If your website does not rank high, here’s what you can do to improve search engine rankings, engage visitors and convert more sales.

1. Align the site with your objectives

Have your business objectives and goals changed since you launched your website? If so, then you need to revisit your website’s content to ensure it supports your current business needs.

2. Remove useless items

Every item on your website competes for your visitors’ attention, reducing the impact of your key message. Is that welcome message necessary? Are some of those buttons redundant? Scrutinize every element to help deliver a strong message and eliminate distractions.

3. Update your information

Keep time-sensitive information on your website up to date. If you don’t have adequate resources, keep time-sensitive information to a minimum.

4. Edit your web copy for consistency

Businesses often have different people adding web copy at different times, which leads to inconsistencies. Review your copy from start to finish with a keen eye on spelling, format, style, narration, tense, flow and so on.

5. Split text blocks into scannable chunks

Massive blocks of text discourage visitors from exploring your website. Break up web copy with relevant headlines, subheads, bullet points and short, one-topic paragraphs. Your visitors will thank you by spending more time on your site.

6. Review fonts

Check your fonts to ensure consistent size, style and spacing. Consider using a style sheet. Fonts optimal for the Web include Arial, Courier, Georgia, Time New Roman and Verdana.

7. Add new web copy

Add relevant web copy frequently to satisfy visitors and search engines alike. Improve search engine rankings and give your visitors a reason to keep coming back.

8. Refresh your graphics

Renew your image with new graphics, charts and photos. Many are royalty free. Type in terms like “clip art,” “graphics,” and “free photos” into your favorite search engine and you’re on your way.

9. Make your graphics search engine friendly

Give your images tags with keywords to help improve search engine rankings.

10. Consider your color theme

Go over your colors to ensure they are a part of or at least complement your logo and brand. Dump backgrounds that make it difficult to read web copy.

11. Extinguish flashing content

Flashing content irritates visitors and turns them away. It’s one step away from announcing, “Congratulations! You’re the 1,000,000th visitor! Click here to claim prize!” If you want it to make a point, do so with compelling web copy, placement, font size or color.

12. Speed it up

Your pages should load fast. Don’t make your visitors wait 30 seconds or so just to watch your logo spin around. How many times have you retreated from a site while waiting for its intro to load? Relevant web copy is much more likely to grab the attention of a potential client.

13. Re-evaluate PDFs

Are you guilty of throwing PDFs onto your website to save time? PDFs are designed for print, not the Web. Unless it’s an e-book or a form, offer the information as a webpage and give your visitor the option of viewing it as a PDF.

14. Leave music to the DJs

Don’t blast music at your visitors. It slows access to your site and can cheapen your presentation. If music is required, hand over the controls to your visitor by making it optional.

15. Repair or delete broken links

Check all your links and be quick to repair or delete any that bring your visitors to the ‘404 file not found’ message. If a section is under construction, take it offline.

With the many forum posts, blog posts, and articles on the “SEO secrets” and online marketing techniques, it is not surprising that there are those who opt to keep quiet about theirs. With so many SEO techniques being shared online, there has been growing niche of online marketing newbies who delve into these shared secrets and render them useless after a time.

Think about it. The more you share your SEO secrets, the more other will use it. It will end go to a point wherein the tactic would be overused and the market would be saturated. It would be a very big disadvantage to the person who shared it because that specific secret made him or her a lot of money, and stopped working because he shared it with others. With this trend going on today, we cannot really blame some SEO experts to keep their secrets to themselves.

Not everyone thinks this way, of course. There are SEO experts who are very open to sharing information. They view it as a means to become popular and attract attention, which is a big plus in online marketing. Some experts say that it is only a matter of knowing and trusting the people you share information with. They only share information with people that they can brainstorm with and have a give-and-take relationship.

Some aspects of internet marketing and SEO are being talked less and less in the Web. Paid links, lead generation techniques are seen less and less, and even reciprocal linking is not always a topic anymore. There are just some SEO strategies that cannot be shared because competing sites may get hold of the strategies and make use of it themselves.

The way SEO strategies are being kept quiet nowadays, we can see it as an encouragement from the SEO experts to become one of them. Learn to make your own strategies and tactics. Make your own strategy to be successful online.

1. Trying to build your own website

Not every one of us is creative and efficient in making our own website. Even now, there are websites out there that (a) don’t make it clear what they’re all about, (b) are not search engine friendly, and (3) don’t satisfy a visitor’s or a customer’s needs.

To avoid making a mess out of your website, it would be best to have someone knowledgeable in building websites to do the job for you. Online marketing service providers and website developers usually offer their services in building websites that can drive traffic and market your product or services.

2. Making a site that doesn’t drive traffic

Customers don’t just go on clicking on your link to visit your website. Bear in mind that you have several competitors in the Web. You will have to exert lots of time and effort in attracting visitors to your website. Online marketing professionals employ search engine optimization and online marketing for this.

3. Not checking on marketing your website

Marketing efficiently means knowing what online strategies have worked for you. Your local marketing efforts may all have been for naught. You need to know if they’re working or not to make more improvements and determine if you need to make some changes or employ a new strategy.

4. Using directories

Many people make use of directories as they are a popular way to drive in customers. The problem is, you’ll still have a lot of competition to worry about. With directories, you will also be paying for referrals; and even with referrals you’ll still have many competitors to deal with.

Sometimes, it would be better to take online marketing into your own hands. You can opt to not make use of the directories that much and continue on to promote your services directly to prospective local customers.

5. Not turning calls into sales

Calls mean that the customer is interested in your products or services. When someone is interested, there’s a possibility that you can get a sale out of him or her. Many people do not know that a missed call is a missed opportunity to make a sale. These calls are leads, which will generally give you many prospective customers.

Be sure to leave your contact number on your website (and other media). Also make sure that you are available for every call.

Source: Dental Office

Here’s a video from Fathom SEO yet again, this time explaining the 12 Search Engine Marketing Campaign Mistakes To Avoid. It’s very informative and Mike from Fathom SEO elaborates on each mistake and why we need to avoid them.

Here’s a video from Web Marketing Watch for all those who are on a link building campaign. Sage Lewis energetically tells of his experience receiving an embarrassing link request, and proceeds to give his opinion and set of advice in how to ask for a link.

Marketing is one of the very important tool of a business may it be online or offline that’s why entrepreneurs tend to spend a lot for building their own marketing strategy to drive consumers to their products and services. However, they should also be careful in setting up proper marketing strategy since this is a very delicate part of the business. The following is a checklist of 5 mistakes commonly made in marketing:

1. Lack of Research and Testing
Starting a business usually takes a lot of trial and error but this makes it to the top learning from mistakes done. That’s why Research and testing is essential to check if there would be a need for improvement or change in marketing strategies.A due diligence must be imposed when trying out some new marketing ideas.

2. Improper Focus and Positioning
Approach Marketing to demand feedback from your prospective customers. Focus and proper positioning should be done to avoid this mistake.

3. Marketing without a USP
Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) will determine you among other competitors. That should be used in every marketing material you sent out for your business. It might be your own philosophical foundation of your business.

4. Failing to Capture Repeat Customers
Bear in my that in a business, marketing 80% of your business comes from existing customers and 20% comes from new customers. Give importance to your existing customers by showing them your latest marketing.

5. Lack of Focus on Potential Customer’s Needs
Give importance to your potential customers by knowing their needs since they are already a part of your growing business. A lot of businesses neglect to focus on their customer’s needs. Focusing on customer’s needs makes you discover what is needed to improve on your services offered. The secret to avoiding this common error is to find a need you can fill and then fill that need better than anyone else.