rut, I want to keep myself 'sharp', and trigger myself to improve my skills and enrich my knowledge.
I am a so-called all-in-one practitioner. I develop a business plan (small business), do keyword research, design and develop websites, create and optimize content and practice SEO and SEM.

 

Although I am already involved with SEO since 2001, I still learn every day. SEO never stops, it’s a continuous process. So is the maintenance of your website. It is never finished. That's' why I always keep up with topics like the website you are now. There is no day that some person discovers some new important issue, related to web design or SEO.