The High Price of SEO Failure - Not Planning Ahead and Using Broad keywords
(Page 3 of 5 )
Not Planning Ahead
There is much speculation about the sandbox effect. This is a delay for new websites to be listed in the SERPs. This delay can be up to four months. So if this time is not utilized properly, websites that expect immediate results because they roll out their website without planning for this delay can be highly disappointed. This can be devastating for an e-commerce site that has timed the roll out of their site to coincide with the holiday season.
You should plan for this sandbox effect by working on your linking strategies and keeping your content fresh during this time. Being stuck in the sandbox doesn’t mean that your site won’t get crawled. I like to think of the sandbox as a test period that the search engines weigh what a site is capable of before giving it the green light; like the 90 day introductory period an employer uses to evaluate a new employee before deciding to hire them permanently.
Result: No traffic = No sales
Using Broad Keywords
My soon-to-be father-in-law is a Business Consultant. He said to me the other day that every client tells him the exact same thing when they sit down for the first time: “We have a very unique business.” So, if everyone says the same thing, how can they be unique? Yet, they are.
If you own a car dealership that sells BMW’s, Audi’s, and Mercedes, and it’s the only dealership inKansas City, located in Shawnee Mission, Kansas you will have a lot of keywords at your disposal. But how difficult do you think it will be to get to the number one listing for “car”? Currently, there are 184 million results for the word car. But if you are a car dealership, and someone is searching for a “car rental” then suddenly your website means nothing to this particular searcher.
On the contrary, you will be the only business listed at number one for “Aristocrat Motors Dealership Shawnee Mission Kansas”. Now, our goal is to get the keywords somewhere between “car” and the more specific company name. A great place to start might be “BMW Dealer Kansas City” for example, and someone looking to buy a BMW inKansas Citywill be looking for YOU.
It is because every business is unique that there are unique search terms that apply to them. Capturing these terms in as general a way as possible makes for a perfect search keyword. Failing to do just that can cause you to either pay your SEO too much, or cause your site to not be listed in the SERPs at all due to too much competition.
Result: Wasted expense, Lost traffic = lost sales.
Next: Penalization, Banning and Over Optimization >>
More Search Optimization Articles
More By Jennifer Sullivan Cassidy
/ 18 
