Search engine optimization is the de-facto method that website owners use to increase their website’s search engine friendliness, improve search engine rankings, overall visibility and increase their website traffic.  But, even though SEO is the all-powerful pill that can cure the ills of a new or ailing website – there are many website owners who are wasting their precious time and money investing in SEO that has the same effect as giving sugar-pill pain medicine to a chronic pain sufferer; it does absolutely no good.

Let’s use a real-world, readily-accessible example of what we’re talking about here.  In a WebProNews.com article,  Dave Davies went on to explain his experience on how just  jumping into SEO without doing the proper testing and research beforehand can have unintended consequences: Our primary phrases was "search engine positioning" with "search engine positioning services" as our main secondary phrase. Within about 5 months of the launch of the site we were on the first page for the secondary phrase and it took another four months to get on the first page for our primary. After a month of stats analysis it became very clear - we had just wasted 4 months

While Mr. Davies doesn’t expound too much on his situation so we can’t speculate on what he did or didn’t do – this scenario is a common problem for website owners today, whether they know it or not.

Where “average Joe” website owners and even SEOs miss it

Some inexperienced SEOs and many website owners decide which keywords to target with their website’s search engine optimization based on the keyword search volume alone.  They fail to take into consideration the quality of customers that they will receive if they happen to gain substantial rankings for these high search-volume keywords.   Mr. Davies spent months upon months working on improving his website for what he thought to be “good” keywords for his search engine optimization efforts only to find out several months later that these keyphrases, while they brought in traffic – didn’t bring in the traffic that was willing to spend the money.  Bottom line – his keywords that he had worked so hard to rank for didn’t convert.

Launching a massive search engine optimization campaign based on keyword search volume alone is like buying an uber-expensive used car, sight unseen, because it looks pretty in a picture.  It’s just not a good idea.

Get the facts straight before you start a massive SEO campaign

If you’re entering a highly-competitive keyword market you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor by figuring out the keywords that convert before you start your link-building and even on-page optimization campaigns. 

Now, we’ve gone into great lengths to explain the problems associated with “clairvoyant SEO”, but what about solutions?  The answer is simple, but the methods to getting the “real” answers aren’t quite as easy.

1)      Run a PPC (pay per click) campaign – If you want to know which keyphrases bring in the targeted buyers (subscribers, clients, etc) for your website, setup a PPC campaign and be sure to use tracking software so you can pinpoint the high-value keywords for your website.

2)      Buy out your direct competition – Your direct competitors certainly won’t tell you which keywords convert, but if you buy the company… you’ll have some valuable insight that’ll eliminate the need for guesswork.

Whatever you do – be sure that you don’t waste another dollar or hour on optimizing for keyphrases that won’t give you a decent ROI.