Recently we have been asked to use our SEO expertise and evaluate some nice looking sites. But truthfully, looks mean nothing without traffic.  These clients have come to the conclusion that their site isn’t what it could be, so that made the job a little easier. Having an open mind and being logical is important for change.

Now most people might know the word SEO, but they haven’t the foggiest clue what it means or how to make the changes necessary. The reality is, this is not a voodoo science. There are quick ways to know what is wrong, and it’s quite simple to fix most problems. How you ask? Find out the best in class competitor for your product or service and see what they are doing and what you are not. Read forums and blogs about their site and see what clients are saying.

As an example, we would like to discuss the situation of one particular client and how a little competitive research (and some simple changes) quickly increased their online presence. The client had a nice site with a respectable Google Page Rank of 4, with tons of links and were well known locally. They wanted to increase their presence globally and tap into e-commerce. Nevertheless, upon Google searches, customers could not find their site on the main/major keyword (product) their site was focused on. We looked at page after page of Google search results to no avail. How could this be?

So we began to delve deeper and found the major keyword they focused on was not in the keyword list or meta tags of their site. There were no alternate text on all the pictures they had of the products, and worse of all there was no text on the index page with the actual keyword. They didn’t have an RSS feed or sitemap.

Furthermore, when we looked at their competitors website, all the errors were clear. Their competitor (on the index page) had a quick/concise 250 word summary with the main keyword 12 times. As well, the title used header tags, the images had alt tags and the meta tags were quality and well thought.
Our client had 150 meta-keywords in source code vs the competitor only having 5.

So the main , quick fix was the actual viewable text. The competitors had tons of text and content available (to be read by Googlebot), and they had very little. We quickly fixed the meta-tag issues, installed a sitemap, an rss feed, as well cleaned up their design with their team, and now they are swimming in traffic they always wanted.

I know this sounds stupid, but we have a strong belief that sometimes stating the obvious and actually acting upon it can bring great wisdom. Have you checked out your competitors? What are they doing that you could use, modify or improve? Still unsure? Require e-marketing help? If you are interested in our help, please don’t hesitate to contact Mark8t E-Marketing Solutions today.