4 Most Common Small Business Search Engine Marketing Mistakes
Once you get the taste for ranking on the search engines it becomes a bug. A nervous tick that keeps you awake at night pondering how your website can rank higher for more keywords. In some instances for a small business owner trying to gain exposure on the internet without a large web presence they may be tempted to trick the search engine but this can lead to disaster.
Have you ever been flagged in your Google Places account or had your website appearing on the 1st page one day and the 7th page the next? Then you need to read this article about the 4 most common mistakes small businesses make when utilizing search engine marketing.
1) Patience Instant gratification is great but anything on the internet takes time. It is normal to expect movement in rankings after changing your web presence although the search engines have to do their due diligence first. We suggest making optimizations to your website all at once then allowing the changes to be indexed and cached by Google before making more changes. Allow 3 4 weeks for changes to reflect.
2) Grey Hat SEO One of the most common issues we see are small businesses padding the name of their Google Places Listing with keywords. This may work for a little while but ultimately will hurt your ranking once the search companys robot finds out. It is never a good idea to just pad the keywords in instead of working them into the content. Some websites we come across have html files, alt/title tags and images being named long strings of keyword. A better approach would be to utilize one keyword in these elements or mash words together that are different but create many keywords you are going for.
3) Web Presence More websites is not always a good idea. Sometimes we get clients with 5 10 websites all for the same company. If each website had different information including telephone numbers and different overall intentions they would be alright but still unnecessary. However, if each website has the same contact info and site data it will only creates confusion for the search engines.
4) Paid Placement Another common mistake we see from small business owners is PPC through Adwords for placement on the 1st page. It is ok to use paid placement to rank if you are waiting for your organic growth from local SEO but you can lose that placement as soon as the money dries up. Organic ranking on Google does not get charged per click and will not go away once you stop paying, do not be fooled by front page placement that is not through search engine optimization.
It is true that anyone is capable of getting to the first page of Google but the internet marketing industry is changing rapidly and the algorithm for searches is always expanding. Also there are more robots scanning the web than ever looking for improper usage of linking and content.
If you can find a local SEO company with a good reputation, competitive price tag and a team that is accountable plus answers the phone, then you may as well go with them. They will be able to do the job quicker and more efficiently than someone who does not work with the search engines daily.
Have you ever been flagged in your Google Places account or had your website appearing on the 1st page one day and the 7th page the next? Then you need to read this article about the 4 most common mistakes small businesses make when utilizing search engine marketing.
1) Patience Instant gratification is great but anything on the internet takes time. It is normal to expect movement in rankings after changing your web presence although the search engines have to do their due diligence first. We suggest making optimizations to your website all at once then allowing the changes to be indexed and cached by Google before making more changes. Allow 3 4 weeks for changes to reflect.
2) Grey Hat SEO One of the most common issues we see are small businesses padding the name of their Google Places Listing with keywords. This may work for a little while but ultimately will hurt your ranking once the search companys robot finds out. It is never a good idea to just pad the keywords in instead of working them into the content. Some websites we come across have html files, alt/title tags and images being named long strings of keyword. A better approach would be to utilize one keyword in these elements or mash words together that are different but create many keywords you are going for.
3) Web Presence More websites is not always a good idea. Sometimes we get clients with 5 10 websites all for the same company. If each website had different information including telephone numbers and different overall intentions they would be alright but still unnecessary. However, if each website has the same contact info and site data it will only creates confusion for the search engines.
4) Paid Placement Another common mistake we see from small business owners is PPC through Adwords for placement on the 1st page. It is ok to use paid placement to rank if you are waiting for your organic growth from local SEO but you can lose that placement as soon as the money dries up. Organic ranking on Google does not get charged per click and will not go away once you stop paying, do not be fooled by front page placement that is not through search engine optimization.
It is true that anyone is capable of getting to the first page of Google but the internet marketing industry is changing rapidly and the algorithm for searches is always expanding. Also there are more robots scanning the web than ever looking for improper usage of linking and content.
If you can find a local SEO company with a good reputation, competitive price tag and a team that is accountable plus answers the phone, then you may as well go with them. They will be able to do the job quicker and more efficiently than someone who does not work with the search engines daily.
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