There are many things that determine the overall success of an SEO campaign that we can’t control. The Google algorithm looks at over 200 different ranking signals when determining where a site will fall in the SERP, and we still don’t know exactly how much weight is given to each of the various components. White hat SEO guidelines work with what we do know about SEO to give your website the best possible chance at succeeding, so don’t ruin those chances by getting in your own way.
Here are 3 ways you may be hindering the success of your SEO campaign:
Too many cooks in the kitchen.
One of the easiest ways to sideline your SEO success is when you have too many people involved in the process. While a chain of command is important, as is keeping everyone in the loop, companies have to be able to effectively decide who needs to be involved in what decision. For instance, does your IT director really need to weigh in on during the social media marketing strategy? And vice versa, should your social media marketing expert be involved in a meeting about coding issues? It’s important that one hand knows what the other is doing, but sooner or later someone is going to have to pull the trigger and green light your SEO campaign. If every member of your staff needs to throw their two cents in every step of the way, it’ll only drag out the process.
No defined goals.
“We want to increase visitors” is one of the more common SEO goals I hear from potential SEO clients. And while they’re circling the right idea, you need to take it one step further and outline exactly what you are looking for from your SEO campaign. If you don’t establish benchmarks at the beginning, how will you be able to measure your progress? I’m not saying you need to sit down and come up with a specific number (12.6% increase in 4 months!), but you do need to have a clear end goal. Are you trying to add more people to your newsletter subscriber list? Are you trying to encourage more people to download a trial version of your product? Do you want to increase the number of lead forms visitors are filling out on your site? When you can create a clear list of defined goals, your SEO campaign can be crafted to help you achieve those objectives. If you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, you’re SEO won’t have any real sense of direction and it will take longer to see results.
Dumping money.
A common problem I see with many websites is that they just decide to dump money into their PPC campaigns, as opposed to actually sitting down and working out a SEO strategy. Some websites treat PPC like the band aid to their online marketing problems. While the nice thing about PPC campaigns is that they are easily measurable and often have a quick return, unlike SEO which is long term and less easy to measure ROI, PPC is only one component of an online marketing strategy. Without a strong organic presence (that can only be earned through SEO), a $10,000 a month PPC budget won’t be as effective as it could be. In my experience, PPC ads are great for branded searches, but reaching new visitors is best done through SEO.
These are just three of the more common mistakes I see companies and site owners doing that can hinder the long term success of their SEO campaigns. Don’t make SEO any harder than it needs to be and get out of your own way!
About the Author – Nick Stamoulis
Nick Stamoulis, SEO consultant and President of Brick Marketing a Boston SEO firm. With over 12 years of industry experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his SEO knowledge by posting daily tips to his SEO blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal, and publishing the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter, read by over 160,000 opt-in subscribers.
Contact Nick Stamoulis at 781-999-1222 or nick@brickmarketing.com