Focus on What's Important
According to Mike Murray of Fathom SEO, SEO is not a shopping spree. You need
website traffic, but you need to pace yourself–even sound practices may fail if
they’re rushed. When picking a domain name, short names are easy to read, but if
you use multiple hyphens or forced capitalization, it looks like spam and
visitors are immediately suspicious of your website. And when it comes to search
engine optimization, you need to pick your priorities; don’t manage too many
keywords at once.
Murray goes on to say that it’s easy to have folder and page name “excess.”
Using too many keywords or repeated keywords in your domain name, folder name,
and page name (or file name) can lead to disaster. A good rule of thumb is to
make sure that they match the content, but don’t go overboard with it. Limit
your repetition of keywords in the domain name, folder names, and page names.
Although having those keywords in the URL can help rankings, don’t overdo it.
Title tags are important, according to Murray. It’s important to tame your title
tag, especially because long title tags are useless. “It’s important to pick one
or two search terms and call it a day when you’re writing title tags. Meta
description tags are needed as well, but don’t have meta description overload,”
says Murray. “The description tag still counts–but you need to avoid long
descriptions.” The meta description tag still shows up in the search engine
results, but some search engines downplay this tag due to past abuses. It’s good
to limit your meta keywords tag to a few keywords.
Other issues that Murray talked about were issues such as overdone visible text.
“Massive keyword repetition in a small space may annoy site visitors–it looks
blatant.” Heading tags are commonly misused, as well. “Don’t overstuff and avoid
misuse. Complement the design and don’t ignore the overall look and feel of your
site.”
Simple Title Tags, Straightforward Page Text
According to Heather Lloyd-Martin from SearchEngineWriting.com, SEO overkill is
where good content can go bad. Title tags can get overstuffed quickly. Remember
that the SERPs (search engine results) page is the first opportunity for
conversion. Your title should be hot and compelling. It’s important to make your
title clickable and reflect the content on the page. Stuffed title tags are more
than spammy–they provide a bad first impression and inhibit click-throughs.
Think of your conversion and your customers first. Searchers won’t click on your
search engine listing if they see a spammy or undesirable title. “It’s one thing
to create headlines that grab attention–it’s another when it has nothing to do
with the ad,” says Lloyd-Martin. “Titles and content can be creative, but please
make the content relevant, and hit the pain points of your client.”
She goes on to say that you need to avoid what she calls “conversion confusion.”
“Many pages include a lot of text on the page and have a lot of good content and
talk about the product a lot. But there’s no conversion step or way for people
to take action. People need to be told what to do. If you do not ask for the
sale, they won’t take action.” What action do you want your customers to take?
How easy is it to take that action? Don’t rely on a “contact us” button or
“contact us” in the footer navigation. When you create landing pages, it’s
important to give the visitor an action they can take as well as an incentive
for taking that action