5 SEO Mistakes I Learned from as an Online Marketer !

By trade I am a Entrepreneur, Marketer, Motivator, Business Consultant, and Writer. But none of that equates the status of an SEO expert. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the SEO school of hard knocks. Marketers by nature always test a variety of things online. So anything I am sharing with you regarding search engine optimization is based on a lot of testing.

1. Perma What ?!

One of the first things you should add to your blog (via htaacces file) is the correct permalinks. Permalinks help search engines with indexing. I was so busy telling myself on one of my main blogs (DarrenMonroe.com) that it was going to just be an update blog that I didn’t follow that rule. Speaking as a marketer though I think Wordpress should have a popup when you first enter your admin area so you have a checklist.

2. Attention Marketers SEO plugin is your friend.

The SEO plugin is great! This plugin allows you to gain better ranking. Don’t take for granted the ability to add a title, description, and keyword in each and every page and post of your blog. Many marketers begin to focus on the copywriting but we forget the aspect of gaining search engine ranking involves having the right words and phrases to crawl. That doesn’t mean you have to write for a search engine. Even as a marketer I know that. However you should habitually add title, keywords, descriptions,  and phrases to your articles.

3. Duplicate Article postings are Cool! Er ah NO.

Not cool at all and can get you penalized by search engines or at the very least weak rankings for that post. Though in traditional marketing it makes sense to send press releases. Online sending the same PR can be search engine suicide. So what is a marketer to do?

1. Create an announcement post on your blog with a press release then publish it to the public.
2. Article market your one press release. Write an article about the subject of your press release. For example write a Ezine article on http://www.ezinearticles.com about the need for better car engines and link to your press release about a new engine design.
3. Spread word with social media and bookmarks linking to your press release.
4. Send out via your email marketing lists.

This should bring in enough authority and links to your press release so Google or any other search engine doesn’t confuse your article (original content) with anyone else who might re-post. The truth is that people in the press will repost because they don’t want to write a whole story.

But explain the penalties of reposting non original content via search engines. And Ask any media you are sending it to if they could create an original headline title and see if they can write a short paragraph in addition to the reposting.

Now this doesn’t guarantee that Google and the gang wont penalize you. But they might think twice since your media did the following.

1. Change the headline
2. Add original content
3. Link to the original article (press release)

4. Comment on blogs like you were talking in front of a camera. Not like you have write a small essay due to your school teacher in 5 minutes.

Does this comment seem familiar? “Great post I really like that it was really good.” You don’t just want a link back because it helps search engines. You want someone to think your comment was interesting enough to visit your site. Bloggers often suggest commenting on blogs. Fewer discuss establishing a reason for someone to actually click through.

5. Headline Titles matter but Picture this……….

I wrote an article titled “Get Paid 1 Million Dollars to Scratch Your Butt and Sniff”. And between the one million dollar picture and the headlines that article is listed as number one across over 50 million searches.

No big discovery that headlines in your title are important. But don’t focus on the SEO factor so much that you miss your chance to gain organic traffic. For example if you enter the phrase one million dollars in Google you will see a few pictures of money that will show up. As I am writing this article one of those first page pictures links to my site out of 34 million searches. The lesson learned? Don’t just carefully name your title but also consider adding images and name them carefully as well. Images can bring you just as much traffic as the headlines and keywords in your content.

I didn’t design it that way. Actually it was a funny play on words. I wrote the post to address those “get paid one million dollar articles.” You know the ones. They always turn out to be scams to get your email and eventually (if they are lucky) your money. So I wrote a clever short article that got search engine ranking by it’s title alone of over 24 million searches.

Conclusion

Marketers pay attention to setting up your blog permalinks. Also make sure you have original comments on blogs as well as content. Use the SEO plugin. And begin to focus on your images for traffic as well as your content.

And on a last note for anyone reading this SEO, Marketer, Blogger or just plain child of God. Have FUN! Again that article I wrote that ended up on the first pages of a combined 50 million searches was for edutainment (education + entertainment).

About the Author – Darren Scott Monroe
Darren is an Entrepreneur, Marketer, Motivator, Business Consultant, and Writer. He currently manages a variety of websites and is the founder of Learn Entrepreneurship Online.

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