SEO is a powerful marketing channel if done properly, helping you to build useful, scalable traffic as you continue to conquer the SERPs (search engine results pages) bringing in more and more quality leads.
But there are some very wrong ways to use SEO, and here are some reasons why SEO won’t work for you if you’re doing it wrong:
1. You’re not targeting the right keywords
In building your SEO strategy, you want to target keywords that are related to your product, keywords that searchers that are ready to purchase are searching. But if you’re targeting too many keywords that are unrelated to your product, or aren’t bringing in visitors with a buyer’s mindset or visitors that you can’t otherwise influence into a buying mindset, then you’ll just be bringing in unqualified leads and you’ll quickly notice how unprofitable SEO as a channel is for you.
2. You’re gunning for keywords with too much competition
It’s easy to get caught in the hype of wanting to rank for the best keywords in your category, especially the ones that are most searched, but if you’re a woodmaker’s shop, trying to rank for the word ‘wood,’ you’re playing a fool’s game because you’ll never rank anywhere close to the coveted first position, especially as a small business on a budget, and you’ll just feel utterly helpless and be discouraged against SEO. Try not to be too ambitious with your SEO efforts and be a little more realistic.
3. You’re not optimizing your sales funnel
If you’re only thinking about great rankings and free traffic, think again. You have to make use of the traffic that’s flowing in and not take it for granted, so optimize your sales funnel, especially on the pages that get the most search traffic so you’re converting those quality leads into sales rather than having tons of passersby.
4. You’re not working for the long-tail
SEO isn’t just about ranking for the head keywords that will bring in the most traffic. In fact, if you’re working for the long-tail of the search spectrum, you might see even more traffic coming from there than you would from the head keywords, plus those are easier to rank for, and you might even get more sales from targeting the long tail considering those searchers are searching more specific queries and if you have relevant offers and they know what they want, they’re more likely to become customers.
Anyone else have thoughts for why SEO might not be working for some businesses?
Guest Author – Danny Wong is the SEO Manager for Blank Label Group, working with the startups Blank Label, a custom dress shirts startup and Thread Tradition, a fitted dress shirts startup.