Many people go into an SEO campaign with high hopes for success. Unfortunately, many of these expectations are flawed because of poor budgets, unrealistic goals, and decisions that are not based on hard, objective data.
You can do an SEO campaign yourself or you can hire an SEO practitioner to do it for you. Whichever you choose, there are 7 things that you need to keep in mind if you want your SEO campaign to succeed. An SEO campaign doesn’t need to fail. Keep these tips in mind and you’ll be doing far better than everyone else.
1. Set Realistic Goals
Goal setting is a key to achieving anything. However, many people set unrealistic goals with their SEO objectives. Yes, you need to think high and you need to be ambitious but there is a limit on this as well. For example, having the goal to dominate Google for every product or service you offer within a few weeks of your campaign beginning is just unrealistic.
SEO doesn’t work that way. Instead, make sure your goals focus on incremental achievements regarding your SEO objectives. This way your goals are much more realistic and you’re not setting yourself up failure.
2. Make Sure You Have a Realistic Timeframe and Budget
SEO is not something that happens immediately and any SEO practitioner that tells you they can get you immediate results is fooling you. You need to make sure that you set a realistic timeframe and budget if you want your SEO campaign to succeed.
Time frames and budgets for SEO success can be tricky and often are determined by the type of industry you’re in. If you are in a competitive industry then your timeframe will need to be longer and your budget will also need to be bigger.
SEO is a long term strategy and this is important to remember. You have to give your SEO practitioner necessary time to get you results.
3. Make Sure You Choose the Right Keywords
This is one of the biggest reasons that will cause an SEO campaign to fail. If you don’t select keywords that are based on data, and proper keyword research then you are most likely optimising for the wrong keywords. Ideally, you need a professional in this area to do the research for you, that way you are guaranteed that your site is optimised properly.
4. Deliver the Right Traffic
It’s important to make sure your site is optimised for the right keywords but just as important is delivering the right kind of traffic. This is the kind of traffic that wants to see your site and is interested in what you have to offer. The easiest way to determine if you are delivering the right kind of traffic is by looking at your site’s bounce rate. If the bounce rate is high for organic search visitors then what it means is that what they are finding on your site is not consistent with what they have searched for.
You need to make sure you distinguish between bounce rates of organic visitors so you can determine exactly where you’re going wrong. If you have a high bounce rate for all types of organic visitors then it means you need to address the issue of your website.
5. You Need a Professional Website
It doesn’t have to be a website that costs thousands of dollars. There are plenty of premium WordPress themes that are easy to customise that look professional. If you don’t have a professional looking website then people are going to automatically assume you are not serious about what you do and it discredits your brand.
There are a few things you should think about when evaluating your website:
Is it outdated?
Is it professionally designed?
Does it have an intuitive navigation structure?
Is it user friendly across desktop, tablet and smartphone devices?
Do you receive positive or negative feedback about it from existing customers?
6. Write Content That Matters
What does this mean? It means write content that people care about, that makes a difference to people’s lives and businesses. If there is one thing that causes a lack of user engagement it is a lack of great content. If you have great content then people are far more likely to share it and comment on it.
7. Have a Data Tracking Plan In Place So You Can Make Improvements
This is vital for an SEO campaign to be successful. You need to track data so you can analyse where you can make improvements and it’s this sort of thing that will determine long term SEO success.
Sometimes data can be tricky to analyse and this is where the help of an SEO professional will come in handy. All the data needs to be analysed collectively and this is the only way you’ll be able to make any successful conclusions as a result of the data. Tracking data will help improve conversions, user engagement, and ultimately help grow your business. Ultimately, it will help you work out where you are going wrong with your SEO campaign so you can fix it.
Conclusion
Many SEO campaigns end up failing. You can have an SEO campaign that is successful if you follow the rules I’ve outlined above. As a Manchester based digital agency specialising in SEO services we can offer advice on best practice and step in to take full control of your SEO strategy.
What areas of your SEO campaign are you having trouble with?
Christian Michaels