Google’s latest keyword tool leaves a little to be desired.  Is it just me or does it feel like the data is inaccurate, incomplete, or even completely wrong at times?   Maybe I have relied to heavily on it in the past and am now forced into spending a considerable amount of money to purchase a service that promises a lot of bells and whistles I have no use for.  Time and time again I find myself back to the keyword tool hoping I missed something, a box unchecked or perhaps just haven’t thought of the winning keyword that pulls up hundreds of results like it used to back in the day.

In search for answers, I have, on two occassions followed my browser as it somehow found it’s way to Google adwords.  Coincidence?  Doubtful.  Especially since Google’s announcement of  the retraction of keyword data on analytics reports.  The only way to get keyword traffic data is to in fact open an Adwords account and set up a campaign.

Maybe they saw an opportunity in the market since there are virtually no keyword tools on the market currently that are free.  One must invest in either a monthly based fee subscription, or a yearly subscription of which both are sure to continually get more expensive as time passes, simply to get very basic yet important data about their marketing.

So if you have the money to spend on Adwords, you could probably also afford to buy a keyword tool – but you don’t need to.  Google gives you that information in surplus and without restriction.  For those who cannot afford an adwords campaign, like many small start up’s – it just got that much harder to market yourself effectively online.

If you missed the first part of this post be sure to Read Part 1 which covers 1-5.

6.  LEAD CAPTURE – DOESN’T EXIST, LACKS APPEAL, OR ASKS TOO MUCH

Think like a searcher.  When you are browsing the net and come across an interesting offer, how much are you willing to do to get it.  Personally if the form asks for my address, they don’t get my info at all.

  It’s just too much work, plus I fear they are going to spam my email to death.  They’re is usually no need to collect addresses from your market unless you plan on showing up for dinner one night.  Email and name most often are all you need satisfy future marketing efforts.  Read more about lead capture here

7.  LURED BY FLASH – YOUR SITE LOOKS COOL BUT WHO IS GOING TO FIND YOU?

The only language guaranteed to be search engine friendly is HTML /CSS.  Flash programming which typically is what moving objects are written in, is virtually invisible to search engines and will render your efforts to earn a top spot in search results, futile.  If you must have moving graphics, keep them in the header of your site, sparing the other areas especially the navigation.  Search engines crawl your site much like humans, but if they cant read your navigation – guess what? They can’t get to other areas of your site.  You’ve basically blocked access for them and success for you.

8.   FAILURE TO THINK LIKE A USER IN BUILDING/DEVELOPING NAVIGATIONAL ASPECTS OF WEBSITE.

These types of things are always better left to professionals.  Sure you may think your site is easy to navigate because you know it well. Have a couple people who don’t know it well take it for a test drive.  Things you think are obvious are not for fresh visitors, seeing your site for the first time.

You’ll be amazed by the feedback.  Make sure this person is also not familiar with your business model.

It’s just like writing.  We may proofread our own work thousands of times and are absolutely 100% certain there are no errors.  Then we give it to someone else who sends it back to us showing several errors.  I don’t know about you, but I am certain they added those errors to sabotage me, because those were not there before. Truth is, they were there, we just didn’t notice them because of our familiarity with what we wanted or meant to say, each time rehearsing it with the correct usage of words. This is an almost identical scenario.  Think simple, and dumb it waaaaay down.

9.  UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS ABOUT THE INTERNET

I will guarantee you that success will not find you on the internet.  Despite many misconceptions that the internet is magic, it is in contrast, very deliberate.  It provides access to a virtual roadway and that is it. We are responsible for navigating our destiny and thus our success.  Doing nothing will continue to push your site and presence farther down until it’s “virtually” invisible. Without hard work and dedication on an ongoing basis,  success will run away from you along with your market and search engines.

10.  SKIPPING OVER  SEO OR USING A DIY METHOD TO SAVE MONEY.

I have referred to SEO on many occassions as “the core of all marketing strategies” Similar to the foundation of a house, if your SEO is weak, the rest of your marketing strategies will suffer.

