Are These Common SEO Mistakes and Epic SEO Errors Impacting Your Online Business?
For every business with an online presence, the new year offers the opportunity to closely examine how their goals and objectives are progressing and how to ramp them up. As the current economy has not yet returned to pre-recession levels, every dollar spent on digital marketing, particularly Search Engine Optimization (SEO), becomes especially important. We’ve compiled a list of the major errors we’ve run across in the field. We invite you to review this list of common SEO mistakes that may be costing your business leads and revenue. Be sure to consult with AWG for a customized SEO campaign strategy that will remediate any outstanding issues. This way your business will reap the maximum benefits possible throughout 2017.
EPIC FAIL #1: Thinking that expanding an existing employee’s scope of work to include SEO will suffice.
WHY: A successful SEO Campaign is the culmination of the work of several SEO Specialists, including an SEO Strategist, an Analytics Expert, and a Content Developer/Copywriter. Often supportive initiatives, such as Pay-Per-Click, Social Media, Email Marketing and Affiliate programs, as well as Web Development and even Programming, may be included concurrent to an SEO campaign to achieve a client’s stated goals and objectives over a given timeline.
EPIC FAIL #2: Believing that SEO optimization is a one-time event and will reap positive results indefinitely.
WHY: To be effective, any SEO campaign must be continuous. The internet changes daily, more competitors enter the marketplace, and strategies must be routinely adapted to ensure that any business website can compete for its market share.
EPIC FAIL #3: Blackhat SEO
WHY: “Blackhat SEO” are practices that Google has banned, such as keyword stuffing, using low-quality link directories, content “borrowed” from another website…the list is extensive. Once, these infractions could cause a site to be penalized. Today, the site pages that contain these infractions will not be indexed, making an online enterprise invisible to potential customers.
EPIC FAIL #4: Agencies Who Promise Big Then Deliver Little or Nothing
WHY: A number of our clients had previously been preyed upon by other SEO companies who promised high rewards for very little cash outlay and in a very short period of time. A reputable agency will always demonstrate what they have been able to do for other clients as well as institute a campaign that is both measurable and accountable. In our experience, it is neither the cheapest nor the most expensive SEO campaigns that yield the best results. And by results we mean metrics that support the client’s business goals and objectives, such as increased site visitors, conversions and revenue.
SEO Mistake #1: Using the Wrong Keywords
WHY: There is no point in using keywords that prospects are not using to find your business. For highly competitive industries, there is little opportunity to rank for short keywords when a long tail will garner more quality site traffic, higher rankings, and more business. Any keyword that is not attracting site users, should be examined, and possibly discarded in favor of a more effective keyword.
SEO Mistake #2: Not Using Headers
WHY: There is an ongoing controversy among SEO Strategists as to the value of header tags and their associated keywords. However both sides agree that headers that effectively engage site users may reduce the bounce rate. The bounce rate is widely considered the most important engagement metric as measured by Google’s algorithm, so do not just slap on a header, make it meaningful!
SEO Mistake #3: Broken Links
WHY: This is a common occurrence when site content is moved. 301 redirects will remedy this and prevent a site from losing valuable page authority by incorrectly or not redirecting pages. It is also important not to decommission a URL’s content by instituting a 404 redirect when it is no longer needed. The site will have acquired links that will still be valuable if redirected properly.
SEO Mistake #4: Not Using Analytics to Track Site Metrics
WHY: Some marketers had been focused solely on keyword rankings, wanting to rank for very competitive keywords, even for keywords that were not driving traffic to their websites! This ignorance was expensive and was not increasing their site revenue. By setting up their sites to track key performance indicators, AWG has demonstrated where their customers are coming from as well as how best to influence their buying decisions by facilitating the sales funnel.
