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Common Errors made by Search Engine Marketers

Published by Mark Hammond on 28 July 2008
E-mail this to a friend Printer Version Search Engine Optimisation

Developing your online business is a serious task and it can take you months or even years to establish a foothold in the field. Search engines are difficult creatures to please and their unfriendliness to upcoming but mediocre websites is well-known. In this context, SEO and SEM can play a big role in building and marketing your site right from scratch, or even turn around the fortunes of your gradually perishing online business. But if you consider the increasing number of variables which affect the success or failure of an SEM campaign, you will realize the complexity and challenges involved in the task of a Search Engine Marketer. Let us see a few common errors of SEMs and how they can avoid the same.

One of the biggest problems with SEMs relates to the obsessive-compulsive nature that they develop with their projects over time. It is not rare to see them checking the rankings and analytics of their projects numerous times a day in a bid to observe the dynamics of the traffic and if it is rising or falling. While this can be a pretty thrilling exercise, especially if you like to celebrate the gaining of PageRanks, you should also realize that there are more creative ways to procrastinate. If you want to keep a track of how much time you waste, check out this Firefox extension called PageAddict to monitor your addiction effectively. There is also a tendency for marketers to mismanage their time, especially in the case of large projects. It is important to list down all the tasks along with their respective priorities and also cut-down on the unnecessary efforts. To avoid forgetting good ideas that can catch your brain unawares, you can use tools like Mindjet and voice recorders to record your ideas for future use.

Never undervalue the individuality and smartness of a website’s visitors. If you think you can mislead or fool people into buying your products, you are gravely mistaken. The consumer today is well-read, knowledgeable about the market and does not believe in following herd mentality. It is alright to make certain general predictions about your consumers but assuming too much can be a bad thing for your website, especially if you cater to a niche market. You can try websites like Google Analytics and ClickTracks to get a clear picture of the activities of users on your website. Many search marketers have a habit of confusing their own goals with those of their clients’. Failing to see the larger picture of your strategy and focusing on trivial matters can leave you disillusioned and render your results to be dissatisfactory. Of course, you need to take care of aspects like page layouts, originality of content and the site traffic, but remember that ultimately your job is to increase a website’s “conversions”.

Finally, I would suggest you to be updated about the latest happenings in the industry. But ensure that you regularly read content belonging to reputable and credible sources like Technorati and Bloglines, so that you have less chances of going wrong. After all, it always helps to see the leader, for preparing to be the leader!

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