1. DOMAIN NAME SELECTION – (LACKS KEYWORD)

Exact match keyword domains are worth their weight in gold.  It’s the sure thing to acquiring a top spot.  The second best is getting one that has the keyword somewhere in it.  I don’t recommend buying a domain name that doesn’t have your keyword in it.  You will be making things a lot harder on your self.  Many people think they have to buy the domain name of their company?  Why, so people who have never heard of your company can find you? That was a joke.  Unless your company name is Coca Cola or unless your company name already contains your keyword sure buy the domain but also buy a keyword domain related to your business.  This will be the domain your site is hosted upon and you will direct the other domain that is your company name to the keyword domain.  So when all your fans and customers type your business name into the browser “yourcompanyname.com” they will be taken to your site at  “yourkeyworddomain.com”  So those who aren’t familiar with your site/business  ie, YOUR MARKET, can find you easier when they search using keywords related to your industry.

2. SITE IS NOT BLOCKED DURING THE DEVELOPMENT STAGE

I learned this the hard way.  When you are in the developmental stages of your website design it is very important to block all search engine access to it using either a robots.txt file or if using wordpress you can do it from the backend under “privacy.” Failure to do so could negatively affect your performance  long term in the SERPS.  It will make an already difficult project even harder.

3. TARGETING GENERAL  KEYWORDS WITH  MASS SEARCH VOLUME

This is fairly self explanatory and very popular mistake.  Here is an example.  Someone searching for “shoes” probably doesn’t know what they want, or have any intentions of buying, they are “browsers” also known as “tire kickers”, “time wasters” or in this landscape “bandwidth wasters” Sure you may drive more traffic to your site targeting general keywords, but it’s useless traffic and will probably cost you more in the long run, since their presence on your site is not completely cost free.  These tend to be the ones that like to call and ask you thousands of silly questions.  They start eating into your soft costs after a while, and your nerves.  Someone searching for “high heels” is a much more targeted market and maybe still a bit on the general side.  You get the idea.

4. POORLY WRITTEN OR NON EXISTANT META TAGS

I cannot stress enough how important Meta tags are for many different reasons. How they are written can also heavily influence your ranking.  Don’t attempt to do these yourself, and don’t look to the internet for information on how to write them.  It’s an unsolved mystery as to why there is so much inaccurate info on Metas or why no one has stepped up and announced the correct way except for me and maybe one or two others.  Understanding the dual purpose of Meta tags ie what they are used for, will help you to better understand how to write them.

5. FAIL TO DO COMPETITIVE RESEARCH

Chances are your competitors know something you don’t if they have been online for more than a season.  Use that to your advantage.  Mostly, just learn how to do it better.

Yep I know, there is supposed to be 10 critical mistakes….and there is! Stay tuned for Part 2.  Want a reminder sent when the next post is published?  Subscribe to my feed.

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 SEO starts from the very beginning of a website’s conception.  Although SEO can later be implemented, at times it can be difficult, requiring so much reconstruction one would virtually need to rebuild an entire new website to make it SEO friendly.  With that in mind, having an SEO specialist working with the programmer and web designer to make sure all of the necessary SEO components are built into the design and the text is optimal.  Although due to cost this approach isn’t always possible, it ensures an SEO driven site with the necessary SEO components built in.

The general design of the site can be a critical feature on the readability of your site by the major search engines. Though sites programmed with flash animation tend to be eye catching they originally were unable to be indexed by Google.  So they were eye catching if you could actually find them.  A recent article put out by Google states of an improvement in their search engines ability to read flash animation but not something I would even risk if your goal is to be found in the search results.  Despite the good idea to leave flash animation out of the body of the site having your header with such programming adds a similar appeal yet remains SEO friendly. This is just one of the many things to keep in mind while building an optimized site.

