Costly SEO Mistakes You Must Avoid - A Question of Content
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Some of the issues surrounding content also deal with other areas of concern. For example, you want to make sure your website looks fresh and that you address your customer’s concerns, right? Apparently not every site owner worries about that, though they should. Jordan mentioned that she was once given the responsibility to rewrite the web copy of a large real estate firm, when she was working as a PR consultant. The firm had pages where customers could leave feedback. Imagine her surprise when she saw that they had let some extremely negative feedback from one of their customers sit on their feedback pages for at least a year! Somebody should have noticed that content and addressed the issues it raised.
If you’re a regular reader of our SEO Chat newsletter, you probably saw in a recent Spotlight that Google is now treating domains and subdomains a little differently. What this means is that, if SEO considerations dominated whether you split up your content among several subdomains (i.e. trying to get as many spots in the SERPs as possible) you need to change your focus. Instead, look at it from your visitors’ point of view. Does it make sense based on the kind of content to split it up among several domains or subdomains?
Your content is worthless if visitors can’t find it. If they can’t find you in the search engines, that reduces their chances of being able to find your content. And they won’t be able to find you in the search engines if the spiders can’t crawl your site. Back in July, Search Engine Land ran an article that listed some of the reasons a site may be uncrawlable. These include:
- An incorrect robots.txt file.
- Using session IDs or too many variables in your URLs.
- A convoluted navigation menu.
- Too much use of Flash, graphics, or AJAX.
Another mistake many sites make is not having enough real content. Maybe you think your customers don’t want content. Or maybe you think your field or the way you have your web site set up doesn’t lend itself to producing good content. Recognize these for what they are: excuses. Web surfers go on the web looking for content. If you want them to visit your site and link to you – thus increasing your traffic and possible conversions – you need to offer them some value. That means content.
Can’t think of any way to add content to your site off the top of your head? How about a glossary of terms for your field? Perhaps a frequently asked questions page makes sense. You might even be able to come up with some how to articles. The list can go on and on, if you get a little creative.
Next: Keyword Abuse >>
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