Frankly, the biggest search engine optimization mistake you can make is not doing any SEO at all. It’s amazing how many people believe “if you build it, they will come.” Marketing coaching makes one thing clear. Just putting a site up on the Internet won’t get you the traffic you want or need. By the same token, building a site and then thinking about SEO after the fact is a bad plan too. SEO needs to be at the heart of your Web plans from day one, and it’s a job that’s never “finished.”
Learn What’s Bad For SEO And Don’t Do It
If you take a drawing class, one of the first things you’ll learn is that it’s easier to look at the negative space than at the object itself. That means that as a beginner, you have a better shot at recreating the funky-looking space between the apple and the pear than drawing the fruit the first time you pick up a pencil. And you don’t get so discouraged when your results aren’t perfect. That’s a good concept to carry into online marketing.
Sometimes learning everything that can go wrong is a better place to start than trying to do everything right. Do-it-yourself, affordable SEO is too expensive at any cost if you’re constantly shooting yourself in the foot. Some of the biggest mistakes novices make are really the easiest ones to avoid!
Bad Navigation And No Sitemap
It doesn’t take a marketing coach to know that the entire point of “search engine optimization” on a site is to get that site crawled by the search engines. If you use images — or worse — Flash or javascript to design your navigation, the search engines will ignore you. (Also, any page that doesn’t have an incoming link won’t be crawled.)
Not having a sitemap is just as bad. Many website owners don’t think they need a sitemap because people don’t use them. It’s not about people! Search engines love sitemaps. They literally crawl all over sitemaps. Even if you have to maintain the sitemap manually, have one and link to it on every page of your site.
Poorly Constructed Title Tags And URLs
There’s nothing wrong with building your own website, but pay attention to what your software is doing. Many site building packages and content management systems repeat the same title tag on every single page. Good programs of marketing coaching teach you that the title tag is probably the single most-important SEO element of any page. The title tag must fit the content of the page itself.
But, don’t pay attention to the title tag and ignore the URL. This is especially a problem in content management systems and shopping carts. The URLs are full of numbers and letters. You need to be including your keywords in your URLs so the search engines pick up on them. Don’t waste the invaluable potential in either the title tag or the URL.
Banning A Search Engine By Accident
It’s not unusual for a novice site owner to mess up their robots.txt file. The file exists in your site’s root directory to talk to search engine spiders. You can tell them not to crawl pages or sections or send other individual instructions. Since the file is just plain text and is so easy to create, site owners wade in without really understanding what they’re doing. If you’re not careful, you can ban the search engines from your site altogether. Use Yahoo SiteExplorer or Google SiteMaps to make sure that your site can indeed by crawled.
Vague Anchor Text For Links
Using anchor text like “click here” or “next” is a waste. When you are cultivating incoming links or creating your own links inside your site, use useful, descriptive anchor text. You don’t want to repeat the same phrase over and over again. Get two or three relevant, keyword-rich pieces of anchor text and also use your company name. Empty phrases are just that — empty.
Doing accurate keyword research is fundamental to successful online marketing. It’s a huge topic in its own right, but you basically want to concentrate on phrases that are not overly general or that have too much competition. Good marketing coaches will spend a lot of time on keyword selection and you should too. Put that chore right up at the top of your SEO “to do” list.
In reading all the tips available on marketing coaching, you’ll find that most articles and courses focus on the things website owners should do. It’s also important to look at what you shouldn’t do. A poorly constructed site that fails to make good use of readable navigation, workable behind-the-scenes code, solid naming structures, and relevant anchor text will have a tough time online. Consider the fundamentals of basic SEO from the planning stage of your site to maximize your results and get the traffic you want.
Editor’s Note: This article published here.
