3 Things to Do Right Away if Your SEO Isn’t Working
If you put time, money and effort into your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, and they are not working, it’s time to make some changes. When I was a small child, I was taught several lessons to cross a road safely, and these same tips apply to your SEO program:
3 Things to Do Right Away if Your SEO Isn’t Working:
1. Stop!
If you are spending money on pay-per-click (PPC) ads, place them on pause. Why continue to spend money on a program that isn’t working?
Although it may not seem like a priority, stop what you are doing and schedule some time to review your entire SEO program as soon as possible.
2. Look!
Your optimization specialist should be able to give you statistics on your PPC account and a complete report about the words being used on your site. If not, go into your Google Analytics and review the data.
· Are people clicking on your keywords?
· Do you have the appropriate, keyword tagging on each page of your site?
· How long are people spending on your site?
· If you have a PPC campaign going, do the keywords in your campaign match the keywords on your landing page?
· Are people reading your landing page and clicking on the “buy” button?
If you do not have a specific, landing page for each of your PPC campaigns, you are probably missing out on sales. People who click on your PPC ad want to get more information about the topic mentioned on the ad. Once they arrive on your site, it’s important to provide compelling copy specific to your ad that makes them want to take a single action (buy a product, register for your newsletter, download a white paper, etc.).
And if you see that some of your keywords are more popular than others, update your site copy and PPC ads with those words. Write new pages and test different variations to see what works and what doesn’t.
3. Listen!
Once you’ve updated the copy on your site and your PPC ads, review your site statistics and any comments you receive from customers. Listen to what they have to say.
With all of the activities it takes to run a business, it can be easy to lose focus on what’s important – your customers’ needs.
Listen to their feedback, and if you are not receiving any, ask them via phone or an online survey, in-person, or whatever is most convenient for them. This is valuable data you can use to give your customers what they really want, update your optimization program and beat the competition.
SEO Safety – Avoid the Danger of Losing Time, Money and Effort Now!
When you cross the street, it can be dangerous if you don’t stop, look both ways and listen for oncoming traffic. In the same way, if you don’t take the time to review what’s going with your SEO activities and pay attention to your customers, you can lose an extensive amount of time and money.
With this in mind, set aside time to focus on your search engine optimization efforts each week or month. Monitor what is working, stop what’s not working and make changes for better results. Then, you’ll be able to provide your customers with more value, increase clicks and boost sales without wasting time, money or effort.
Do you need some help with your search engine optimization activities and PR? Please contact me at www.rembrandtwrites.com for more information.
January 12th, 2012 at 3:30 pm
This is a great post Melanie. Might I suggest that instead of calling it “What to do if your SEO isn’t working, you may want to call it “What to do if your SEM isn’t working”.
SEO is optimization of your digital assets for visibility in organic search engine pages, or SRPs. You wrote a very creative piece about PPC, which is pay per click on sponsored ads. The two are entirely different, but often confused by business owners, and especially those new to managing a website or PPC campaigns, so I thought it important to post a comment. I don’t mean to be critical, I’m just trying to help…this is a very common source of confusion.
I love your approach, very creative introduction to a topic that many businesses struggle with for months, sometimes years, wasting thousands of dollars before determining they had it all wrong. Google Analytics and Google Adwords are key to determining source of search engine traffic (paid = PPC, unpaid = SEO), along with other vital information to create a competitive digital environment out of your website.
Thanks for letting me share my feedback. : )
All the best,
Rebecca a/k/a @VirtualMarketer on Twitter
RebeccaMurtagh.com
January 12th, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Hi Rebecca,
Thanks for your nice note. I like to keep things simple for the new business owners out there. So many people think of buying ads right away. However, by pursuing organic SEO (non-paid) first, they can save time and money, and get more credibility in the long run.
Melanie, rembrandtwrites.com
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January 20th, 2012 at 7:22 am
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February 3rd, 2012 at 5:13 pm
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April 8th, 2012 at 9:12 pm
[...] View the original article here [...]
April 12th, 2012 at 9:24 am
Hi, I agree that if your SEO isn’t working then stop - especially if you are paying for SEO.
I’ve found that some of the most effective SEO strategies are in fact free as they can be done just be optimizing your own website pages. Look up ‘on page SEO’ for more details and good luck everyone.
May 25th, 2012 at 2:12 am
i agree with your article….