Click
Here for more
articles
|
|
3
Deadly Search Engine Marketing Sins
|
by: John
Gergye
|
Copyright
2004 John Gergye
My inbox this week provided glaring examples of three all too common
rookie search engine marketing mistakes. What you could call three
deadly search engine marketing sins. Starting with
===> Inadequate Keyword Research
Hey! If you’re going to spend hours developing a web site,
isn’t it smart to invest some time to insure you’re
focusing on the most traffic laden keywords?
Especially when typically the plural form of a keyword phrase generates
way more traffic than the singular form. For example "dog dishes"
rather than "dog dish".
Yet just this week I was asked to look at a site that had focused on
the singular form. Evidently the owner hadn’t bothered to do
any digging to make sure that was their best keyword move.
Look, you’ll never know for sure unless you research it.
Besides, you can access Wordtracker, the tool of choice for what? a
measly $7 a day.
Even better here’s a quick and dirty way to get the most out
of that day.
Search for your target keyword in Google.
Visit the top ranking sites. Use the "View Source" feature of Internet
Explorer to check out the keyword meta tag of each site. You're looking
for a site listing lots of keywords there. Do this with each of the top
listings or until you find one stuffed to the gills with keywords.
Ah-ha! There’s your starting point for your list of likely
keyword phrases.
Repeat with a couple of other sites and you’ll soon have a
long list of candidates to check out in Wordtracker.
Enhance your list further using this tool:
http://www.promoteindia.com/keywordtool-beta.htm.
It will give you more keyword ideas from Google and Overture.
Now you’re ready for Wordtracker.
Once you’ve compiled your Wordtracker results, you could
simply sort by KEI and then by searches per day.
That gives you the strongest keywords with the most searches. (And yes,
I realize KEI assumes all search engine listings are of equal value.
But I did say this was "quick and dirty" didn't I? However if you want
another approach that improves on KEI there’s a spreadsheet
available at
http://www.seo-works.com/seo-resources/keyword-effectiveness-rank.html)
Anyway, once you're sorted your keywords in some way to highlight the
most profitable, simply take the top 25 on the list and create content
for those first. No, not every one will be a natural born traffic
magnet. But enough of them will be to get the ball rolling.
Repeat with the next 25. Don’t stop until you have at least
100 pages of hot content.
Remember, two or three word keyword phrases are usually your best bets.
And I really like keyword phrases that are actually several keyword
phrases in one. For example "irish setter dog dishes" gives "irish
setter", "irish setter dog", "dog", "dog dishes", "setter dog dishes".
===> Site Bloat
Twice this week I was asked to look at sites that would have let me
read War and Peace while waiting for them to come up. And no visitor is
going to have a copy of that handy.
To avoid losing any precious visitors lose the huge graphics. One of
the sites had a graphic 501K in size! No wonder it took nearly two
minutes to load up on a 56K modem.
Then too lose the Flash - unless you have a very good reason for using
it. Even then lose the Flash.
If you’re wondering how your site's download time measures up
test it here: http://www.netmechanic.com/toolbox/html-code.htm
It won’t cost anything to find out. But a slow loading site
can cost you plenty. Because as the Net Mechanics follow up reports
says, it's a good idea to keep your page load times under about 12
seconds on a 28.8 modem. Otherwise your visitors will be wearing out
the back button trying to escape.
===> Too Few Links
Did you know links can account for up to 80% of your success with
Google? Yet someone else complained to me about how much work it took
to get them.
Well doh! Ever think that maybe that’s why (in part) Google
assigns so much value to links? Because you can’t quite as
easily game links as you can on page content? Meaning you actually have
to work to get links. Both by having link worthy content and by
actively seeking them out on a regular basis.
It’s a given that most niches require you have a healthy
collection of links to be competitive. Yet if you’re lucky
enough to be in a niche that doesn’t, but you do, then you
can easily dominate those rankings.
Anyway in a nutshell you can easily avoid these three search engine
sins. Do your keyword homework. Keep your pages on a strict diet. And
don't forget link up with as many other quality sites as you can.
Do all that and you’re well on your way to search engine
success. Ignore this advice and you’re, well you know, your
Google goose is probably cooked. Leaving you perpetually stuck in
Google purgatory.
About the author:
John Gergye shares more ideas like this in his just updated eBook
"Traffic From Google in 35 Days". Find out more here:
http://www.traffic-test-tube.com/j/tfg35cl.shtml
Or test your search engine IQ by taking his seo quiz
http://www.traffic-test-tube.com/search-engine-quiz.shtml
and get the free special report "Coming Out On Top".
Circulated
by Article
Emporium
|
|