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SEO Mistakes Could Be Hurting Your Bottom Line

Remember phonebooks? It wasn’t that long ago that the primary way customers found businesses was by pulling out those big yellow monstrosities and tirelessly thumbing through pages trying to figure out the difference between automotive, automotive services, and auto mechanics. Thanks to the Internet and highly effective search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing, customers now look up specific keywords for any business or service from their phones and expect to get a long list of credible results, customer reviews, special offers — even detailed directions to the business. All of this in addition to the phone number and address traditionally found in the phonebook.

However, because the scope of the Internet is so vast, it is harder than ever for businesses to be found. Even if your business has the marketing budget to pay for an extensive Search Engine Marketing campaign (like Pay Per Click advertising), you still need a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.

There is a lot of confusion, though, about how to best optimize a website. While there are a number of tried and true strategies, many businesses are making mistakes that are costing them valuable real estate on search engines’ results pages, which means less visibility—and less visibility means less revenue. Here are some of the most common SEO mistakes:

  1. Cheap SEO – Remember the saying, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is”? If your SEO provider uses the keywords “cheap,” “guaranteed rankings,” or “be number one in less than one month,” run! These services can do long-term, even permanent, damage – sometimes costing tens of thousands of dollars to reverse. Do it right the first time! Also, see our recent blog post about Automated Directory Listing Services.
  2. Not having an SEO strategy — There is one sure way of not showing up on search engines; don’t try. If you aren’t proactive about SEO, a potential customer will never find you with an organic search. What’s worse, if your competitor does have a strategy, YOUR customer just became THEIR customer because they couldn’t find you online.
  3. Choosing keywords unwisely – To find the right customers, you need to make sure that the keywords they are searching are represented on your site. Keywords that are too general or too specific could be preventing customers from finding you. Finding that balance requires experience.
  4. Spamming Keywords – Once upon a time, online marketers would simply “spam” as many keywords as possible to boost search results. Search engines today are much more sophisticated, so, while keywords are still important, they shouldn’t represent more than 2% of the content on a given page.
  5. Ignoring Content – Search engines are keen to content. If your site doesn’t have quality copy or isn’t regularly updated with relevant, specific content related to your keywords, search engines will assume the site has become irrelevant or that your company has closed its doors. Has this happened to you? Did you used to show up in the search results and now you don’t? How long has it been since you’ve published a new piece of content?
  6. Not having a mobile-ready site – More than 50% of all searches are being made from a mobile device of some kind. Because screen sizes and upload speeds vary, your site needs to have a responsive layout that will display its contents appropriately and quickly on any device.

An SEO Team That Can Help

303 Webhouse has a team of SEO specialists who have in-depth knowledge of the way search engines operate and a proven record of boosting search engine results. We offer SEO for new or current sites and can even provide optimized web copy and regular blog posts to keep your content current. If your site is lost in an endless list of search results, contact us today. We can help you connect with your customers.

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