There is nothing worse than working for months and months on a SEO campaign only to have the work wiped out by a seemingly simple change to the website or Google account.
This morning I started creating a video specifically for our current SEO clients to make sure we are on the same page…The DO’s and DON’Ts for their Search Engine Optimization campaign.
I quickly realized that this information could be useful to anyone who is diligently working to get to the top of Google. Watch the 8-Minute Video…
Video Transcript
This is Joe Burnich with bigwestmarketing.com, and what I want to do in this video is talk about five things you can do to really screw up your SEO campaign. This is mainly created for our current SEO clients, but I decided to share it out on YouTube and to my email list so everybody can kind of see some different things that could hurt your SEO campaign or your Google ranking campaign. Let’s get started right now.
So these five things I’m going to talk about are very risky things that we see our clients do that hurt their SEO campaign, actually sets them back and can destroy the momentum that we have created as we work through and get their websites ranked up to the first page of Google. So the number one thing I want to talk about is adding a new location. So I know that people want to rank in multiple cities, or they want to rank in a city that they’re not physically located in. But I highly recommend you get with us or any SEO person that you’re working with and consult with them before you go out and do this. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen people add these locations, and a lot of times they’re virtual addresses, sometimes they’re UPS mailboxes. All these things violate Google’s guidelines and can get you into a lot of trouble. Even if you use two residential addresses, it can really get you into trouble.
So if you’re planning on adding a second location or moving locations, let your SEO company handle that for you. It’s very, very important. Address is so, so important when it comes to ranking on Google. If you get penalized for adding a second location and you’re violating Google’s guidelines, it can take months, months to get back in Google’s good graces. That is such a spammy move from Google’s point of view. So be very careful with that. All right.
Second thing I want to talk about is adding plugins or little programs to your website. Okay, so the biggest one I see is because we do WordPress web design for our clients. The biggest thing I see people do is they’ll go in and they’ll add this plugin called Yoast, Y-O-A-S-T. And the reason they do this is because they have heard from somebody else that’s in the SEO community, or they watch a YouTube video or they read an article online. Yoast is a great plugin if you’ve got like a generic or one of those free WordPress themes, and it doesn’t allow you to do a lot of these little SEO things on the back end. Yoast will allow you to do all that.
Problem is if you add it to an SEO ready website, like the ones we build, it’ll wipe out all the title tags. Okay, and if you don’t know how to go in there and add them in manually one by one correctly, then you’ve just wiped out all the work that was done as far as on the website SEO. So that’s just an example is the Yoast plugin, but there are many other plugins. If you find a plugin that you think is going to help with your SEO, and you’re excited about it, please call our office and ask us what we think about it. Or call your current SEO person and say, hey, I’m thinking about adding this plugin to my website. What do you think? Okay, don’t just do it on your own. I’ve seen so many people get themselves into big trouble doing that.
And number three, since we’re already talking about title tags is, I know there’s a lot of information about there on putting lots of keywords into your title tags, and there’s all these different conflicting views on how you do that. We take a very conservative approach here at Big West because we don’t like Google penalties. Title tags, along with like addresses are so important, they’re so vital to getting your website ranked up on Google, especially in like the organic rankings. Not so much in the maps, but with the organic section, title tags are everything. So if you’ve got some new ideas and you want to change some stuff up, you read an article, you watched a video and you want to get your title tags changed or your meta titles, that goes by different names. Please call us, okay, please contact us if you’re a current SEO client. If you’re working with somebody else, once again, go with your current SEO person and talk to them about what the title tags should and should not be changed to.
All right, this is another big one that we see every once in a while. But what people will do is they’ll hire us to do SEO and then they’ll go and be like, okay, well, if they’re doing SEO and I hire somebody else to also do SEO, now I’ve got two companies doing SEO on my website. It’s got to work, right? It’s got to be faster, right? No, absolutely not. Less is more when it comes to SEO. And if we’ve got somebody doing something on a website or building links that conflict with what we’re doing, once again, it’s going to be a complete setback. We’re going to have to start over. It’s going to ruin all the momentum we’ve made.
Now, if you have an SEO person that you think is going to do some extra stuff that we don’t do, call us, talk to us. We are so easy to get ahold of, so approachable when it comes to this kind of stuff, okay. If you’re a current SEO client with Big West, you have a point person to call or email and ask questions when it comes to any of this stuff. So don’t hire a second SEO person. If you do, please contact us first and let’s hash it out. Let’s get a strategy. Let’s get a smart game plan in place. Okay.
Five, the last thing, the last big thing we see people do that really screws up their SEO, really sets them back is they go in and make changes to the Google My Business account. Okay. There are many ways to screw up your Google My Business account. Changing categories is a big one that people think is not a big deal. Very big deal. Do not change your categories without consulting us or your SEO person first. Okay. Don’t change categories, do not change the business name, do not change the address, going back to the second location or changing your location, do not change the address and most importantly, don’t do anything to the business name. Let us do that for you. Let your SEO professional do it for you. That’s what you pay them money because they have the expertise to do this. If you do it on your own, you may be okay, but there’s also this big risk that you are going to set yourself back big time.
What if you inquire a penalty on your Google My Business account? That means you disappear completely. Not only are you not ranking high now, but you disappear completely. And we’ve got to get on the phone, do some email back and forth, get on the forums, get on Twitter, do all this stuff with Google support, which is very hard to deal with right now because of COVID situation. Very slow responding. It’s taking a month, two months, three months, sometimes longer than normal to get Google to react to something, especially when it comes to fixing Google My Business accounts.
Okay, so let’s review real quick, the five things. Okay. Don’t add a new location without consulting your SEO person. Don’t add WordPress plugins without consulting your SEO person. Do not hire a second SEO company or anybody that’s doing any kind of marketing stuff for your website. Don’t do that unless you consult first with your SEO person. Do not go in and change or add to your current title tags or meta titles on your website without consulting your SEO person. And then do not change your Google My Business information without consulting your SEO person.
Okay, that’s it. If you have any questions about this stuff, please give us a call, (406) 493-1881 or go to bigwestmarketing.com and book a free 30 minute consultation. If you’re a current SEO client, of course, you know how to get ahold of us, you know how responsive we are and we really want to help you guys. We don’t want you to be set back. So I will talk to you soon. Once again, my name is Joe Burnich with Big West Marketing, have a good one.
