While search engine optimization plays such a crucial role in how well your business does online, one of the ever increasing issues I see from various SEO companies is the over optimization on customers websites. While there is great importance in having the SEO information done properly on your website, it is even more important that things do not go overboard. Going overboard can result in a website being either penalized greatly or possibly even banned from search results.
Also, search engine optimization is not a quick fix for any website. If your results come that quick, more than likely you are doing something in a way you shouldn’t, and that will catch up to you in just a matter of time. So, be careful in who you hire to do your SEO work. Don’t trust those that promise the world for just some dollars. Get involved and be a part of making your website effective. Ask specific questions as to what they are going to do to make your rank better. Don’t let them just decide on some random keywords, but ask what type of traffic those keywords get each month.
Whenever I do SEO work for a client, I provide them with a spreadsheet showing them the monthly search of many of the keywords related to their business. Not only is this helpful for the initial setup, but this list is also very handy when you are trying to find topics to blog about or just know what keyword phrase to use in the post. I once had a client that by changing one word in the keyword phrase increased the popularity of searches from 180/month to 8,800/month.
Google Doesn’t Like Over Optimization
When I hear someone say a site is over optimized, I immediately think either someone doesn’t know what they are doing, or they are trying to use some less than honorable black/grey SEO tricks to push a site up the search engines. While this might do what they are looking for and push that website to page 1 of Google quickly, the site will inevitably be found by Google and penalized. If you remember back a few months ago, I shared about the JC Penney debacle and how when they were caught by Google, the penalties took them from #1 in the results to not even being found on the first 5+ pages.
Whenever I build a custom WordPress Site for a client, I make sure to try and follow all of these guidelines as close as possible to keep my clients from danger. Does it make the process of reaching page one results take longer? Yes, but I’d rather it take more time of them writing good quality blog posts and sharing valuable content that lasts for years than get instant results that end up being banned in just a few months. Post that I wrote over four years ago on an old blog of mine still bring business to me today.
My main site 210 Consulting ranks well in the search engines for several keywords and I’ve never once paid for SEO work. Instead, I’ve simply taken the time to write blog posts that are search engine friendly, and done the work on my own of building good quality backlinks through guest blogging, commenting on other sites, and other good SEO tactics.
If you would like more information on how to write blogs for search engines feel free to contact me and we can schedule a coaching session to get your site started in the direction of page one of the search engines to stay.