…
Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a realistic budget. He’s a Marketing Coaching expert offering professional marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). He also offers Read more articles written by Paul Marshall
Related posts:
- The Top 7 Article Marketing Mistakes Solo Entrepreneurs Make (and how to avoid them)
Offering “free-reprint” articles to targeted audiences is one of the most effective and low-cost methods to become a recognized expert on the internet, establish credibility and generate long-term targeted traffic to your website. Well-written, informational articles are always in great demand by thousands of publishers and editors of websites, newsgroups,... - The Top Ten Mistakes Made in Job Interviews and How to Avoid Them
You did it! You impressed your future employer to the point where they called you in for a face-to-face job interview. This is your chance to go in there in person and shine. Now that you’ve been given this opportunity, it’s critical that you don’t waste it. Here are the... - 3 Key Points in Online Marketing to Avoid Tanking Your Results
With all the changes in Google AdWords and the increased competition these days, organic SEO looks more and more attractive to most of us. The key is for your website optimization to out-perform your competition, without over spending with an online marketing consultant (or without taking up too much of... - Avoid Keyword Suicide in Your Network Marketing or Online Business
If you’re involved in Network Marketing or MLM – same thing, different verbiage – one of the biggest challenges you will have is driving traffic to your web site. Now this could be your product site or you business opportunity site. In many Network Marketing companies (if not all), you... - Article Marketing – Writing for the Internet
Article marketing incorporates writing carefully and concisely for a target audience on the Internet. While all writing begins with good grammar, accurate spelling and compelling content, there are several differences between print writing and online writing in both structure and purpose. Online articles tend to be shorter than printed text,... - Internet Marketing – Why 2010 Will Be A White Knuckle Ride For Web Marketers
Next year may just prove to be one of the most challenging times for pursuing online or Internet marketing on the web. It may just be a watershed moment for many marketers struggling to keep abreast of all the different factors which have come into play in recent months. Most... - Supercharge Your Internet Marketing Using the Improved Google Keyword Tool
As an Internet Marketing Consultant, I know that whether using pay-per-click (PPC) or organic search engine optimization (SEO), the process begins with our research keyword. This is true whether you’re doing your work yourself or working with an SEO Consultant. The search engine ranking for our chosen keywords consumes us,... - Santa Claus is Dead — But Internet Marketing Get Rich Scams Aren’t
Yes, Santa Claus IS really dead. Sorry for the news. And you might want to keep the kids from looking over your shoulder here for the next few minutes. As an Internet Marketing Coach, I hear all the time from new clients how they’ve wasted hundreds to thousands on Internet... - The Six Degrees of Internet Marketing
The theory behind the Six Degrees of Separation is that all people on earth can be connected together in as little as six steps. The concept was made fun in the 1990′s, with the creation of The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (oracleofbacon.org) – which is a website that documents... - Top 5 SEO Copywriting Mistakes That Will Cost You Money
Just as there are different ways of writing for novels, for advertising and for films, there is a way to write for the Internet. To find content on the web we use search engines. To make sure the search engines find our content we optimize it. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)... - Work From Home With Internet Marketing For Online Businesses
Picture waking up tomorrow, not to some amazingly annoying alarm clock… but to peace and quiet. After you complete your morning routine of grabbing a little breakfast, and maybe some coffee, you stroll the 20 something feet on over to your home office. And you smile wide as you notice... - Marlon Sanders: The Hero in the Internet Marketing World
If there should be a hero in the internet marketing world, Marlon Sanders would be it. Marlon Sanders is one of the most respected and also the most popular internet marketers in the world. He is even considered as the marketer’s marketer. Marlon Sanders is known to sell some of... - Article Marketing for Internet Affiliate Programs
When you decided that the time was right to look for business opportunities that let you work from home online, internet marketing affiliate programs like those offered by Click Booth were likely a big draw – for good reason; they make it possible to make money fast. For those affiliate... - Newsletter Publishers: The Redheaded Step Children Of Internet Marketing
People who publish online newsletters, often referred to as “ezines”, have always played an important role in the growth of the Internet economy. In fact, if you listen to any of the Internet gurus, they are going to tell you time and again that the most important thing you can... - How to Give a Compelling Internet Marketing Presentation on Stage
One of the perceived challenges of giving a live presentation on Internet marketing is that the process is somehow inherently different from doing the same presentation in an online environment. In fact, this is not really the case at all. Many people forget that online methods of presentation have their...