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View Full Version : Common PPC and SEO Errors and Recommendations for Avoiding Them



vangogh
06-26-2009, 03:08 PM
Aaron Wall published a great post, SEM Training: Do You Make These 14 Common SEM Errors? (http://www.seobook.com/sem-training), with a list of common errors people make in regards to both paid and organic search marketing. He also offers recommendations for how to do each right.

Here's the list of errors. I'll let you read the post for specifics

1. Weak Domain Name
2. All Search Traffic Driven to Homepage
3. No Link Building
4. All Links to the Homepage
5. No Link Anchor Text Variation
6. No Focus on Quality
7. Lacking On Page Optimization
8. No Site Structure
9. Site With No Value Add
10. Competitive Saturated Market With Inadequate Budget
11. Picking a Market for 1
12. Pick a Market Which Does Not Monetize
13. Over-Aggressive Monetization From Day 1

As with most of Aaron's posts there's a lot of great nuggets of info to be found. At the end of the post he asks his readers what other common mistakes do they see and I'll ask the same here.

What mistakes do you see or have you made in either PPC or SEO? Have you done any of the above or do you think some of the errors listed aren't that big of a deal?

Spider
06-26-2009, 05:09 PM
I will comment as a user rather than a designer.

1. Weak Domain Name - As a user, I don't care what the domain name is. I search. Result are presented. I look down the list. I choose and click.
2. All Search Traffic Driven to Homepage - As a user, this doesn't bother me. I regularly find myself cropping the individual page URL to get to the hompage in the hope of finding a menu.
3. No Link Building - I'm not interested in your links. I searched for you. I found you. End of story.
4. All Links to the Homepage - Fine. Usually I find a menu on the homepage from which I can navigate to the information I want.
5. No Link Anchor Text Variation - Okay. I don't see that affects me.
6. No Focus on Quality - You didn't focus on quality? [shrug] Give me the information I want, I say: don't, I leave.
7. Lacking On Page Optimization - not interested, as long as I can read what you have to say.
8. No Site Structure - That only concerns me if I cannot find what I am looking for.
9. Site With No Value Add - Even if it's your site, you don't know what I value. If I find what I came for, I stay: if I don't, I leave.
10. Competitive Saturated Market With Inadequate Budget - I don't care how much or how little you paid to have this website. If it gives me what I came looking for, it is a success, in my mind.
11. Picking a Market for 1 - ??
12. Pick a Market Which Does Not Monetize - not my concern.
13. Over-Aggressive Monetization From Day 1 - I'm usually searching for information. If selling to me prevents you from giving me the information I came for, I leave.

I hope that helps.

vangogh
06-26-2009, 06:54 PM
I think you're missing the point of many of the points. They aren't about how you feel as a user of the site.

1. Your choice in domain affect how well your site ranks.
3. You need links to rank for anything but non competitive terms

Same for several others.

You say you find the site and don't care about either. The point is a poorly chosen domain without links probably isn't going to be in the search results for you to find.

The post isn't about how you as a user views these items, but rather how these items help you get traffic in the first place and get you the user to the site.

Just curious, but did you read the post or are you solely looking at the points listed?

billbenson
06-26-2009, 08:20 PM
Good read VG. At least I don't fail miserably at all of them. I'm real weak in the link building arena though.

Spider
06-26-2009, 09:25 PM
I did not read the article, I read your post, VG. I simply offered some remarks from the other side of the equation. 'Thought it might be helpful. Obviously it wasn't.

Dan Furman
06-26-2009, 10:26 PM
I did not read the article, I read your post, VG. I simply offered some remarks from the other side of the equation. 'Thought it might be helpful. Obviously it wasn't.

But Spider, there really is no other side. I understand what you were trying to say - focus not on the SEO but the user experience. But nothing in VG's list precludes doing anything in yours. It's not either/or.

I'm a "content / useful" guy myself. But at some point, SEO / traffic matters, and it matters a lot. Because for most sites, there will be scant site visitors without it.

Dan Furman
06-26-2009, 10:30 PM
1. Your choice in domain affect how well your site ranks.

It also affects how I perceive a site before I go to it. If I'm looking for, say, lawnmower repair, and the top three links are:


www.edslawnmowerrepair.com
www.bluestarenterprises.com (http://www.bluestarenterprises.com),
www.localhost.net/~user/outdoors/lawn.html


I'll likely choose the first, all else being equal.

vangogh
06-27-2009, 12:55 PM
Dan that's a good example. Even beyond your choice in which link you click the first domain is more likely to rank in the first place given everything else being equal. Of course the downside to the domain is if Ed later decides to expand to repairing other things. People may never see him as anything other than a lawnmower repair guy and may never think to bring him another motor for repair even if he does fix them.

Aaron mentions both sides in his article and his main point is to understand the pros and cons when picking a domain name, because so many other aspects of your business and marketing will derive from your choice.

cbscreative
06-27-2009, 04:18 PM
I think Spider's points are key once the visitor arrives, and many visitors will be very much like him. But my immediate rection is exactly as vangogh stated. Good SEO gets those visitors to arrive. Without traffic, nothing matters, but with good SEO, you still need to meet the users needs. This also means that a site design must be planned around a purpose and knowing what the users needs are.

