Businesses put a lot of investment into their online marketing strategies, and rightly so. The internet has the potential to convert small-time businesses into conglomerates. While the potential is endless, you will need a plan to get your business thriving on the internet.
Unfortunately, a lot of companies are either not maximizing their possibilities or simply use methods that don’t work anymore. In this piece, we focus on SEO, a core aspect of internet marketing.
Virtually every online merchant uses SEO, and often times they have a wrong approach.
Here are 3 things you’re doing wrong.
1. Not working with the right people
Working with the right team of professionals is very important if you are serious about SEO. Online marketing is a vast and multifaceted domain that needs a team to work through. There is a big workload and you need different people who will do their bit skillfully.
You don’t need assemble professionals that you rent office space for; it is not such an expensive venture, at least not with the internet on hand. Source your projects to different agencies with the requisite professionals. You will spend very little outsourcing tasks if you already know a thing or two about SEO since you don’t have to give everything to other professionals. Finding a reputable agency for such work is important so that everything works together nicely.
Getting online marketing experts
You need about 4 experts who have the know-how in different areas of SEO to get everything you need. There are numerous professionals on the internet that can create great unique content for your website. Ensure you check the credentials and past projects for each before handing them your projects. The right team should include experts such as;
- Designers
- Writers
- Social media experts
- SEO experts
This is basically the whole package. This kind of team works on all aspects of your website from the look to the content, rankings and visibility. A lot of online businesses neglect one or the other of these attributes and consequently miss out on a higher ranking and a wider outreach.
2. Using the wrong link strategy
Backlinks are an important part of SEO marketing. Search engines are favorable to authority sites and backlinks are the best way to get some credibility on the internet. As a matter of fact, 90% participants in a State of Link Building survey in 2016 said that they used guest postings and content promotion/publication for an effective link strategy.
A further 78% of those who took part declared link building the most successful strategy for improving SEO.
Before you start off creating backlinks for your site, you have to remember to only use quality links. The growth also needs to take a natural course. You run the risk of raising red flags if you have too many backlinks too quickly. Google will also penalize you if you use links to websites that have been flagged or those with poor domain authority, which is
anything below 20.
Google is always keen to provide its users with quality content, which means the same goes for your website. Guest-blogs and link directories that look spammy are to be avoided at all costs. The only way to go is to write high quality content that provides actual value.
Share your content with the influential sites in your niche where you can get a larger audience and combine this with social media promotion. Establishing lasting relationships with influencers is important too so that you can always pitch a good idea and have it published to the readership.
This kind of link building takes longer than coming up with hundreds of bogus backlinks whose sources are questionable. However, you will have more than you need if you can find 4 high authority sites that can get you actual leads.
3. Keywords are always important
Just some time back, keywords were all the rage but today, content wins over keywords. That might be as it is, but keywords are still important for search engine ranking. Online businesses are getting it all wrong though.
A lot of businesses target the wrong keywords and many more are guilty of keyword stuffing. Search engines know when you are trying to game the system and will penalize you for it. Word-for-word repetition can easily be identified by the search engine and will damage your ranking.
It’s better to have synonyms of the keywords and allow the keywords to occur naturally all through the content.
Utilize tools which are readily available online so that youknow which keywords to target.
When it comes to picking the right keywords, forget about the ones with the highest volume. Instead, go for applicable long-tail keywords that are typically a 3 to 4 word phrase. Choose those with a reasonable search volume and apply them.
Doing your homework is important in finding keywords that will bring about the results you are looking for. Find out what keywords are trending in your niche and incorporate those in your content. This means that you should constantly stay on top of the latest in terms of keywords and keep refreshing your content every now and then.
By now, you know that SEO is not meant only for the search engine but for the people visiting your site too.
With this in mind, you also need to remember just how vital SEO is to your online presence and put in the financial investment. Most businesses don’t have a budget for their SEO strategy and often end up doing too little.
It is advisable to have a dedicated budget that fuels your SEO campaign.
Companies that have put in the financial investment have enjoyed success with search engines because every aspect of their website is covered. With the right budget, all you have to do is make sure you avoid these often overlooked pitfalls. However, mistakes will always happen at one point or another. Keep scrapping off parts of your online marketing strategy that don’t work
and keep testing your current strategy to ensure it still applies to the prevailing SEO trends. Never forget to do away with the mistakes of yestertimes and focus on the promise of greater ideas.