SEO Mistake #2: Waiting Too Long To Think About SEO
Whether you’re setting up a new website or revamping an existing one, you have a million things on your mind. You’re thinking about things like, choosing the right logo, colors and graphics and hiring the right web designer, programmer and writer. Just to name a few.
Each of the professionals you hire will tell you the one thing that is most important for your website – from their perspective. The designer will say that the colors and graphics must be first rate. The programmer will say that the site must function properly and to do so, it must have first rate coding. And, the writer will tell you that nothing matters but what you say. After all, if no one can read your website, no one will buy.
They’re all right, of course. But none of what they say will matter if no one arrives at your website. In order to drive new visitors to your site, you need search engines.
Customer First, SEO Second
Unfortunately, many small business owners find themselves in a situation where they’ve spent thousands of dollars on a site their customers won’t even be able to find. Why? Customers can’t find the site because it can’t be indexed by the search engines.
What does this mean?
Search engines use programs called robots or spiders that “crawl” the Internet. Basically, these automated programs follow links from one web page or website to another. When they find new content or a new website, they index, or save, what they find. Then, when a visitor to the search engine results page (SERP) types in a keyword, the information that is in the search engine’s index, and that is most relevant to the keyword phrase, is displayed to the visitor. The visitor then clicks on the result that he thinks will best meet his needs.
You can make sure your site is easy to index by following these 5 guidelines:
- Make SEO your first priority. Find a reputable SEO professional who can advise you on what your website needs in order to be search engine friendly.
- Stay involved in the website building process and make sure you know exactly what methods each professional is using in the construction of your site.
- Avoid website that are built in Flash or Ajax or that hide your content in a graphic. Spiders can’t read content that is hidden in Flash, Ajax or a graphic. Even worse, these websites can be hard for your customers to use.
- Avoid using session IDs in addresses to your website. This is particularly important if you have a forum or shopping cart on your site. If you take a look at the address bar of your site as you navigate through it, make sure that the address is not followed by a long string of numbers. This is typically a session ID and they tend to confuse the spiders. A confused spider is not going to index your site properly.
- Avoid frames. Not only do they hide your content from the spiders if not setup properly -- they are so 1999.
Follow through with SEO
The guidelines above will help you make sure that the site you setup or revamp will be built in a search engine friendly manner. This will go a long way towards making your site indexable.
But, you can’t stop there.
Just like a building contractor can’t stop when the foundation is complete, and a golfer can’t stop his swing the moment his club hits the ball, you need to follow through on your SEO efforts.
Following through with keyword research, onsite and offsite SEO efforts will ensure that your customers can and will find their way to your website for years to come.
Stay tuned for next week's SEO article. Or, stop by the new website of Volition and get a jump with your own personalized site review.
SEO Mistake #1: Hiring SEO Companies that Spam You
I'm often asked what is the biggest mistake first-timers make when they decide to use SEO techniques to optimize their website.
Hiring a company you found out about through a spammy (ie; questionable) manner
The very first tip off that this might be a bad idea? If they had to market their OWN company and risk their OWN business reputation to get clients, how do you think they will market YOUR website? Yeah, prepare to be blacklisted from the search engines for spamming, or worse.
Finding your way through the labyrinth of conflicting search engine optimization information can be confusing and frustrating, no matter how much experience you have. So when you suddenly receive an email in your inbox promising guaranteed results… you’re tempted.
Don’t give in.
First, these emails almost always offer a scam – a way of manipulating the search engine results that either doesn’t work, or can get you blacklisted from the search engines even if the method does work.
Definition of Blacklisted: Denial of access. Getting your website either banned or boycotted in the search engines. Shut out.
For example, the company may promise to submit your site to 1,000 search engines or 500 directories. Sounds good, right?
Scam: Submitting your site to thousands of search engines
The trouble is that there are only four true search engines in existence: Google, Yahoo, ASK and BING (formerly MSN/Live). Every other search site you use pulls their results from the four mentioned above. So, if your site appears in one of the four, it will appear in the search engine results pages, known as SERPs, on any other search engine site.
Scam: Submitting your site to dozens of directories
As for the 500 directories – do your homework. The only directories that are going to do you any good are those that are related to your industry and are doing decently well themselves. So if you’re selling handcrafted wooden toys, a wedding directory is not going to help you any. However, a directory of American made toys would be perfect. Or a directory of natural, non-toxic toys may drive actual customers to your site.
You may think that having your site listed in unrelated directories will help your site, after all, what’s one more link going to hurt, right?
The trouble with that thinking is, if you have three high-quality sites linking to you and all other links are spammy, unrelated directories, those links will actually reflect poorly on your site. It’s better to focus on receiving high-quality links from sites that rank well in the search engines and have actual visitors who are interested in what you have to offer.
Scam: Promising the moon
Unscrupulous SEO companies also tend to promise you #1 ranking in a particular search engine for certain keywords. The problem is that the SEO companies cannot control the results that appear in the search engines. What they do to make it appear that you’re getting results is use black hat methods to artificially affect your rankings. This is temporary, at best, because the techniques they use violate search engine terms of service, putting you at risk for getting your website banned from the search engines.
Techniques that are a violation of search engine TOS include:
- Keyword stuffing
- Hidden text and links
- Doorway and cloaked pages
- Link farming
- Blog comment spam
Avoid these techniques, and any SEO scam a company sends you in a spam email and you’ll have more resources to spend on techniques that actually work.
Finally, keep this in mind: Emails that try to sell you something, that are sent in bulk from a company you don’t have any kind of relationship with, is spam and it’s against the law. The last company you want fiddling around with your online pride and joy is one that is willing to break the law to get your attention.
In spite of what the spam says, when you’re optimizing your website steady and slow is the way to go. NEVER do business with a company or person who spams you.
So, who should you hire for your SEO needs then? Stay tuned for next week's article about how to find a reliable organic search engine optimization company. Or, take a look at the new face of Volition and consider us for your SEO needs.
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