I created my first website in the late 1990’s using CorelDraw. Websites were very new then and CorelDraw had an option to ‘publish as html’… and being a very curious kind of person, I had to give it a go! Of course at the time I was pretty proud of myself, but it was awkward and clunky. I found I could create a slightly cleaner one using Microsoft Word, but in truth it wasn’t a great deal better. I then started learning html from books I borrowed from the library.
A little more about my journey...
Image credit Microsoft Copilot (AI)*.
I now predominantly use WordPress to create my sites and use Elementor as my page builder because I love the flexibility it gives me to create unique page layouts, just as boldly as I might design a layout for a flyer or a magazine in print.
Of course, apart from those early library books, and maybe a good bit of help from W3Schools (still always a great source of quick reference for those tricky little bits), I am completely self taught.
In 2022 I attended a Google seminar laid on in conjunction with my local council to help smsll businesses better understand the power of social media and seo.. I took the opportunity then to ask some of my doubts about the myths surrounding SEO and asked specifically, surely the most important aspect in SEO is good well written content that includes information about hexactly what you do, to which I was quite relieved in a crowded room to e toled, yes, that is true. in
SEO and SERPs
Over the years I have been much bemused about how people have spoken to me about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). To hear some people talk about it, you might think that there was some secret mystical formula, but from what I was seeing, the most important aspect was that the content should be well written with clear typographical hierarchy, and ensuring that pages relate to what people might be looking for… not such a big mystery!
In January 2023 I attended a Google seminar for small businesses laid on for small businesses by our local council, and I questioned the speaker about my thoughts on this, asking specifically if clear, well‑written content was the real foundation of SEO, and how I felt that that overly cramming paragraphs with hashtags and words keywords not relevant to the content was counter productive, and indeed I was confirmed right.
‘Bots’ don’t need a string of hash tags running along the page like ants on migration. People don’t want to skim through lots of words chucked into the content like a trawler net. They want to read the specific piece of information that relates to them and why they were looking at your site in the first place.
Of course, a few years on and the use of AI text for content has exploded, but increasingly people are seeing through that and they want to know that they are connecting with real people. Keeping the story ‘person to person’ is very important too.
2025 I sought to further validate my real world experience with and academic qualification, and took the with social media and digital marketing course.
This covered:
- The marketing potential of social media platforms.
- Which platforms might suit different businesses.
- Reaching target audiences
- Understanding analytical data and demographics
- Search engine optimisation and SERPs (Search engine results pages)