5 Reasons Your SEO Campaign Failed (And What to Do About It)
You’ve read tens maybe hundreds of articles proclaiming that search engine optimization is the holy grail of online success. Excited, you’ve launched your first SEO campaign. You’ve optimized your website and you’ve worked hard to create quality content and get it ranked high in search results. Yet, despite all your efforts, you haven’t seen any increase in traffic.
Where did you go wrong?
Here are some of the mistakes you probably made and what you can do about them.
Mistake #1: Setting Unrealistic Goals
You need to dream big to succeed. You’ve probably heard this old saying before, and it is one of the most common pitfalls marketers fall into. Sure, we would all love to get hundreds of thousands of targeted visitors right from the beginning, but the reality is that an SEO campaign is a slow process that takes time to show results, and you need to be patient.
How to fix it:
Whenever you set a goal, make sure it is within reach. Consider a goal like “I will reach 1,000 blog readers in 2 months”. It is an ambitious goal, but it’s definitely attainable. Now, consider “I will reach 100,000 blog readers in 2 months”. It is daunting and unrealistic.
Mistake #2: Targeting the Wrong Keywords
Optimizing for the wrong keywords is one of the most common causes of a SEO campaign’s failure. A great way to determine if your campaign is targeting the wrong keywords is to look at your website’s bounce rate for organic search traffic. If your visitors hit the “Back” button without looking around, then they what they’re searching for is not in line with what they’re finding on your website.
How to fix it:
When you create a list of potential keywords, get into the head of your customers and try to think like them. Ask yourself:
“Is this keyword relevant to my website?”
“Will people find what they are looking for on my website when they search using these specific words?”
Avoid using generic head-terms and concentrate on long-tail keywords.
Mistake #3: Focusing on Traffic Rather Than Conversion
Traffic is important. Without visitors, you can’t make sales. But, getting thousands of hundreds of hits every month won’t matter if no one coverts.
But, wait! Doesn’t more traffic equal more conversions?
Not necessarily. In order for traffic to turn into conversion, you need to acquire the right type of traffic.
How to fix it:
Focus your search optimization efforts on your best-converting keywords. Run tests and analyze your top-performing keywords. If you are getting traffic from keywords that aren’t converting, remove them from the list on focus your efforts on the ones that are working.
Mistake #4: Not Tracking Data to See What Converts
This may all seem obvious to you, but you will be surprised to find out how many business owners fail to measure the effectiveness of their efforts. Another mistake they make is that they measure the results of the strategy based on one data point. You need to look at the data collectively to understand the big picture in order to be able to make fixes.
How to fix it:
Make a habit of checking analytics. Look at rankings, organic traffic search, bounce rate and conversions to see what needs to be tweaked and what works.
Mistake #5: Over-analyzing
Too much time spent looking at analytics can kill your creativity. Sure, data is important, but this doesn’t mean you should spend every hour of the day analyzing traffic, trends and conversion rates.
How to fix it:
Schedule your work over clear time frames. Decide how much time you are going to spend analyzing, create a content calendar and a posting strategy.
Have you discovered any other SEO campaign mistakes? We will love to hear your thoughts.
