Marketing Matrix: 13 Quick and Easy Ways (Even You) Can Screw Up Your SEO Campaign

Monday, August 29, 2011

13 Quick and Easy Ways (Even You) Can Screw Up Your SEO Campaign

by Stoney deGeyter

SEO is like a complex machine. When all the gears are greased and everything is in place, all is well with the world (and your search engine rankings). But sometimes all it takes is one little snafu to bring your entire SEO campaign crashing down around you. There is nothing worse than waking up in the morning to find that Google has forgotten who you are and kicked you to the curb like a drunken date the morning after.

Since 13 is your lucky number, I've compiled a list of 13 ways that (yes!) even you can screw up your SEO campaign! I think the correct term for this is: FUBAR!

Overwrite your SEO's changes by making edits to an outdated copy of your website and publishing it live. Don't forget to keep your your SEO provider out of the loop on these changes.

Upload a robots.txt file that "disallows" the search engines from spidering and indexing your entire site.

Re-develop your CMS, which causes well-ranked URLs to change. And don't make time to put 301 redirects in place for six months.

Change all your URLs to be "keyword friendly" even when you're already ranking well for your keywords. Because, really, there is a spot above #1!

Use your really important keywords really often so your really important visitors are really able to see what's really important on the page and the search engines really know what your really important page is about. Don't be shy because this is really important. Really.

Ignore critical recommendations from your SEO for months or, better yet, years! But, feel free to continue to complain that your competitors are gaining.

Hire someone to redesign your site but make sure you use the cheapest person you can find. That way they won't have the time or budget to check for broken links. It's helpful when half of your new navigation links don't work.

Demand that your SEO not go after lucrative phrases in favor of your pet, high-traffic, low-conversion phrases. Better yet, ignore their keyword recommendations altogether. Who needs conversions, anyway?

Hide your optimized content behind a password-protect firewall, or require visitors to "sign up" to see it.

Don't link build on a brand new site. You can't afford that nonsense!

Call or email your SEO daily to check on progress. That time they spend reporting to you would otherwise be wasted. Clearly they wouldn't spend it on SEO or anything like that.

Have your site designed and developed without any input from the SEO, then make sure to tell your SEO that you don't want to pay for any more changes. This works best when the developers create massive code bloat, place text in images and don't use any search-engine friendly design practices.

Stop taking your SEO's calls or return their emails. That information they requested can wait until you're good and ready to complain about something!

But wait... there's more. Not only can you screw up your SEO campaign, here are 5 easy ways you can lose ROI at the same time!

Make sure your contact forms gather as much information as possible. You never know when you might need their date of birth; annual household income; names and ages of their children; their home, business and cell phone numbers; MySpace page and instant messenger handle(s).

Add a few (oh, go ahead and add a LOT) of extra steps into your checkout process. Don't let your visitors know how many steps there are, just keep them clicking from one step to the next. It's like a whodunit mystery. The real question will be "whocheckedout"? Could be one! Maybe even two, if you're lucky!