11 February 2010

Three reasons why SEO campaigns fail

Submitted by: Carla
{pp}For an SEO campaign to be successful, there are many factors that have to be considered. It’s important to note that a successful SEO campaign needs constant attention, tweaking and nurturing and is definitely not a once-off process. As a digital marketing agency specialising in SEO, AlterSage has had a lot of experience planning, implementing and managing SEO campaigns for a variety of clients. Below we’ve identified three reasons why many SEO campaigns fail.

#1 The website’s target audience has not been clearly defined
Your website’s target audience plays an important role in an SEO strategy as it will determine, among other things, the tone of your website copy and form the basis of your keyword strategy. The aim is to attract qualified visitors to your website therefore you need to know how your target audience is going to be searching for you. Based on this you will create a comprehensive keyword strategy for your SEO campaign.

#2 Benchmarking is not properly implemented
Even though it can take a few months for an SEO campaign to mature and return tangible results it is important to analyse the website before implementing the campaign. Use the results from this analysis to benchmark the progress of the website on a monthly basis. This will give you a clear idea of the success of the campaign and help you to identify areas of the website where you can improve.

Visitor behaviour and engagement can be measured with analytics packages like Google Analytics, important benchmarks for a website could include:

- Keyword rankings on the search engine results pages - The number of visits to the site - The percentage of visits from various sources - The percentage of new visitors to the site - The number of leads and sales generated by the website

It is helpful to put a timeframe to these metrics. Set realistic goals and projections so that you know what you’re aiming for. Goals should be constantly measured and re-evaluated.

#3 Little or no content development
Search engines thrive on content therefore it is important to regularly include new, optimised content on your website, either through articles, page creations or blog posts. Optimised, informative articles with links back to your website work well to increase awareness for your brand and the ranking of your website. Additionally, other websites will link to your website if it offers informative content.

About AlterSage
AlterSage offers tailored online marketing solutions that achieve targeted exposure for your website. Goal focussed and driven by return on investment, services include search engine optimisation, pay per click advertising, web design and development, persuasive web copywriting, brand building, conversion analysis and many more.

Contact information:
AlterSage
18 Roeland Street
First Floor
Cape Town
8001

[0ffice] (+27 21] 462 0036
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[Website] www.altersage.com