SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – Common Mistakes to Avoid For Greater Success
Sunday, November 29th, 2009
Beth McNally asked:
If you’re doing affiliate marketing or running your own Internet business, you hear about SEO (search engine optimization) all the time. There’s a common sense reason for this: the higher in the search engine results pages your website ranks for relevant searches, the more traffic you’re going to get. Little traffic means little money. But people are constantly making SEO mistakes, costing themselves potentially big money.
*Some people ignore it entirely. Now this sounds crazy–because it is. Yet, the reason why people do this is because they assume that the techniques are too difficult or too time consuming to worry about. So, they rationalize that it’s all overrated and they really shouldn’t need it for their success. If their content is informative and their product offers are competitive, isn’t that enough? No, it isn’t enough, because none of that stuff, as important as it is, addresses the problem of getting people to find you in the first place. There is simply too much content on the Internet for affiliate marketing professionals to ignore search engine optimization. And one myth that you never want to buy into: that all you have to do is submit your site and articles to search engine directories (which is nonsense).
The good news is: it’s not difficult and the extra time put into it pays off huge returns on investment if done right.
*Some people don’t put much thought into their keyword use. This is another truly crazy practice which belongs in Ripley’s “Believe It Or Not”. Keyword and keyword phrase use is the single most important part of SEO, with the META tags and descriptions a close second. Keyword use is critical on every page of your website, and for your article marketing efforts. If you don’t do this right then you really are wasting a lot of your time, and losing a lot of money. Affiliate marketing professionals must use keyword research tools and then be sure to write content chock full of those words and phrases without resorting to “black hat” search engine marketing. Poor use of keywords as either a black hat or just weak concentration only leads to lowered search engine rankings.
*Affiliates often don’t rework their existing content as they learn more or as things change. Does anything move faster than the speed of business change? Keyword phrases that were smoking hot yesterday are cooled off today. If you wrote a lot of content with them in the text three months ago and now you find through your research that there are hotter relevant key phrases being searched for, go back into your content and just edit it so that you can put the newest hot search terms in there. And what if you weren’t even very good at SEO before? As you’re learning more, why can’t you go back and edit your content via your new insights? Web crawler programs love fresh content, so by editing old content you give them more of this to find, too.
*Affiliate marketing professionals must have an easy to read and follow website. Search engine optimized keywords must be natural-seeming and nicely spaced out. Paragraphs should not be too long. Bullets and subheadings help keep readers’ eyes moving. These aspects keep people coming back and help you get more linkbacks–two very important page rank elements.
SEO cannot be ignored and its importance cannot be diminished. But affiliate marketing newcomers don’t have to be intimidated by it, either.
Website search engine optimization
If you’re doing affiliate marketing or running your own Internet business, you hear about SEO (search engine optimization) all the time. There’s a common sense reason for this: the higher in the search engine results pages your website ranks for relevant searches, the more traffic you’re going to get. Little traffic means little money. But people are constantly making SEO mistakes, costing themselves potentially big money.
*Some people ignore it entirely. Now this sounds crazy–because it is. Yet, the reason why people do this is because they assume that the techniques are too difficult or too time consuming to worry about. So, they rationalize that it’s all overrated and they really shouldn’t need it for their success. If their content is informative and their product offers are competitive, isn’t that enough? No, it isn’t enough, because none of that stuff, as important as it is, addresses the problem of getting people to find you in the first place. There is simply too much content on the Internet for affiliate marketing professionals to ignore search engine optimization. And one myth that you never want to buy into: that all you have to do is submit your site and articles to search engine directories (which is nonsense).
The good news is: it’s not difficult and the extra time put into it pays off huge returns on investment if done right.
*Some people don’t put much thought into their keyword use. This is another truly crazy practice which belongs in Ripley’s “Believe It Or Not”. Keyword and keyword phrase use is the single most important part of SEO, with the META tags and descriptions a close second. Keyword use is critical on every page of your website, and for your article marketing efforts. If you don’t do this right then you really are wasting a lot of your time, and losing a lot of money. Affiliate marketing professionals must use keyword research tools and then be sure to write content chock full of those words and phrases without resorting to “black hat” search engine marketing. Poor use of keywords as either a black hat or just weak concentration only leads to lowered search engine rankings.
*Affiliates often don’t rework their existing content as they learn more or as things change. Does anything move faster than the speed of business change? Keyword phrases that were smoking hot yesterday are cooled off today. If you wrote a lot of content with them in the text three months ago and now you find through your research that there are hotter relevant key phrases being searched for, go back into your content and just edit it so that you can put the newest hot search terms in there. And what if you weren’t even very good at SEO before? As you’re learning more, why can’t you go back and edit your content via your new insights? Web crawler programs love fresh content, so by editing old content you give them more of this to find, too.
*Affiliate marketing professionals must have an easy to read and follow website. Search engine optimized keywords must be natural-seeming and nicely spaced out. Paragraphs should not be too long. Bullets and subheadings help keep readers’ eyes moving. These aspects keep people coming back and help you get more linkbacks–two very important page rank elements.
SEO cannot be ignored and its importance cannot be diminished. But affiliate marketing newcomers don’t have to be intimidated by it, either.
Website search engine optimization
