SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is perhaps one of the best tools that most Web business owners can employ to make the best of their enterprise online. Unfortunately, many of these business owners do not know much about SEO and/or realize the beneficial uses they could bring to their endeavors.

Being able to properly exploit SEO will increase website traffic and consequently sales, giving these Web business owners a comparative edge over their online competitors.  But because of lack of full awareness of the operation and potential benefits of search engine optimization, online businesspersons sometimes commit a few mistakes in the process of utilizing such tool.  Here are the top 5 SEO pitfalls they fall into.

Spending too much time on the design and not on the content of the page won’t help. It is important to remember that “real consumers” will be looking for information that will cater to their need, and only the “contents” can deliver this information to them. An over design will attract mostly superficial visitors and could eventually end up as wasted resources. One tip- invest first on copywriting then spend on the design later.

Webmasters often forget the importance of a good, fresh content. Creating great, new contents is the best way to entice new visitors and even attract previous ones to come back. Unluckily some business owners fail to realize and implement this in their websites. This strategy is one effective way to generate the right traffic wished for. If, however, the web business persons only desire to improve search engine ranking, they may not consider this tactic and instead, add a blog that can motivate web visitors.

Not offering something unique, especially in the site’s content. Online business owners could encourage clients to connect to their site by providing something special and interesting in their site’s contents. By introducing media options such as blogs and fora, more people will link into your site. Great benefits for your site could result from this innovation.  

Using inappropriate words and phrases is a bad thing. One thing that web business owners must always remember is that to get the right kind of visitors, the right kind of invitation must be given. An optimal search engine result could be expected if the appropriate keyword phrases are selected and used in the specific areas of your web page.

Webmasters often fail to label links and images descriptively. There are instances when web business owners fail to label and describe their links and images properly confusing their visitors as to what and where they are being led to. Apt description and correct labels guide visitors in finding the information they are looking for in the site. They also facilitate online business owners trying to sell a particular product or service direct potential buyers to their site.

Various options are available to Webmasters for making webpage. In many (if not most) cases, they sacrifice some important points just to make the webpage attractive to its end-users. This situation, unfortunately, results to web pages that are not search engine-friendly and worse, it becomes difficult for these pages to be indexed on the search engines. And when the web pages are in such a condition, they become hardly accessible to the end-users and therefore, useless, even if they contain good materials. In this article you can find tips that will help you improve your web page, make it search engine friendly and user friendly and make it readily accessible to its users. 

1. Improving layout of webpage: The layout of a webpage is very important if you would want a visitor to remain browsing your page. If the layout of your webpage is not-visitor friendly, chances are, your visitor will leave your page no matter how good the contents of the page are.  Following are helpful tips to come up with a good layout:

- Place the most important information at the top of the webpage so the reader can readily and immediately see it.

- Distribute the contents into paragraphs each of which should not be more than 100 words.

Use bullets, bars, tables, white spaces, margins, etc. appropriately to facilitate reading.

2. Improving size of webpage: The size of the webpage is also important in holding a reader to the page. It should not be too long because readers do not like to scroll. Besides, long pages take more time to load compared to short pages. Here are useful tips for improving page size:

Always keep your page below 32K to make it load quickly and not longer than 8-10 seconds.

Avoid the use of scrolling in your page but if it cannot be helped, add internal navigation so the users can directly go the information they need.

3.  Improving navigation of webpage: Navigation has also an important role to keep your user. Her are some tips for improving navigation tools:

- Navigation links must be clear, easily accessible and at the top of each webpage.

- The navigation structure must be the same on every page of a website.

- If you have a complex website always add a search function in each of your web pages.

4.    Improving fonts of a webpage: The fonts of a webpage are likewise important to make the page user-friendly. Too small, too large or too complex fonts could be hardly readable to some browsers. Be wary therefore on using fonts in your page so as not to drive away your visitors. Here are the tips for improving fonts:

- Always create a webpage that uses common default fonts like Arial, Times new roman, Verdana, etc.

- Always make your headings and titles in bold and underline the most important lines of your webpage.

- Avoid using uncommon fonts unless they are in graphics. Use plain texts as they are more legible than italics.

- Do not use light texts on dark background for it creates visibility problem in reading.

5.  Improving content of a webpage:  Content is the primordial part of the webpage and there is not substitute to a good content. It is the reason why a visitor is browsing your page. To encourage your visitor to remain reading the contents of your page, here are some helpful suggestions:

- Make your contents informative and yet unique.

- Avoid grammatical and spelling errors in your page.

- Use hyperlinks to enable your readers pursue the details of a particular topic.

- Make your texts scan-able inasmuch as some users prefer to scan the internet.

The above tips will help you create a good, user-friendly webpage. If you have an existing webpage that is not getting a good number of visitors because of page’s layout, size, fonts, navigation, and contents, following these tips will most likely help you improve it and come up with more visitors and users.

