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Quick and Easy Solutions
to 5 Very Common SEO Challenges
By John Alexander
Many of our SEO students experience quite an eye-opening discovery as
they begin their first day of training. They come in with the mindset
of chasing an algorithm, but then somewhere along the way they
discover that there really is no reason to chase the algorithm. What
we actually do for the students when we have a chance to work with
them in person is we help them grasp the full spectrum of search
engine marketing and we impart to them a range of skills that
generally changes the way they understand optimization. We teach them
the difference between the myths and fallacies which may have heard
somewhere else and we teach them the facts which are based on genuine
research.
We put great emphasis on the value of creating original content of
high value for their readers and Web visitors. There is a lot to say
for content that serves some useful purpose and stands on its own
merit. Sure we teach them how to get their pages ranked too, but we
also teach them how to spend their time building unique strategies
that benefit their visitors as opposed to old fashioned out of date
"traffic tricks." The student often comes in with one
mindset but by the end of the workshop, they've gained a whole new
understanding along with a refinement of actual SEO skills that they
take home with them.
Okay, so lets talk about some of the old SEO challenges and how a
little shift in our thinking may hold simple but effective solutions.
1. The challenge of keyword research
Everyone obviously wants to optimize for those main keyword phrases
that are so competitive, they can take some effort to tackle. They
most certainly can be achieved and we demonstrate this to students
too. But what I am saying is these type of competitive keywords
need considerable more work in order to get ranked. What people forget
are the awesome ranges of niches that are available. The "low
hanging fruit" that are those phrases in fair to high use, but
very low competition. The point being that you can enjoy excellent
traffic and online business too, with just a few very targeted buyers
coming to your Web site every day on a regular basis. They know
what they are searching for and in essence, all they need is to be
able to easily find you.
I wrote an e-book called Wordtracker
Magic to explain easy and fast ways you can quickly extract the
very best phrase combinations in a fraction of the time most people
need to perform their keyword research. I also have a series of short
instructional audio tips to help people get started and they are
free to listen to anytime you wish.
2. The challenge of optimizing your page
Many SEOs look at optimization as their major challenge. How
many times I have seen a new SEO student starting to write their Web
content with their brain 100% focused on the optimization of the
content. In other words they are focusing on how many keywords, where
to put those keywords, working with other criteria but all to one end.
All they are thinking of is just "Optimization." So what's
wrong with that you may ask?
The challenge that many people have is as follows. They are so focused
on where the keywords are on their page, that they are not really
creating the level of "content quality" or value that they
might have if they were not so preoccupied with optimization! You've
all seen pages that are stacked with keywords, but how do these read
quality wise to the average human being? Let's just say it's not a
fraction of the potential it could be with just a little different
approach.
I've even seen people so focused on the optimization process that they
forget to even include any call to action. What good is even a number
1 ranking for the best possible phrase if when people read it, they
just leave again because of no call to action.
So what am I suggesting? The solution is simple. Write with your
researched keyword phrase in mind, but do not try to optimize and
create new content at the exact same time.
Instead think about it as a two step process. So what if we take
these as two separate steps.
Step 1 Create new content for your readers : Write some unique
original content that you feel you can be proud of. Something you know
your visitors will find interesting and useful. Don't even think about
keyword density, or keyword prominence or keyword placement. Stay
focused on the message of your content so that you end up with
a well crafted page that reads well when you read it out loud and make
sure it serves the needs of your readers. Make sure there is a
significant call to action. Okay, now you've created your content, you
have have done the hard part.
Step 2: Now go back and do a simple re-write for those search
engines. You'll be re-writing with a finished article and just
making mild changes to it for the purpose of optimization.
Tip: If you've done good keyword research and are optimizing for the
right phrases, you'll find that with this 2 step approach, you'll be
creating much better quality of articles for your visitors and because
you have done good research, the optimization is not that hard.
Do you need to learn more about the process of search engine
optimization? Study an online
SEO course or come to one the our hands-on SEO
Workshops.
3. The challenge of knowing exactly what search engine spiders are
doing and how far they are crawling into your Web site.
There is an excellent tool which will reveal exactly what those
search engine spiders are doing, how often they visit, which pages
they visit, how often they stay and a whole lot more. This excellent program
review of Robot Manager Professional was written by Robin Nobles.
This is a wonderful tool that allows you track some really fascinating
information (to the point of becoming addictive.)
4. Are you trying to get search engine spiders to come back and
re-visit your Web site more often?
Are you trying to use a Meta Tag to get search engine spiders to come
back and revisit your Web site every so often?
Save your time. Search engine robots actually run much better based on
their own schedule and just because you include a Meta Revisit Tag <META
name="Revisit-After" content="X Days">
does not mean the robot is going pay attention to it.
However, there is one tip which is extremely effective in getting
search engine robots to come visit you much more often.
We refer to "content freshness" factors. It's not complex to
understand. What you want to do is start adding some pages on to your
Web site on a regular consistent basis. For example, if you were add
one new article per month to your Web site, that would be good, but
even better would be to add one new article to your Web site per week.
The key is consistency. Each time the robot returns and sees more new
content it tends to adjust the frequency of its schedule. There are
other benefits as well but even if you were to only add new content
regularly to your site for the sake of your visitors, you may enjoy
some other benefits too.
5. Have you ever wanted a solid method for determining the
effectiveness of a search engine marketing campaign within a specific
industry?
If you have not read Marshall
Sponder's free illustrated report, it explains in detail, a step
by step method for measuring your search engine campaign's
effectiveness and how you can perform client scorecarding through the
power of metrics. If you have not read this report yet, download it
and get started. Find out how you can measure site stickiness and
brand blurriness. Enjoy.
In conclusion, always
remember that regardless of whatever process you are working on, there
are usually multiple ways to work around any specific challenges.
There are many variations of a process that once you discover them and
try them, you may find they make your life a whole lot easier. This is
just one of the values we teach at our workshops. Performing solid SEO
does take some legitimate effort to perform. Like anything else
perfection does come from hands-on practice. However the process of
SEO and performing successful search engine marketing does not have to
be a stressful process at all.
About
John Alexander
John Alexander is Co-director of Training at Search
Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with partner Robin
Nobles as well as online search engine marketing courses through Online
Web Training. John is author of an e-book called Wordtracker
Magic and co-author of the Totally
Non-Technical Guide for A Successful Web Site. John
and Robin also host an event called the Ultra
Advanced Symposium on a quarterly basis.
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