Another factor of SEO that can be incorporated into web design is the ALT image Tag feature.  Here the web designer would enter a keyword within the programming of each graphic that appears on the page.  This lends additional opportunity for keyword instances that attract search engines for user search.  Because this is not easily done by an SEO Consultant after the site has been completed and most often requires the assistance of a web designer it helps to instill these features during the initial construction.

Keyworded urls are also an important feature for SEO.  Sometimes this offers an excellent opportunity to drop keywords/phrases in for added optimization assuming your domain name has the keyword in it and if it doesn’t this feature is especially important.  Let’s look at an example of a keyworded URL and how we can maximize keyword usage.  Remember any link that has our keyword in it is worth twice its weight a keyword.  So let’s say the keyword is “Button Jewelry”  the domain name is www.uniquebuttonjewelry.com/  and one of the pages on her site found by clicking on the navigation button that says “browse our shop” has a url that looks like this www.uniquebuttonjewelry.com/buybuttonjewelry.html   The keyword “button jewelry” has now appeared twice within the url  and although by itself may not lend much weight in terms of optimization, when used in conjunction with the many other urls for your website this can have a strong affect on a sites performance in the search results. 

While there are many more SEO tactics that one can incorporate into the initial design of their website these are some of the basics and ones that will lend assistance with a site’s performance in the search results.  Remember to talk with your web designer about building these features and more into your website.  This could save you a lot of work later.  http://www.contentwriterseo.com

  Often times ranking can be a difficult task especially if our keyword is a competitive one.  Here are some ideas to lower the competition and still get your desired result.

Now assuming all of the other page elements of SEO are present including keyword within in the content writing, links and other basic SEO factors already exist, it is time to start writing city pages.  City pages are designed to focus on a smaller market share and compete within a particular city instead of your current national market you have been struggling in.  Often times a business such as a doctor’s office will likely already compete locally because his clientele has to be within a certain number of miles to make them a relevant market,  however for someone who either sells something on line or sells something which does not require face to face with its consumer then the market is endless.  For example someone selling seo services sells nationally because most of the time all communication can be done over the phone or email.  Someone selling babysitting services would only be competing locally within their city of residence for similar obvious reasons.  They physically could not babysit for someone outside of certain range of distance. When we compete on a local level versus a national one, our competition is greatly reduced and for obvious reasons, much easier to achieve the desired ranking within organic search.  

If you are currently competing nationally and are struggling, my advice to you is: break your market up and begin competing in smaller sections.  How is this done?  It is rather simple actually.  Here again is where content writing proves to be king.  Start writing content using your keyword with the city of designation so for example my keyword may look like this:  SEO Services Phoenix or Phoenix SEO Service.  Then proceed to write content using this keyword as you would normally for optimization.  Your metas for the pages would be something like this:  SEO Services Phoenix | Get Seo Services Phoenix……  Now so as not to also disturb you current content where you would like to still compete nationally, place these pages in the footer of your site as links.  Don’t forget the opportunity here to keyword your link!!!    Keep writing them for each city or state that you would like or until you are satisfied with the results and amount of traffic to your site.  You can never do too much!!

Picking keywords used to attract search engines can be an eye opening experience. Often times the most popular words or the words having the most searches are misspelled forcing you to use a misspelled word in your content writing. For most content writers this is very frustrating but a necessary component to SEO. The next time you see a misspelled word used all over a particular website don’t be too quick to tell them their mistake. Chances are they did it on purpose

