SEO is a powerful, safe and sure revenue generator. A website without high-performing SEO is like a car without an engine.
Nicolas Rohrbasser – digital performance expert and world champion racing driver
Hi Nicolas.
What is SEO (search engine optimisation)?
I’m delighted you asked! There is plenty of literature on the subject, but many people in charge of web projects understand little about the impact of SEO: applied correctly, it is a powerful, safe and sure revenue generator. SEO is a set of measures that help a website rank well in Google’s search results, so that its target market can find it using the search terms prospects actually use. These terms are many and varied, so you need a content strategy: some queries will attract high traffic from a diverse audience, others less traffic but more qualified.
How much revenue can SEO generate?
In my personal experience, 2–3 days of work can increase online turnover by as much as a third, or even more. Those are my references. Every case is different and starts with an analysis and forecasts.
How do you achieve these results?
SEO is not just a technical discipline: it is also digital marketing. You have to respect the codes of search engines. You need to analyse the most-used search queries associated with the site, then make sure they are applied correctly on the site, at different levels. The main performance indicators are website visits and conversion into orders. User experience and the website’s image are other key elements.
Why is SEO so poorly understood?
As well as digital, I work in the automotive sector, so I’ll draw an analogy between the two: people stop at what they see, the bodywork, the website’s interface. SEO is the engine! We SEO experts are like mechanics: people don’t always trust us. And yet the performance of a website with good SEO is there for all to see, as the website’s Google Analytics reports show.
How should you go about your SEO?
Given its strategic importance, you need to make sure your web provider really is an expert in the field: communication or web development agencies are not necessarily experts, even if they include SEO on the menu. This “included” SEO is often just the CMS’s default structure, and therefore insufficient. My advice is to hire an independent SEO expert. Ideally, apply SEO best practices from the start of a new site’s development and keep doing so for new content, particularly in the blog section. Train someone in-house, and call on an expert from time to time for optimal performance.
You were vice world karting champion in 2018. Now you’re a karting and digital performance coach?
I was working in digital long before I reached the world karting podium. I use analytics tools to track my progress in karting and that of my students. I’ve been working on the web for around ten years, and have specialised for more than five years in digital performance: SEO, SEA and web analytics. One advantage of my web job is being able to prove the increase in site visits and online orders with Google’s reports.
What’s the connection between motor racing and SEO?
Performance and analytics, which I apply to both. Reaching your goals means measuring current performance, calibrating and planning the targeted improvements, and then measuring progress again.
Why coaching?
I enjoy sharing my knowledge and my passion. It’s also a response to demand: knowing how to do SEO, I applied it to my karting website, rohrbasserdrivingschool.com. I constantly get new clients that way. Most websites have an inadequate level of SEO. The revenue these businesses miss out on is frustrating. I work as an SEO consultant and as a trainer to raise awareness of SEO’s impact.
If you had to choose one career: karting or digital?
I’m keeping both! I love the intensity of racing. One of the things I like most about my digital work is the combination of technical and creative activities. Content SEO serves two types of audience: human consumers and Google’s bots. To maximise visits and conversions, I do digital editing for both, with a coherent content structure, layout and engaging copywriting. Consumers and bots both follow codes, the former with a subtlety that automation will never match.
Why work freelance?
The answer is in the question: I don’t depend on anyone. No endless meetings, no need to wear a tie or be at the office by 8.30am. I work from wherever I want: that’s freedom. There are drawbacks too: no fixed salary, fewer colleagues, and so on. That’s why I joined a collective: Digital Cuts. It’s an increasingly common model, with advantages for everyone, including the client. We work on SEO for our clients, but also on all their digital communication. We also run training courses to raise their awareness.
If readers of this interview were to remember two points, what would they be?
Have the courage to live your passion; don’t neglect the SEO and analytics of your web project.