I was especially drawn to the last point, but mostly because I have been observing just how true that is. Many sites are so concerned with trying to "sell" the visitor, they fail to establish a relationship first. If the person does not know you from Adam, you must build trust. Trying to "sell" at this stage will send visitors away as if you were telemarketing them. The other part of the challenge is not getting in the way of the person who is ready to buy. A good site design must do both: build relationships with new visitors, and offer an easy sales path for those who are ready to buy.

One thing especially important in Spider's points is that he is seeking information. Most search engine traffic is doing just that; they are looking for information. Sites with good content that provide information will usually out rank those that don't. Information often leads to informed buyers. Informed buyers are typically more loyal.

royhunters
08-04-2009, 09:55 PM
I think the weak domain name is a gray area, back in 02 - 04 when Google liked keyword domains I wold have agreed but if you have a good TLD.. Who cares about the name?

An easy example is the restaurant industry. Try to find a 30 letter domain for anything that includes pizza... You just are not going to find anything we class as "good".

So I don't really think a domain name is really a mistake.

One of the biggest mistakes I see is code that does not validate. 30 seconds with the W3c validation tool goes a long way. There are a lot of poorly coded web pages out there.

Another mistake I see.. Well not really a mistake but something that helps that you usually dont see unless the page was coded by a pro is keyword descriptions of images.

Hats off to Vangogh, I'm a CO native lost in FL!

vangogh
08-04-2009, 10:53 PM
With domain names I think one of Aaron's points is that a new pizza site would be better off spending money to buy an existing domain that's easy to remember than they would be to try to come up with some really long domain. I think too if you're creative enough you can still find a reasonably short domain that includes the word pizza. I agree though, that they become harder to find every day.

I still wonder about the effects of valid code. I try to validate all my code, but other than the show stoppers, I'm not sure search engines care that much. Most of their pages don't validate and I think they're more interested in the content itself than the code. Validating isn't going to hurt at all and I do think there are other reasons why it makes sense to write valid code.

What part of CO were you from Roy? You can see I'm in Boulder now, though I'm originally from New York.

royhunters
08-04-2009, 11:12 PM
Vangogh,

I think the reason you dont see any problems with bad code and ranking is your looking at pages you probably have coded and they are done right or with only a couple errors/typos. I had one the other day from a client hat had 247 errors in it, it still ranked well so I agree with your statement but when the errors were fixed and Google crawled the site again the rank jumped by 13. That can be a two page improvement.

I dont think a handful of errors is a big deal, but something that is a complete disaster could only gain by sorting the code problems out as in my latest clients case.

____________________

I was born in the Springs, went to school in Boulder, but it was much different 22 years ago. I miss it but I do not miss the cold or the hangovers.

I am glad I found this forum, I enjoy reading you guys posts. It's a lot more trade specific than others I have seen and very informative as I am a bit vague on some of the new stuff...

but I am not impressed a topic I made was removed :-(

vangogh
08-04-2009, 11:22 PM
I agree if you have 247 errors you should fix them. It's more that you probably don't need to worry about every last one. If you took those 247 errors down to 5 you'd probably see the same results. With so many errors there probably are some show stoppers in there preventing indexing or something else.

Sorry about removing your post before. I'd already placed in back before seeing your sad face above. Usually we try to avoid the posts that are copied from another site and that was the first post of yours I happened to see. Then I found a few more of your posts and realized you posted in good faith and I took a longer look at the thread I deleted and thought it could make for an interesting discussion. No harm, no foul, though in general we prefer original content here.

I've been in Boulder for about 12 years now. It's different even in that time and I had already been hearing how different it was from the years before. Still a nice place. You think it was cold here? Not me. But I did live in Buffalo for a few years so now everything is warmer.

royhunters
08-05-2009, 12:43 AM
Anything less than 60 and I am FREEZING my tail off. Buffalo? Nooo way man! I have been there... It aint happenin! LOL

I'll keep the original content policy in check from here on out, sorry for not being up to speed. I know the article is a little hokey but you have to remember I deal with a lot of internet newbies and get asked a lot of silly questions so the article is really good for them, I just thought it would be good to have some other view point from someone else that I could add to it to make it better for them. The article makes my job a lot easier, rather than explain it 50 times a month I can say "go read the article on our website."

I think it is a good place for a hands on newbie to start when trying to optimize their page and it gets them involved with the process.

I dont mind giving them advice for free as the clients we deal with don't do anything for themselves and have much deeper pockets. The free advice is a good value add for our website and helps with the traffic numbers.

Thanks for putting it back up!

vangogh
08-05-2009, 12:59 PM
No problem for putting it back up. After reading a couple of your other posts I could tell you weren't the drive by copy/paste spammer.

Guess you like the warm weather which explains Florida. I don't mind winter and it really isn't bad here. 60 in January is fine with me.