Making the Most of Seo?

by Debbie Everson

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You’re a marketing manager with a vested interest in a solid SEO campaign. SEO is not rocket science, but it is a form of combat (albeit “marketing combat,” which is far more tame than “actual combat”). Continuing with this metaphor of “SEO as battle,” let’s scan the terrain for some SEO landmines you might encounter – as well as the keys to disarming those landmines.



SEO LANDMINE #1 – Selecting the wrong keyphrases to optimize



WHAT CAN GO WRONG:



• If you choose very popular keywords, you’ll have to spend a TON of money and time to get high rankings in the big search engines.



• If you choose overly-generic keywords, you run the risk of generating “non-pre-qualified” visitors to your site – that is, visitors who aren’t likely to take action.



• If you choose oddball keywords, you likely won’t generate much, if any, relevant traffic.



HOW TO DEFUSE THE LANDMINE:



• Battle-test your keywords.



• Stay specific and focused on your “industry niche.”



• Explore the searching habits of your customers.





SEO LANDMINE #2 – Linking your site to poor or banned sites (or no sites at all)



WHAT CAN GO WRONG:



• If you buy links from a “link farm” to enhance your site’s visibility, and it turns out those links are bad, the search engines can penalize you by dropping your site.



• If you fail to link to other sites, the web spiders will consider your site an “outlier,” and you’ll have a harder time crawling to the top of the rankings.



HOW TO DEFUSE THE LANDMINE:



• Develop relationships with webmasters of “linkworthy” sites to get connected.



• Make your site/content engaging, so other relevant sites will want to link to you.



• Keep your site updated and regularly prune bad or dead links.



SEO LANDMINE #3 – Poor content or a lack of good content



WHAT CAN GO WRONG:



• Non-specific content (or content plagiarized from other sites) will get you ignored or penalized by the search engines



• A website that doesn’t get into specifics will not be able to “close” even pre-qualified leads



HOW TO DEFUSE THE LANDMINE:



• Develop original, “your-business-specific” content that’s relevant and factually correct.



• Placement of the content in your site is key. Remember aesthetics! Make your site easy to navigate. Make your content accessible.



For more on what to do (and what not to do) to explode onto the scene with your SEO, contact SearchMar.com, one of the San Francisco Bay’s most trusted SEO experts.


Debbie Everson, CEO SearchMar, Inc. - SearchMar is the leading provider of search engine optimization & marketing services, with customers of all types and sizes. Learn more at http://www.searchmar.com or call 1-866-885-6263.



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