The biggest SEO mistake you can make is NOT what you think it is

[Masterminding]

Today, I want to warn everyone who is busy doing SEO or thinking about SEO.

You see, I can tell you from experience (stemming from my own business AND stemming from helping clients) that using spammy/illegal/black hat techniques is NOT the biggest mistake you can make.

Sure, your behind may be banned from Google, but a much costlier mistake is making assumptions about INTENT. Allow me to explain...

1) Being number 1 equals being paid: under normal circumstances, the #1 position in the search results gets between 30-40% of the total number of clicks (depending on the market). What people forget to mention though is that under normal circumstances means that you understand what people are thinking when they search for something and that your article (and thus page title and first paragraph) is the logical next step for what they were thinking. Example: when people type in car insurance, ranking number 1 with the title Car Insurance | Cheap Car Insurance | Insurance for Cars won't do you much good.

I've seen companies rank first for a term with 100,000 searches a month but they only got 30 visits a month. Why? They got the intent wrong. This is why a good SEO'er knows a thing or two about copywriting.

2) Getting the emotional intent right but the buying intent wrong: woohoo! You managed to rank first for a keyword with a title that shows searches you know what they're thinking and thus that you can help. And now, now you're getting thousands of website visitors... but sales remain stable. What the hell!?

Example: it's cool to be able to say that you're ranking 1st, 2nd or 3rd for a term like "online marketing"... but cool doesn't pay the bills my friend. It's much better to rank for a keyword that only gets 100 searches a month where you're practically sure they'll buy ("online marketing workshop") then to rank for one where they might, eventually, sometimes buy. So don't focus on searches a month so damn much. Focus on what would likely make sales the easiest, even if it has a crappy number of searches per month because 1 definite sale is always better than 1,000 possible, might eventually sales (also known as jack sh*t).

3) The value of the buying intent itself: why put all your time and energy in getting traffic for a 50 dollar product when you also have a higher priced product that's about a (slightly) different topic? Getting the highest return on investment means focusing on getting traffic for the more expensive product first.

There is a balance though: if product A is twice as cheap as product B but converts twice as well, there's no difference. But if there's not much difference? You'd be a fool to focus on product A instead of B.

Consequences of not paying attention to this: how does writing 2 pieces of content every week for 1 year plus without anything to show for it sound? Or how about paying for 300 articles without an increase in sales?

I've seen it happen in my own and other people's business, so please... never forget the intent, and never forget return on investment when it comes to SEO because you can have tens of thousands of visitors and still earn only a couple hundred bucks. I've seen it happen. Many times.

So work smarter, not harder.

[CarmenDA]

This is great advice. Many of my successes come from keywords that are searched 100-500 times per month. If you find those, with low competition and then plug them into google and see what pops up its a great way to decipher the market and your ability to take it to the top. There are tons of old crappy looking outdated pages out there with terrible content. Just because they rank high doesn't always mean they are high quality. Many are just old.

[Masterminding]

Exactly: if you find keywords with a low number of searches per month but with great selling potential AND the competition for those keywords sucks? Then it's the universe telling you that you need to create a page about that word as fast as humanly possible :P

[webladder]

Nice thread. Sometimes I think we get so caught up in hitting the number 1 spot that we tend to forget about the real intent of the searchers.

Prime example; I'm doing SEO for a pool company in Florida in a smaller town with major, major competition. However, based off comp. research and some analyzing these other companies are targeting the wrong keywords. The keywords I'm using have a couple of hundred of searches per month with a geo-qualifer term as part of the keyphrase, if that. But, the pool industry is a high ticket item business and they only need 10 customers a month to more than break even, so getting traffic to the website was not the intent. It was to bring traffic to the website from buyers who want a custom designed pool and ONLY that. Phone's breen ringing off the hook for them and this month has been there best yet this year.

Always remember what SEO is about and why we do it. If you're rank #1 but you're not converting, back to the drawing board Great info.! Thanks!

[Masterminding]

Originally Posted by webladder

Nice thread. Sometimes I think we get so caught up in hitting the number 1 spot that we tend to forget about the real intent of the searchers.

Prime example; I'm doing SEO for a pool company in Florida in a smaller town with major, major competition. However, based off comp. research and some analyzing these other companies are targeting the wrong keywords. The keywords I'm using have a couple of hundred of searches per month with a geo-qualifer term as part of the keyphrase, if that. But, the pool industry is a high ticket item business and they only need 10 customers a month to more than break even, so getting traffic to the website was not the intent. It was to bring traffic to the website from buyers who want a custom designed pool and ONLY that. Phone's breen ringing off the hook for them and this month has been there best yet this year.

Always remember what SEO is about and why we do it. If you're rank #1 but you're not converting, back to the drawing board Great info.! Thanks!

You get it too! Hooray!

Good point: also keep in mind the intent of the business when doing SEO and, like it or not, sales are always more important than traffic numbers. It's cool to have a million visits but visits don't pay the bills, sales do!

[stephencammeron]

Originally Posted by Masterminding

So work smarter, not harder.

I guess this is the best phrase that I've read today. I just hope lots of people here would get it.

[Masterminding]

Originally Posted by stephencammeron

I guess this is the best phrase that I've read today. I just hope lots of people here would get it.

Maybe it's me, but I'm willing to bet you that a lot of people will read it as: "Use software that is advertised as effective, but in reality really isn't"

[Sparda]

I'm not into SEO but this has given me quite an insight. So technically all the SEO masters aren't so masterful after all.

[outwest]

I would think that this applies more to physical product sales, than to Adsense, though it does apply to a smaller extent, to Adsense?
can you explain the difference?

[theverysmartguy]

Originally Posted by outwest

I would think that this applies more to physical product sales, than to Adsense, though it does apply to a smaller extent, to Adsense?
can you explain the difference?

From my experience you are right, this involves bigger ticket physical items and lead generation.

When it comes to adsense, the more traffic the better. Your sites are supposed to be informational based when it comes to adsense, rather than sale based.

Some people say to target buying keywords with adsense, but again this involves products that you would buy, and not the informational side of things. Plus, I have noticed that adsense clicks from product based keywords usually don't pay all that much.

-- Jeff

[outwest]

I dont think Adsense pays on kws that are product based, but I might be wrong about that
in other words I cant target APPLE IPHONE or something, not sure

[AlphaWarrior]

This gets back to the fact that you need to know what your customers want.

If your customers want to know how to boil frogs, being number 1 for "frogs" probably will not help. But being number 1 for "boiling frogs" would help a lot.

[JSProjects]

Good post. Simple. Yet it's one of the most important things to remember in IM.

So many people get stuck on "3,000 or more exact searches a month."

Id rather target a BUYER keyword with 500-1,000 searches a month and (most likely) weaker competition.

[Psykryph]

I don't agree with everything, but I certainly do with your Point 3, and that's what I have been focusing on lately. Sure, there is a balance between ranking high for high traffic competitive keywords, but that fluctuates a lot. Oftentimes it's the long-tailed keywords that bring visitors that really buy something, and are easier to rank for and keep the rankings for.