This is the One Thing SEO Strategists Accidentally Do Wrong

Are you focusing on SEO to bring traffic to your site — and getting pretty lukewarm results overall?

If so, you might be doing something wrong.

And this is actually really, really common, especially among entrepreneurs who are relatively new to contemporary SEO best practices.

Your targeting might be a little too broad.

On the surface, the big, short, broad keywords have some pretty big numbers associated with them.

Search volume, that sort of thing. Looks good.

But they're not targeted. The search intent just isn't very clear.

If someone searches for “plumbing,” are they looking for an emergency plumber, for DIY instructions, or for advice on how to get into that field as a career path?

They might even be looking for something about the history of plumbing, for a high school essay or something.

You just don't know.

“Emergency plumbers in Des Moines” is a lot more obvious.

It might not have those big numbers next to it, but it's a lot more profitable.

A recent article from Search Engine Land explains this in more detail.

Entice the click

The first rule of competing for rankings is don’t compete for rankings. Search engines are not your competition, nor are the ranking positions.

[image source: Search Engine Land]

I like to think of search engine positions as the trophy for a job well done. It’s not a race to the trophy, it’s a race to the finish line to earn the trophy.

And that’s a huge difference.

The trophy comes after the competition.

So if you’re not competing for rankings, what are you competing for?

Clicks!

[image source: Search Engine Land]

Which brings us to our (not so) ordinary conversion elements

Now, typically, when we think of ways to get conversions, we’re thinking about on-page conversion flow and usability issues.

Those are the ordinary elements.

All are hugely important, mind you, but we are talking about a couple of ordinary things that are not so ordinary when it comes to generating site conversions.

And that’s because these are things we use every day as part of optimization, but we often neglect them as part of our conversion process.

But remember, we’re trying to entice the click. Ready to have your mind blown?

Here they are:

Title tags (clickable text) get ATTENTION

[image source: Search Engine Land]

In order to entice a click, you have to get the searcher’s attention.

Or if you’re dealing with any other media such as social, this would be the status update.

That title has to make the seeker sit up and take notice.

It has to stand out.

It has to give the searcher precisely what they are looking for while also offering something of unique value.

Do a quick search for your keywords and scan the title tags that come up in the search results.

You’re not doing this so you can mimic, but so you can see what’s missing.

If you can offer something that the other links are not, you’ve got yourself an attention-getting title tag. Which, in this case, is a good thing.

Descriptions (surrounding text) generate ACTION

[image source: Search Engine Land]

No conversion process would be complete without a call to action.

People have to be told what to do.

Even if the thing they want is staring them right in the face, many people are like deer in the headlights and wind up taking no action at all.

The call to action is how you tell the deer to get off the road into safety.

But in this case, you’re telling the searcher to get off Google and onto your site.

And I’m not just talking about saying “click here.”

You need to use your description to write a compelling reason to click.

What are the benefits the searcher will get when they click?

What problems will be solved? What value will be gained?

The description is your last chance to get the visitor to take action.

Yes, you do have to spell it out for them.