When it comes to SEO, one of the concepts that people struggle to understand is that when you are focusing on your optimisation strategies, getting all the traffic in the world won’t mean a thing if your visitors are doing just that – visiting!

In the case of some keywords and keyword conversions….Less Means More!

When people are searching the internet they may fall into one of two categories – buyers or researchers. Buyers, of course, are focused on what they are looking to purchase and are ready to take action where as researchers (also know as freebie hunters) may just be searching for all the free information that is available online and never have any intention of buying anything.

While narrowing down your audience you will get less traffic but the chances increase the they will buy from you because you are providing exactly what they are looking for. One of the keys to getting your customers to find you is by selecting highly focused keywords that will attract those buyers who are ready to take action.

One of the things you can do to find some additional keywords to increase your web traffic is review your server logs and statistics from your hosting company regularly to see what keyword phrases people are using to find your site.

Also, review all your existing and new keywords and look for the ‘intention’ in the keywords you are using and be sure to optimise your site for each of the problems people are trying to solve so you are giving them exactly what they are looking for.

Being successful with search engine optimisation does require some basic skills and understanding. It is not necessarily that these skills take a lot of time to learn, but understanding the basics before you get going will help you avoid a lot of the common mistakes that people make when trying to optimise a website for the best organic search results.

In most cases this will only require you to follow certain steps that are critical to the success of your website and a failure to follow these steps often results in a lack of traffic, lack of sales and the rest, as they say, is history……

This lack of foundation knowledge often allows people to think that they can skip a step or two in the process because it doesn’t matter. Well, the fact is that it does matter and could be the determining factor in whether you make a profit or loss from your website.

Here are a few of the SEO mistakes you want to avoid on your website:

Using the Wrong Keywords – While there is a lot of discussion about keywords and keyword research, unfortunately many people don’t take the time to do their research properly. Selecting the wrong keywords to target on your website will result in a lack of visitors (because the keyword is never searched) or un-targeted visitors (because the keywords aren’t finding people in the right stage of the buying cycle).

This is a critical step that you should never overlook and should be constantly evolving.

Once of the exceptions that I wish to point out here is that many Local Search Keywords will often show very little or no traffic at all when you undertake your keyword research however if you are promoting a local business that services these areas, then this presents a unique opportunity to promote your website for low current traffic / high growth potential keywords however I will discuss this concept further in a future article.

Not Using Title Tags – If you are not using title tags on your website, then it is not optimised for the search engines! The title tags are one of the consistent factors that are considered by all search engines and is one of the most important placed to include your keywords. This factor alone will drastically affect your search results.

However, I want to stress here that while it is important to include your keywords in your title tags, try to avoid keyword stuffing and just create normal text that starts with or includes your keyword phrase.

Lack of Keywords – Search engines give preference to websites that include content based around the target keywords. This is a vital component of your content optimisation and you should ensure that you not only include your target keywords in your content (again, without keyword stuffing) and also include a number of related terms and alternative variations for your keyword terms.

These are just some very basic tips covering some of the critical factors that go into effectively designing a website for search engine optimisation.

Contact us today or Click Here To Request Your Free Search Marketing Consultation so we can discuss where your website is headed and how we can help you get your search marketing efforts pointed in the right direction.

One very important factor in website optimisation that is often overlooked is title tags. This is code for your page in the “head” section. Many website owners make the mistake of just using their company name on every page of their side in the for the title tags. Since the search engines use the title and keywords in your content, you are losing out on the chance for increased rankings.

Importance of Keywords

Before you begin building your website, you should choose three or four primary keywords. There are a number of free keyword research tools available to help you find the appropriate keywords for your niche and it is recommended that you take advantage of them to be certain that the keywords you use will work for you.

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