Another problem I recently came across was a lack of keywords. The topic I was marketing had some searches but nothing substantial to build a business on. Had it not been for some trend research I did I probably would have advised the client to tailor their business just a bit to include a more searchable term. So how did I choose their keyword to best describe their business yet also has enough searches to make it worthwhile? First I looked for keywords/phrases that were characteristic of someone looking for something new or looking for ideas relating to that field. Since it is a new concept it is the responsibility of the business to get people interested. Someone searching with a general phrase of “new investments” might be interested in someone selling a unique investment opportunity not yet well known for example. Sometimes the more general the keyword the more competitive it is, however not always. Usually just by changing the general phrase a little you can find a keyword with less competition and a decent amount of searches. For example instead of “new investments” you could try “new invest” or “invest new” or maybe “new opportunity invest” You would be surprised at the many different ways people phrase their searches and giving the content writer a difficult challenge when trying to use it in the text. Sometimes the keyword phrase is incorrect grammar and even more frustrating for the writer who most likely cringes at the idea of writing text with improper English. I know I do! So as you peruse various sites and notice misspellings or incorrectly phrased sentences, keep in mind that may have been on purpose or at least let’s hope so!

I just recently have joined the online community of blogging and would like to start out by gathering responses from other professionals in the SEO world to five questions I have selected that I think are relevant topics of interest to anyone looking to create an online presence.  They are as follows:

1. What steps would you take to optimize a new website.  Let’s say your initial goal is to get ranked for the keyword(s) within the top five of googles search results?

2.  How many keywords do you think a website should have and why? How many should each page have?

3.  What type of SEO technique is most important for ranking: linkbuilding or onsite content/keyword saturation?

4.  If the customers main goal is to drive traffic to their website quickly what steps/methods would you take to do this?

5.  Briefly describe the role social media marketing plays in SEO and the steps you take to implement a campaign.

Tags: content writing, keyword, onsite and offsite seo, seo

A Content Writer For SEO  

Website content though often overlooked with the many details of building a website, is actually one of the fundamentals to ranking well in the search results. A good content writer will devise text that is carefully planned so it is informative and well organized with the necessary SEO components like keywords, links, and meta tags. Search engine optimization and a good content writer is crucial to not only your rankings but also your traffic.

A Content Writer’s First Step to SEO

If yours is a small business it may also be wise to pick keywords/phrases that are less competitive and generally easier to move quickly to the top of the search results with. When possible picking the fewest well targeted keywords is optimal. Though often not realistic, it is ideal for SEO purposes by promoting smoother, well written, and keyword saturated content. Trust me on this, you can’t go wrong here! A good content writer will consider, before choosing the keywords, exactly how they  will be used within the text.  This ensures the keywords make sense with the direction of the intended message. Be careful not to choose keywords/phrases that are too general, though they may describe your business somewhat and they may provide “search engine optimization” by driving traffic, you will have optimized for the wrong kind of traffic producing nothing but a chunk out of your bandwidth for the month and a step backward from your objectives. This type of negative SEO is characterized by high traffic, bounce rates over 50% and low conversion rates i.e. while visiting your site they did not complete a purchase or didn’t fill out a contact form.  A good content writer will choose well targeted, closely matched keywords with a fair amount of searches each month.  Whenever possible, choosing keywords/phrases with realistic ranking opportunities, keeping in mind budget, and overall objectives, will produce the fastest and easiest route to the top of the search engine rankings and a successful SEO campaign.

A Content Writer’s Ongoing Job

SEO (search engine optimization) will only become more important as information becomes more readily available and rapidly delivered to the public via many different social mediums. As such, a content writer must keep updating text as new information becomes available. This is crucial to any SEO campaign.  Content writing must be re evaluated regularly with up to date, innovative and informative text to keep the interest of visiting traffic and a quality ranking. In theory, it is safe to assume that as information delivery becomes more sophisticated and rapidly attained through various channels like twitter, facebook, linkedin, myspace…etc. websites will also become more accurate and update to date, leaving the many less attended websites out of the game. This will undoubtedly create fierce competition amongst the warriors in the search results. Luckily, for those whose budgets cannot withstand the battle, there are other alternatives to search result ranking as a means of driving traffic. Hopefully this has provided some insight on making realistic decisions about which method is right for you or possibly which method isn’t right for you. Though search result ranking and SEO can be a great way to drive traffic to your site, there are other ways to effectively market your business online.