Thankfully most blogs and websites nowadays have social sharing buttons of some sort. Unfortunately, many site owners aren't paying attention to these social signals, what they mean, or their potential.
Let's turn to Google's CEO, Larry Page, to help me tell you to stop ignoring this:
In a recent Google earnings call, he was asked, �If you think of the future of Internet search three or four years out, how important will the social signal be and how important (will) personalization be?�
He responded by explaining how he might search for one of his friends who had a common name.
�For the first time, the search box isn�t really searching a string...it�s actually searching for that person that I know. Having real feedback from users...is very useful for search...we have a lot of those signals already, but we can always use more...we can always use better relevance and we can always use more data to generate that.�
7. Implementing Tactics without a Strategy
Truth be told #1-6 above all fit into this but I felt like this should have its own little mention. Why? Because this is a pattern by which a lot of people set out into SEO and it's why old SEO methods are still being used. It's also why so many people fail at marketing in general.
I can't stress this enough: plan out a strategy and work the plan! Test all the time. Rinse. Repeat.
8. Focus on Rankings
I was handed a ranking report by an SEO the other day which they had run for their client of five years. It was 30 pages long and tracked hundreds of keyphrases.
I asked how this correlated to their analytics and how the traffic behaved since the client had felt that their sales were down. The SEO looked at me and said, "Umm. I don't know if they have analytics on their site. Maybe I looked at it once� I'm not sure. But I've run ranking reports for them every month and they like that."
Wow.
I know how alluring those ranking reports can be. I know you do work, and this is a nice little report that you can show your client or your boss that says "We're number 1 in Google for 'Blue Spandex Widgets For Sales in Wichita, KS'!!"
However it's our job as an SEO to steer the conversation from the old way into a more meaningful one. If we don't, we're taking the path of least resistance and we truly aren't helping ourselves or our clients.
9. Focusing on Google Only
You may have a problem that you're not aware of yet because maybe everything is going along swimmingly. Go look at your stats, right now. How much of your organic traffic comes from Google? What percentage?
I know you wouldn't put all of your retirement plan in one stock so why would you put so much at risk in your current life by keeping all your eggs in one basket. Create a diverse traffic portfolio.
Although geared towards the travel industry, I believe everyone who is thinking about this could benefit from reading: Getting Serious about Inbound Marketing
10. Ignoring Design
I have one last bone to pick with something that a lot of people don't think of when it comes to SEO, but it fits and I'm tired of running into it. You know that website that you have? Oh, you helped design it? Yes, I see how that menu looks all cool. Flash, you don't say?
Your website can say a lot about you and your brand. I know a lot of people pay a lot of good money for a site, only to have it be ugly as sin, non-functional, or not search engine friendly. This has been going on since I started working online and it's not bound to stop anytime soon but I'm pleading with you to save yourself the time and money and headache:
The next time you go to build a site, hire a designer. Shop around. But when you find one that's good, trust in them and their design work. They do this for a living and you don't.
Guide your designer, but don't do the designing. You didn't hire them to just use tools you don't understand. Allow them the freedom to make something great for you.
At the same time, you should also hire a great SEO. This person will work with the designer and the developer to ensure that what you end up with not only works to your needs but will do everything it needs to do in regards to the search engines as well.
Don't settle for or ignore your website design. Your customers aren't.
Original Image Credit: VHS Survivors by Homies In Heaven/Flickr.
Editor's note: This column originally was published on August 7, 2012, and comes in at No. 8 on our countdown of the 10 most popular Search Engine Watch columns of 2012. As the clock ticks down to 2013, we're celebrating the Best of 2012 by revisiting our most popular columns, as determined by our readers. Enjoy and keep checking back! ajmalseotips.blogspot.com
