7 Mistakes To Avoid When Choosing SEO
November 5, 2011
1. Not understanding what kind of reporting/feedback you will be receiving and when.
How’s your SEO going? Often SEO suppliers tell you that a lot is going on but realistically provide no real insight as to what they are doing. A good SEO supplier should have a list of activities they complete each month on your behalf and should be able to provide documentation of these activities. This documentation should include things like:
a) A list of web addresses where articles have been publish
b) A list of press release website where press releases have been published
c) A list of directories your website has been submitted to
d) A list of ‘live’ blog comments that link back to your site, not just where comments have been submitted. Otherwise they may never get published and this work is a waste of time.
e) A list of ‘live’ forum posts, not just where forum posts have been written. Otherwise they never get published and this work is a waste of time.It’s not necessary that your SEO supplier send this information to you every month, as the time taken to produce the reports might better be spent optimising your website. However, this kind of information should be available to you upon request.
2. SEO Company will not supply a weekly ranking report
A good SEO supplier should send you weekly ranking reports. These will show your chosen keywords and the Bing, Yahoo and Google positions your website is currently in for each. This report should detail your movement in rankings (whether up or down) and will be a key indicator of how well you are doing. The SEO provider should not just drop the reports in your lap, but comment, provide feedback and react to the ranking changes in real time with a current plan of action.
3. The SEO supplier’s content is awful!
The cry ‘content is king’ might be a little long in the tooth, but it still needs to be covered. Without intelligently written, compelling content pointing back to your website, you are going to have a hard time generating business from Google.Your SEO supplier should be up front about what content they are going to write, who is going to write it, and be ready to provide an example portfolio of high quality articles they have provided for existing clients. A poor SEO provider will get articles written by cheap, foreign writers. They will come from places like India or the Philippines to reduce their costs, but the content will be sub-par at best. All articles are not the same and many of these cheap articles are considered spam. With Google’s ever-evolving methods to locate and drop rankings of sites that provide less than high quality content, a good SEO provider will not place your rankings at risk with poor content. Also, consider the fact that these articles will be linking directly to your website and will represent your brand.
4. The SEO supplier only generates text content
Before Google’s algorithm changes, such as the Google Panda update, it was enough to write keyword rich articles and distribute them across the web to gain valuable back links. Times have changed, and content still needs to be created in text format, but also should be in video form, audio, and images. Your SEO supplier should be able to show you what kinds of content they are creating and provide examples of the media mentioned above. Without using all avenues available to increase your rankings, your SEO investment will be more fragile, and a Google algorithm change is more likely to adversely affect your search rankings.5. SEO supplier has no experience with your platform.
Your website will be built a certain way, probably using a content management system or ecommerce engine. (Some of the popular ones include – Magento, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, Xcart)Performing search engine optimisation with the Joomla platform is very different than on Magento. Your SEO provider should have experience with the particular platform you are using and should have evidence that they have optimised a site using the same platform as yours. If you choose a supplier that does not understand how to optimise your platform, you will essentially be paying for them to learn how to do it. There are certain applications and extensions available for optimising specific platforms and it takes skill and experience to understand and implement this.
6. Important keyword selection is delegated to a junior
Proper keyword selection is one of the most important elements to a successful SEO campaign. A poor SEO provider will spend little time researching and selecting the best keywords to optimise for your website. Or they will delegate this vital task to an office junior, or worst still to a non-native English speaking individual. Keywords are so important to SEO that proper research should be done up front.Alarm bells should go off if an SEO provider recommends possible keywords for your business before they have:
1. Looked at what keywords are currently converting in Google Analytics
2. Asked you if you run Google Ad words and if so, if they could have a look at the account.
3. Asked for your top three competitors, who they can then look at through a professional tool that shows how these competitors are generating sales and traffic from the Internet.Preferably, an SEO supplier should also do website conversion rate enhancement work, as these skills will help them select the right keywords to target for your business. Only an SEO provider that understands the selling process can select the correct keywords.
7. SEO Supplier has zero Google Adwords experience
Even though you are choosing a provider that specialises in SEO, they should also have a solid track record with Google Adwords. Google Adwords is the paid version of SEO, that involves the purchase of keywords and placing advertisements on them. Why is this important experience? A company that has experience with Google Adwords and can show positive ROI in this area will also have their finger on the pulse of SEO. An SEO specialist that can do well at Google Adwords will also be able to:
a) Understand exactly what keywords will convert into sales, as they will have experience in choosing from thousands of keywords for a business.
b) Decide exactly what Meta descriptions to use in the websites Meta tags.
Point two is very important. As mentioned earlier, many SEO companies think that a page one results is the ultimate goal. However, if people are not clicking on that result and instead are choosing your competition, this will be because of the wording used on the Google search results page. Optimising this wording is very similar to how you have to optimise an advert in Google Adwords. Not getting good click through rate is like having a shop on the high street that no one goes into. Plenty of people will be looking at your shop front, but no one is going in.