Keywords are terms that serve to guide search engines find your site. Identifying and utilizing the fittest keywords for the fastest site location is called search engine optimization. Your keywords must be located in your site’s HTML source as META tags. There are search engine devices that will come looking for the keywords that your clients type in. If your customer’s keywords match with yours, your site would be found. However, finding the right keywords that popularly tallies with those of the visitors is not that easy. But, with the right strategies, you can identify keywords that would make your site easily accessible to your would-be-customers and in the process spare you a of time for some other web marketing activities. These are the top 6 points you must remember for keyword optimization:

Find your keywords: Use available research tools for identifying your keywords. These are available in tools like Overture or WordTracker which are intentionally designed to generate keywords that people would most likely type in search for products online.

Avoid single keywords: You must desist from using single keywords because when searching, people usually opt to use a combination of two or more keywords than a single one, such as “cough medical syrup” instead of simply “syrup”. This normative practice of visitors give single keywords a very low chance of being “matched” by the words typed in by clients to search for products in the net. Besides, a single keyword may no be able to capture a complete description of your product.

Summarize your site: Use summative statements to identify your site. This will give your site a unique personality and minimize the number of others sites that a prospective customer will be locating. If your site is about tigers, lions, giraffes, bats, whales, rabbits, etc. in the Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam, summarize your site into “Southeast Asian Mammals”.

Place the keywords at the heading: It is necessary that you set your keywords at the heading of your website to enable your visitors to find out what you are presenting to them at first glance. Inasmuch as the heading is also featured in search engines, with the keywords, right there and then, your clients will already see what you are offering.

Include synonyms, acronyms and misspelled words:  There will be prospects who will be searching for your product but who may be using different terms and even wrongly spelled words. So as not to lose these customers, you need to include in your site other words that have the same meaning to your keywords, acronyms and even deducible errors.  If you are promoting “Bachelor of Science in Electronic Commerce” you may also post “BS in E-Commerce”,” BS in E-Calling”, and “BS in E-Business”. If you are offering “Bookkeeping” services, you can include “Bookeeping”.  People searching for a “Portable Play station” may type in “PSP”.

Reiterate your keywords: People looking for a particular product or service in a site need to be affirmed of what your site is all about. It is therefore important that you put your key words at least 3-4 times in your site, preferably once in the introduction, twice in the body and once in the conclusion. However, you must avoid repeating them excessively because it could bore your visitor and may cause a negative view of your writing style.

These search engine optimization strategies are simple, understandable, easily applicable, and most of all evidently practical. All you need is do some research, organize, implement and wait. Many clients will be visiting your site you’ll see.  

Any deserving search engine optimization company can get some high rankings, one way or the other. But this ranking does not necessarily reflect success in enticing prospective buyers of the company’s products and services. For the search engine company to come up with results that rank highly to the proper market, it is necessary for it to understand and then describe accordingly your products and services. It is highly important for your search engine optimization company to have a clear grasp of your marketing strategy.

Unique Differentiators

A search engine optimization company must be able to project the distinct, outstanding features of the products and services that it posts. The outstanding uniqueness of your products will invite buyers to select them over the others. On the side of the search engine company, this calls for a better understanding of these products/services for the identification and usage of the most fitting words and phrases that will describe them.

Some tip to achieve this is to use key phrases that will effectively raise the product/service above or distinguish them from the rest. Offering customer-specific products or problem-delimited solutions will be a good strategy. By choosing the best-fit, distinctive terminologies, you will be able to attract exactly the type of web page visitors that you are targeting.

High-profile Segments

Generally, inside companies there are products and services that are more profitable than the others; likewise, there will be new products and services to sell. These are information that express the importance of making priorities in advertising in-company products. If the search engine optimization company will not be aware of these data, it might end up developing a web page that does not address your real marketing need. For you to be able to get the best marketing campaign from the search engine optimization company, you must provide the data that will enable it to appropriately describe the products and services that you yourself consider as priority.

Defining Prospects

In making your campaign, you must know very well your target consumers. What particular products/services do they need? What is their economic status? What is their educational background? To what products and services are they exposed?

Knowing the most likely profile of your target clients will be vital for the success of your campaign.  You must give this information to your search engine optimization company for it to be able choose the most suitable terminologies and approaches for the kind of client you want to reach.

Change over Time

If your enterprise is not among the very few that remain stagnant for the last five decades, it is very likely that your marketing strategy always adapts to the new challenges and new opportunities that come. As part of this change, your company would be offering new products/services, cater to new prospects, or even concentrate on other ventures.

It will be unfortunate if these developments in your business organization will not be relayed to your search engine optimization company. Your search engine company will always want to be informed of these issues primarily because they are indispensable in continuously making your campaign relevant and updated. This persistence in learning any change in you marketing strategy and in ensuring that such is properly addressed is the “mark” of a pro-active search engine optimization company.

Search engine optimization companies may not fully understand your organization the way you do but definitely, those with outstanding track records could understand your organization better than the others. The proper blend between you sharing your organization’s data and the search engine company’s optimum utilization of such will spell the success of your campaign. A search engine optimization company that takes for granted relevant from your organization is not after your success, so better replace it.