Most website owners wanting to find better, easier, cheaper ways to market online usually make common starter mistake. Here’s what they are, how to avoid them.
- Backlinks
- User Experience
- Internal and External Linking
- Google Ads
- Facebook Ads
Backlinks
If there is one thing you must avoid at all cost, is getting lots of backlinks quickly from all the wrong places because Google linking guidelines can penalize your website quickly as well. This is true especially for Local Business owners.
Here’s the fact: if your website is a new website with great content already, then, your log files will show you that you are already getting decent amount of website traffic with no backlinks at all.
That means, unless you think outside of the SEO box and stop listening to those so called experts trying to sell you an idea as to “you should do this or that for backlinks” instead, consider your own ideal customers wants and needs to come up with ideas as to “what would they like to find on your website?”
Then create your content accordingly. Whether that is blog posts for how to’s, or PDF manuals, Infographic or whether that is useful videos which all can help with natural backlinks because you can include backlinks within different content types. Natural backlinks is the key. That is the only backlink strategy that will work for Google rankings.
Also, take a look at the above image and study it carefully if you are creating content to be shared on external sites (for backlinks). Because backlinks are important to rank competitive keywords. But what is more important is the way in which you obtain them, from your own social media profiles (you ask your friends, or family members to share them as well) from quality sites (conduct backlink outreach campaign if you can and want). Always consider backlinks coming from original content.
Mobile User Experience
Which comes first, chicken or the egg? Which would you like to get more of, higher conversions or higher amount of website traffic? I would encourage you to consider higher conversion rates over anything else because website traffic that isn’t converting to meet your online business objectives is like you shooting in the dark with no target in sight.
First adhere to Mobile-first indexing best practices while focusing on simplicity which will satisfy your website visitors using mobile devices. Because that correlates with your organic rankings as well, here’s a useful SEO tips video tutorial that you can easily use.
Internal and External Linking
Since links are critical for SEO, let’s learn what the terminology means.
Internal Linking
Internal links are within your own website. But this is one of the most under used Google ranking signals on websites. Here’s what usually happens, most websites use links on their navigational menu structure (which of course is critical for your website visitors to find information on your website) however, links pointing towards your important pages from within your web copy is also important to guide Google as to allow it to determine which of your web pages are more important than others and which keywords are also more important than others.
External Links
External links are links pointing away from websites. And you may have heard other term as “outbound links, or, outgoing links”. Basically a website that does not link out to other relevant sources are not going to be able to rank competitive keywords.
Why? Because links pointing out tells search engines like Google that your website is somehow related to the that external link. And most website owners who begin to outlink usually only outlink to Wikipedia. Only in rare circumstance will that work. So how you can make sure that your website is also guiding Google? Begin outlinking, blog posts are a great way to do that.
Furthermore: when using links on your website, do not open your links in new tabs or new windows thinking that if your website visitor presses that link on your web page, its better to send him or her to another browser tab because you don’t want them to leave your website (then why provide that link on your web page?).
Think it like so, if you are providing links on your web pages (whether internal or external), then you do so because you believe that it will add value to the visitor, and if that visitor is going to press on that link, then, that means he or she wants to visit that resource. You can’t force your website visitor to stay on your webpage when they want to visit another web page. What you can do is, work on improving your web copywriting skills, presenting your content by improving usability experience, and clear call to actions coupled with branding. That’s within your control.
Put this in your CSS as provides visual ques for external links with target="_blank" or target="_new" attributes.
a[target="_blank"]::after {
content: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAQElEQVR42qXKwQkAIAxDUUdxtO6/RBQkQZvSi8I/pL4BoGw/XPkh4XigPmsUgh0626AjRsgxHTkUThsG2T/sIlzdTsp52kSS1wAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==);
margin: 0 3px 0 5px;
}
Google Ads (formerly AdWords)
Want super fast website traffic to your website. Then, Google Ads PPC is your friend.
But history will tell you, long ago in the world of Google and Yahoo wars, Google Ads was cheap (we’re talking about cents per click) but now, we are talking about $5 to $15 on average for getting clicks for decent type of keywords. What can we learn from this history lesson? Google Ads PPC advertising isn’t going to get cheaper, its going to get more expensive.
The lesson and perhaps the mistake to avoid here is to rely solely on Google Ads to bring consistent and targeted website traffic. Since there can be many other mistakes beginners can make using Google Ads, avoid these common ones.
- Do not just advertise your home page
- Do not forget to use conversion tracking
- Do not forget to group related keywords (per landing page your are advertising).
You can and should allocate budget to hire professional content creators and search engine optimizers for organic rankings. Work towards building authority on internet, and once you do, then make sure you are using Google Ads to protect your brand search queries. You can always hire RankYa expertise for everything digital marketing.
Facebook Ads
Facebook advertising, is like having the entire planet at your finger tips. You can quickly reach your ideal audience through precise targeting based on many of the information Facebook users have been providing for many years. It seems like Facebook knows their users more than the individual users know themselves. Throughout the years, Facebook slowly like a wolf creeping up towards its prey, has been building user data now available for you to take advantage of. However, the mistake to avoid is:
You are trying to sell on Facebook, which will not work for 99% of FB Advertisers. Instead, first work on getting likes (that’s called social proof, yes, we as humans learn from one another and will trust the Like or Recommendation of others as a signal of trust). Dependent on your niche: identify and create content for FB users (for example: cute pets, motivational quotes, funny gif’s and or videos work great for getting your audience finding about you. Have an eCommerce site? Then take a look at Product Catalogs and make sure you got your landing page setup on your own website as the action usually happens on your website.
Then, your Facebook Advertising strategy needs a face-lift and a whole new way of thinking. Let’s try to go deeper because we must. Facebook allows you to reach people who are on Facebook doing their own thing (talking with family and friends, checking out what’s going on with their friends comments, see if Miss Susan has bought that new dress etc.) and you present your Ad to them in a moment in time when they were thinking about other things and not necessarily interested in your products or services.
Knowing that, you can be creative and create your Ad in such way that when they see your Ad, this arises:
- Surprise, or what da moment?
- Pain if I don’t press on this Ad, or pleasure if I do
- Curiosity will surely entice the Facebook cat
Now you captured their attention and enticed them to click on your Ad, the work is half done. First, your Facebook business page must be professionally designed, as first impressions last.
Then, remember that its your website that will ultimately do the conversion. Basically, first create such content on your website that it will be valued by your target audience and advertise towards that content, on your website. Once again forget about strategies by multinationals like Nike, or Mercedes Benz (unless of course your online business is big as these multinationals).
I believe that you are now better informed as to how you can not only avoid these online marketing and SEO mistakes, but make sure you use the insights for building a more successful online business for yourself. Thank you for sharing this content by RankYa
Nice Article