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1-Your website is not responsive-The majority of all online traffic in the US is now mobile traffic. That means whatever screen resolution was the most common for your visitors in 2013 is probably no longer the most common. A responsive site, which resizes to the device being used can make a huge difference in your site performance, conversion rates, and your bottom line.
2-You ignore phone calls-With more and more people on mobile devices, it is becoming increasingly common for people to convert via phone call, or even using a click-to-call feature. Good managers often follow the mantra, “If I can’t measure it I can’t manage it.” Advertisers who track everything else ignore tracking phone conversions at their own peril.
3-You ignore the effects of social media-It is true that social media marketing is less trackable and predictable than most other forms of online marketing. In many ways, it is more like a billboard or TV ad which you expect to generate sales, but have a devil of a time quantifying. Social platforms provide more than just social media marketing, however. Recent estimates have claimed that (next to quality content) social signals may be the single most important SEO element. Ignoring social completely is poor SEO. That is why all of That Company’s SEO plans include a social media component.
4- You have really long Meta-Titles-Google changed the display of organic listings this year, and often times the maximum number of characters shown in the Meta-Title can not exceed 55. It is not necessary to re-write every Meta-Title on your website, but it makes sense to conform to the new 55 character limit, and it might make sense to selectively revise your most important pages.
5-You didn’t update you PLAs in Adwords- Product listing ads are so different in Google these days that if you are using your 2013 campaigns you are probably having a terrible year in Adwords. The new format, however can be lucrative, especially if your competition hasn’t kept up with the changes.
6-You ignore Remarketing Lists for Search-OK, this doesn’t apply to all of you. For some marketers, it really makes no difference whether a specific visitor has been to the website before. However, for some of you, this can make a big difference…and Remarketing Lists for Search allow you to subtly adjust your bids based on past user behavior. Does you product or service have a long buying cycle that typically requires frequent visits? If so bidding up on visitors who have already been to your site makes sense. Is the goal of your PPC campaign to focus on new traffic? If so, bidding down on visitors who have been to your site before might better fight your goals. Are repeat customers important to you? If so, bid up based on folks who have already done business through your site. This is a great little tool for the right businesses.
7-You bought the lie about Meta-descriptions and Meta-Keywords-The internet is ripe with SEO “experts” proclaiming that since Google does not give any SEO consideration to Meta-Descriptions and Meta-Keywords any more (and since duplicate Meta-Keywords can be an SEO drag) web developers are better off leaving these blank. First of all, this disregards Bing/Yahoo, and other smaller engines that still use these as SEO factors. Since Bing/Yahoo account for at least a fifth of all search traffic, that is the equivalent of saying that you can afford to ignore a fifth of your potential clients or customers. Second of all, even if Meta-descriptions do not carry SEO weight on their own in Google, they play a role. They are typically the text that appears under your Meta-Title in the organic listing. Meta-descriptions can significantly effect click thru rates, which makes a difference in both the number of visitors to your website, and your organic rankings.
8-You ignore review extension in Adwords-If you have site reviews, this is a must. These relatively simple extensions can have a profound impact on click thru rates. This means more people to the site. It also means, in the long run, that your quality scores are likely to increase, which leads to lower CPC’s. If you have good reviews, please put them to use.
9-You have too many H1s-For some unknown reason, there was a time when web developers and even SEOs thought having lots of H1s on a page were either user-friendly or a great way to stuff keywords. They are neither. These days, having more than one H1 on a page is less than optimal for SEO purposes. Again, it may not be time wisely invested to restructure an entire site in order to correct this problem, but selectively restructuring the important pages can be beneficial.
10-You bought into lie that email marketing is dead-It is not. Yes, everyone is inundated with email, and open rates are falling somewhat across the marketplace, but there is a reason all of those marketers are seeing all of those emails…they are still very cost-effective for the right clients.
Written By: Derrick DeYarman – Director of SEO
