SEO Dos and Donts

SEO and SEM are great tools to get your website exposure, but you want to make sure you are using these tools properly. Siekaly & Stewart, a law firm in Michigan, sued their SEO company, Rainmaker Institute, for violating Google’s guidelines. According to the lawsuit: Expert analysis performed since the conclusion of the contract has shown that essentially no links were created for protectyourstudent.com and seikalystewart.com. Approximately 6720 links appear to have been created for Oaklandbusinesslawyers.com, but all the links with the exception of approximately 188 links, were worthless links built with link farming techniques and, in many cases, were not forwarding to the Plaintiff’s webpages at all. 

While this link farming technique boosted the client’s website temporarily, once Google performed an update to their algorithm it negatively effected the Seikaly and Stewart’s website and not only did the client’s placement plummet, they were unknowingly the cause of spam to many clients and potential clients.

As an SEO/SEM provider you can now be legally held accountable for the practices that you are implementing. For that reason, here’s a few SEO do’s and don’ts.

  1. DON’T: Use Hidden Text and Links: Text that is only visible to the engines is considered spam and could result in decreased Google Placement.
  2. DO: Update your content based off Analytic data and Google Trends
  3. DON’T: List the Same Keywords Over and Over Again. This is a form of “Keyword Stuffing” and may cause Google to penalize your site.
  4. DO: Use Static URLs. Each page of your site should have its own readable URL that is related to that page.
  5. DO: Use redirects to manipulate Google Ranks. While Google does accept some redirects, using redirects to manipulate Google could result it your site becoming blacklisted.
  6. DO: Properly link your site to reputable sites. Proper back linking can result to increased relevance and great additional exposure.

Using proper methods when performing SEO and SEM protects you/your client’s site from dramatically losing placement at the change of any algorithm or worse; being blacklisted from Google. You always want to utilize responsible SEO/SEM Methods for your protection and to ensure your site is always viewed as a trusted site by search engines.

Pros and Cons of Paid vs. Organic Strategies

In the world of search there are two main strategies: Paid and Organic. Each of these search strategies is unique and comes with their own strengths and weaknesses. Here is a list of pros and cons in respect to paid and organic search programs.

Search Engine Marketing (PAID Search) PROS:

  1. Easily Measured. With tools Like Google Ads and Bing Ads, it is easy to show results based on impressions, clicks, geography, demographics, conversion rate and more. The results of your spending is easily quantified because Paid Search gives you all the tools to properly assess your spending.
  2. Precise Audience Target. When Setting up paid search programs you choose the keywords you want to be showed under, the location target you would like to be seen in, as well as what messaging you would like to display. This makes it easy for you to tailor toward your target audience.
  3. Fast and Tangible Results. Once a search engine marketing campaign is set up you can start seeing your ads and receiving calls within weeks. There isn’t much lag time or ramp compared to search engine optimization.

Search Engine Marketing (Paid Search) CONS:

  1. Pay-Per-Click. With paid search you have to pay for every click that goes to your website from your ad. This can get rather expensive, especially in highly competitive search terms. Also Google changes how they rank ads regularly, so on top of bidding proper amounts you also have to manage your ad quality.
  2. Disappearing Ads. Another Con is once you’ve hit your daily budget, your ads go away. You can miss out on a lot of clicks and leads simply because you’ve run out of money and your ads are no longer showing.
  3. Less Traffic. Pay Per Click traffic only accounts for 15% of the clicks generated from searches. 85% of users tend to click on organic searches first.

Search Engine Optimization (Organic Search) PROS:

  1. FREE FREE FREE!!!. The biggest advantage is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is absolutely free. You can have as many clicks as you like and it will not cost you a thing.
  2. Always On. Unlike Pay-Per-Click, Your ads are always in the natural results. Your placement may change, but you can always be found.
  3. More Traffic. As stated earlier, 85% of users tend to click on organic searches first. People feel organic searches are more relevant and trustworthy, which leads to higher conversions.

Search Engine Optimization (Organic Search) CONS:

  1. Slow Results. While paid results are almost immediate, Search Engine Optimization takes time. Changes can take months without you truly see results. For proper SEO it will take both time and money before you see the fruits of your labor. It is truly an investment.
  2. Hard to measure. While Search Engine Marketing has many tools for measuring success based off of keywords and ads, it is results are not as easy to quantify through organic searches.
  3. No Control. Google understands the value of being on the first page. Because of this they keep their algorithm very secret to ensure no one manipulating their site. Google is constantly changing so the best a person can do is follow best practices. There is no guarantee on placement.

Introduce Yourself (Example Post)

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

  • Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
  • Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

  • Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
  • What topics do you think you’ll write about?
  • Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
  • If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.

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