Okay, so SEO isn't a buzz word anymore. People know what it is, they have an idea of how it works and they are often mislead with information about best practices. But what do you do when you're pulled in so many directions of what the best practice is for your SEO campaign? 

A website that is generating organic traffic is a profitable one. Gaining leads from educated buyers who are looking for your solution is the answer to every business. 

So how do I get there? 

Well, we need to figure out the best practice, there's tons of tips and hacks, but here are 5 mistakes most businesses are making and how you can fix them. 

1. DOES ON-PAGE SEO MAKE SENSE FOR MY BUSINESS? 

Okay, so I don't know why we hear this, but we do. On-Page SEO is the lifeblood of your strategy. Without having the proper meta tags, title tags, h1 tags and SEO enriched content throughout the site you're setting yourself up for failure. At the end of the day you need to make it so Google doesn't have any misunderstanding what you are offering and where it can be found on your site. 

Before you even start building your content library, your offerings, link building this is step 1. 

Recommendations:

• Use Google Keyword Tool to help find your keyword competition and where the opportunities are.
• Internal linking throughout your site to other pages of your site is crucial for success. Example, our last blog post on losing your focus. :) 
• Fix or create a strong sitemap. Things should be clear for the user where things are and how to get there. 

2. UpDating My Site Is IMportant, Right?

Well, kind of? A lot of people think that updating your website all the time is the best way to get better ranking, but really the best thing to do is to create more content and tinker with your current content to get the best conversion. If you are changing up your homepage copy every few months all you're doing is hurting your ranking. Certain pages need stability and to maintain the same copy in order to increase your rankings in Google. 

Focus on creating new blog posts, landing pages but make sure it's quality content and not just something out there to get another link leading back to your site.
This is the key in 2018. 

My methodology on SEO has alwasy been this. Treat it like a point system, the more points you have the better you're going to rank. So great meta tags = 1 point, great H1 Tags = 1 point, Internal links to your site = 1 point. I can go on forever. 

3. Link building doesn't Matter. 

Okay, so picture me hitting the buzzer. EHHHHHH. Wrong. Link building is still number #1 in my books to great SEO. Yes social media is helpful, yes blog content is helpful but link building still wins. So how do you get these links? I like to focus on one thing at a time. So for example, we are doing work with a company that sells industrial products. They probably have about 15 products, each of them have variations. I focus on one of those products and the keywords that revolve around it. 
My process looks a little bit like this: a) Find the areas your product can provide a solution. b) What keywords would someone search to find the solution for their problem. c) Write 10-15 articles on that problem. d) Take those 10-15 articles and create an E-book with that. e) Offer the E-book on a landing page to collect leads in exchange for the download. f) Repurpose the e-book and articles for social media posts and newsletters. 

Since you've done all of this awesome work above, you become the expert in that area and people will want to share your content. Now's the time to reach out to those with high value sites and see if they will post your content on their sites in exchange for links to your site.

This seems like the hardest part, but its actually the easiest if your content is good. You're bringing value to their website. 

Get started with a Marketing Strategy that will work for your business! 

4. What Kind of Keywords ShoulD I Use?

So this is a broad statement, but what I mean by this is after you find the keyword you want to be ranked for, should it be long-tailed? Or should it be direct. 

Example:

• Social Media Experts Specializing in Experimental Campaigns. - Long Tailed Keywords
• Social Media Experts - Direct

So long tailed are generally 3 or more words that focus in on a niche. Some people love it, some don't. I feel this depends on your target audience. The more direct you are, generally the harder it is to rank for those keywords. I personally like long tailed keywords because if you research and see the traffic data, you can find out if it's worth going after and the competition is much lower. If you do this with a lot of keywords, you could be swimming in leads!

5. do bounce rates matter?

People generally feel that if you have a better Bbounce Rate, their SEO is generally better. So, this is true, but not as much as you think. Google does look at your Bounce Rate, but if your foundation isn't solid, it really doesn't matter. Bounce Rates are generally something I review after all of the pieces are in place. 

"Okay, we have this awesome plan in place, but can we make it better? Let's look at your bounce rate and see how we can shave that down a few points."

If I've gone over your head on Bounce Rates, check out Kissmetrics to learn all about Bounce Rates.  Improved bounce rates generally happen the more fine-tuned your website becomes. 

The Takeaway

There's no secret recipe to SEO, it's always changing, but the foundation of SEO hasn't changed in years. Set up a strategy on who you want to reach and how you plan to reach those people, and when you do reach them how you will create content that helps solve their needs. When you do that, you'll begin to see success in the search engines.

FREE STUFF - 6 Reasons WHy You Need SEO Now. 

Starting to work on this year's marketing strategy? You won't see complete success without a search engine optimization plan. For over 10 years, SEO has been known as the most effective way to get organic traffic. Why does this matter? Organic traffic results in the highest conversion rate!

Things You'll Learn:

• Why Search Engines Matter
• How It Makes Financial Sense To Invest in SEO
• Why It's More Important Since Increased Mobile Browsing.