Ten Things to Avoid When Running an SEO Campaign

Ten Things to Avoid When Running an SEO Campaign

There are plenty of SEO companies and consultants on the Internet that can help you out and plenty of free forums and guides that will give you the basics. Even if you do decide to use the skills and expertise of an SEO firm, it is still important that you at least know the basics of SEO so that you can also work with the company to make the results even better.

There are loads of things that you need to be doing within an SEO campaign, but there are also some things that you REALLY must avoid and we take a look at some of these below with our top ten things to avoid when running an SEO campaign.

Waiting Too Long - One of the biggest mistakes most people make is waiting too long to even begin an SEO campaign. If you have a website you should be running some kind of SEO, no matter how young the site is because a good campaign can help to get a higher ranking in the early days.

Targeting Competitive Keywords - If you sell houses then the chances of you getting to the top of Google for the keyword "houses" are going to be slim, to say the least. If you are working in an extremely competitive market, then you need to look outside of the box and start looking at easier keywords that you can rank for, because realistically, it is going to take a lot of time, effort and a little bit of luck to top the charts for the most competitive search terms.

Ignoring Long tail Keywords - Many people think that they should always go for the most popular keywords, but these often tend to be the most competitive, so you need to look at the long tail keywords. If you targeted 5 long tail keywords that all attracted 200 searches a month but were less competitive than one that attracted 1000 searches a month, you stand more chance of getting the traffic you want in a much shorter time.

Writing Rubbish Content - Content is king for Google and the search engine is so advanced and sophisticated these days that it can easily spot duplicate content and also poor quality content. The main aim is to write high quality content that is useful, informative and offers the user a good experience; else you will just be wasting your time and hindering your progress.

Publishing Poor Articles - Content on your site is very powerful, but you should also look at writing articles and releasing them on some of the more powerful article directories like EzineArticles. If you are going to do this, then make sure you only publish good quality articles, otherwise they will be rejected and once again you will have wasted your time.

Spammy Blog Comments - Although blog commenting can be a good way to get relevant links back to your site, if you go around adding poor and unrelated comments, then this is only going to backfire on you in the long run. If you are going to comment on blogs, then make sure that you post quality comments on quality sites and check out the link follow status and the page rank / authority before you even begin.

Reciprocal Linking - Swapping links used to be one of the methods used for acquiring links until like most link practices it was abused and Google started to shy away from the weight it carried in rankings. Although it can be a good idea to swap links with local businesses or related businesses, do not waste your time swapping links and also limit the number of outbound links you have on your site.

Bad Link Neighborhoods - Always avoid linking to or getting links from "bad neighborhoods" - sites like gambling, adult and other sites that might be considered a little bit risque. If you are found to have loads of links on these types of sites, then you are going to be in trouble, so always make sure you are careful about where links are added to your site.

Ignoring Your Own Website - SEO begins at home in our opinion because if your website is rubbish, any extra traffic you generate will be a waste of time. Add to this the fact that if your meta titles and content are really poor, you are also going to lose out on ranking because two of the biggest factors when it comes to onsite SEO are meta titles and quality content.

Running Out Of Patience - SEO takes time - fact! You cannot expect to start an SEO campaign and get overnight results; it will take weeks, if not months, before you really start to get the results that you deserve if you run a good campaign. SEO should be an ongoing thing, running for as long as you decide to keep your website alive, because SEO is one of those things that goes on forever and is a constant effort.

About the Author: Ian Spencer works for Clear Web Services, a SEO Web Optimization and Web Design company serving the Forest Of Dean, Gloucestershire and South Wales. He has worked in the SEO and Internet Marketing world for many years, and working in partnership with another company has launched the new SEO business. http://clearwebservices.com . For more information, please call 01594 835 857 or email info@clearwebservices.com

Source: SiteProNews * August 8, 2011 * Issue #1577

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