Posts tagged SEO practices
4 Biggest SEO Cash Leeches
Mar 19th
SEO can be great for business. Can be really, really great for business. We’ve personally seen quite a few companies make million-dollar differences to their bottom line, in as little as 12 months. These aren’t the steps to getting to your goal (the number one rankings, the traffic, etc). This IS the goal! But unfortunately, there are a lot of ways you can waste money with ineffective SEO techniques. Today we look at some of the biggest cash leeches in an SEO campaign – they are all give and no take.
1. You’re paying for ads on the Google content network that are not highly targeted
For starters, we are firm believers in the idea that organic SEO has a huge range of benefits over and above pay per click, which is the way the Google Content network is designed. Click on the image above to view it at full size, and tell me if you think the advertisers in question were actively trying to target ‘travel insurance’. If your ads are displayed like this, there is a far lower chance of getting clicks, and of getting conversions from clicks that you pay for.
2. Not using analytics
I love John Wanamaker’s quote – “Half of the money I spend on advertising is completely wasted. I just have no idea which half”. John Wanamaker was the inventor of the price tag and a department store owner himself, and obviously lived in the time before Google Analytics! Ask your SEO company about setting up analytics, if it all seems a bit too much like hard work.
3. Designing, building and writing content for the company, not the customer
You can have the prettiest website and the most grammatically correct content in the world. But if it doesn’t speak in the same language as your customers do, or appeal to them visually, then it is terrible. Why? Because it isn’t achieving its goals.
4. You are paying to get traffic to an old, non-functional or poorly designed site
Without an attractive, usable website at the other end of the click-journey, you’ll be paying for SEO that is driving up not much more than you bounce rate. In fact, many SEO companies can help you with your web design as well. You may not need to switch companies for this little cash leech – just ask about additional services.
Getting to the top of Google is not a license to print money, unfortunately. There are plenty of other SEO-related factors you need to keep an eye on in order to make money in the long term. Talk to an expert SEO strategist if you want any pointers for your own site!
Choosing Online Directories
Feb 12th
In any web marketing efforts, SEO practices should be done with utmost care. You must not overlook any tips on performing link building tasks. If you’ve done it wrong, you get failed.
Online directories are the online version of yellow pages, containing the website links and descriptions. They contain website listings that are categorized according to genre or field. Some are automated while others are human-edited.
It is recommended that when choosing an online directory where your website will be submitted, the page rank should not only be the basis. There are three other important considerations in deciding which online directories you should choose.
1. Choose online directories that are human-edited. The distinction between automated and human-edited online directories is determined after the process of submitting your site. When your site is automatically listed, that is automated. When your site is not automatically listed, and it takes 3 to 7 days to be approved in the listing, it is human-edited.
2. You have to check if the website listings are categorized by relevance. There are other sites that appear like online directories because there are categories in it. But checking randomly, some of the sites that are put under a specific category are not related to where they are placed. For instance, a website that sells fashionable apparels are listed under Search Engine Optimization category. Online directories with messy categorizing are not really directories; they are link farms. When your site is listed in link farms, your site will be banned by major search engines
3. Never attempt to submit your site to directories which link URLs have “no follow” tags. Your effort to submit in those sites would only be a waste. Though you are getting visibility (most of the time is not guaranteed), you are not getting any inbound link. Search engine spiders do not crawl on links with “no follow” tags in the URL.
Online directory submission is a must being one of the effective SEO campaign activities. It must not be taken for granted.