How to avoid SEO errors and expectations in your campaign

No SEO company can ever boast 100% success, it’s impossible, Google always move the boundaries, SEO companies have to follow the trends but sticking to the main points needed in any SEO campaign will help make sure your campaign does provide a level of success and avoid disappointment.

Most mistakes will be avoided if you follow our guide and set your expectations realistically.

If you’re looking for a quick win to make fast money then SEO is not for you, any campaign takes time to mature, setting down targeted key phrases with solid time expectations is essential to make sure you don’t feel disappointed every time you do a search, nearly all SEO campaigns will not start showing results before a minimum of 3 months with most taking at least 6 months to see credible sustainable movement.

We all want to see results quickly and tend to go into overdrive to achieve our results, this is the largest downfall in most campaigns, too much activity, over link building and constant amends will always hinder a campaign, most inbound links can take up to 3 months to start maturing so don’t expect any drastic movements.

Over link building and constant changes usually will have a diverse effect and can even incur Google penalties; the main point to understand is any SEO needs to be based on a steady growth that will achieve long term results.

Companies love to shout about their brand and that’s great but not if it effects the SEO campaign, the title tags are one of the major factors of SEO and most companies love to put their brand name in before the main search terms, Google need to see what your about, they already know who you are! Use the title tag correctly to tell Google what you do instead of trying to plug your brand.

Hiring any SEO expert is always going to be hard if you don’t know what SEO is about, any SEO expert should be able to show you what Google need to see, what you need to compete in your market and how they are going to close the gaps required to achieve your rankings.

Expecting your SEO expert to be guiding your business to success is not their role, they are there to gain rankings, increase traffic and optimise your site, expecting more and more from your SEO expert will put them under pressure to deliver in areas they are not comfortable or possibly capable in giving useful credible advice, only use your expert for what they are good for.

The first plan for any SEO campaign should be finding what you need to target and understanding if this is possible, for new, younger and smaller sites, achieving rankings for top level phrases will not usually be possible, setting out reasonable long tail phrases with realistic chances of ranking will avoid disappointment from day one.

Using the Google keyword tool to understand what phrases can provide traffic in a quicker timescale is essential, just type the most generic phrase into the box, tick the box stating “only show related phrases” and this will give you a large list of related long tail phrases with a good chance of top page results.

For domains with more authority and age, vanity phrases will be able to be ranked with the top players in the market.

Any SEO campaign will need a comprehensive link building strategy; this means gaining good quality links from thematic and relevant pages linking to you voting for your website to move up the rankings.

Of course link building can also have its down side, some companies used outsource resources from India and far of countries, this will usually mean gaining lots of links fast from poor quality non thematic sites, this in-turn will normally gain a Google penalty for your site and drop the rankings rather than gain positions.

Most companies will need several different resources to be able to implement an effective SEO campaign usually consisting of an SEO expert, content writer, link builder and web designer and developer, all these people need to be in place to be able to project manage an effective campaign, some companies cannot supply everything so checking capabilities first will avoid un-foreseen costs down the line.

Each member of your SEO team should be working together, having several different parties working on random parts will not synergise your campaign, and communication is the key.

From the start of your campaign you will need to set down ROI goals, this will either be increased revenue, increased lead generation, more visitors or increased page views, setting down goals now will mean you will be able to understand if your campaign is providing tangible ROI and bottom line (cash in the bank).

Your team will need to understand your business model to achieve this, again another reason why communication is a must from all parties involved in your campaign.

Agreeing ranking expectations is essential to be able to give your campaign a clear goal, gaining number 1 position in MSN may seem good to your SEO Company but realistically this will provide next to no traffic.

Set down clear targeted goals with realistic time scales for achievement, this will once again ensure your company are not working to a different goal than yourself, any SEO company should give you this in writing.

 If you already have page one rankings for your chosen phrases and are just looking to increase your position then understanding this is one of the hardest goals for any SEO company is important, it’s great to move from page 5 to page 1 but now the competition has begun, at the end of the day Google ultimately will decide who ranks, it’s down to the SEO company to plug the gaps needed to move up the page.

 Even if your rankings for your chosen phrases achieve your results you may still be disappointed in the amount of traffic you receive, in fact 90% of searches on Google come from 3-4 word search phrases.

Enriched SEO content should be written towards several search terms. While engaging your visitors is important, properly written SEO content will help the site rank for lots of search terms and also your targeted phrase.

Content refreshing is a must to keep your traffic growing, Google love to see a site keeping itself useful, publishing new relevant information targeted towards long tail phrases within your market will help the site grow in rankings and start to gain a larger share of your search market.

Companies need to understand that SEO is a long term investment that will supply results and revenue for years to come, setting expectations and a clear defined strategy from day one will avoid SEO errors and constant disappointment.

We hope our guide will help you avoid SEO errors and make the right choices when choosing an SEO expert or company.

Good luck with your Google rankings!