#1 – What is the biggest mistake you see businesses making when creating websites? Could it be not focusing on SEO before creation of the site?

Long before SEO, I was Director of web development at a major web firm in New York. So for almost 16 years I’ve seen a lot of crazy things with web launches. Making major launch announcement plans before the site is even half-way through development has got to be the most common mistake. Project Manager: “We expect to launch in 30 days”. Client: But we just made arrangements with several media outlets, the local TV station, and five radio stations. In 4 days, we’re announcing the new site at a big event. Thousands will be on hand…”

The 2nd biggest mistake, and the one with the most serious ramifications long term, is believing SEO can wait til after launch. Or that SEO is a “minor” factor in the planning process.

Then again – most site owners completely overlook or downplay the financial costs of marketing – the “build it and you’re done” mentality. #SpeedyDevelopmentByIntimidation

#2 – What are the top 5 common SEO problems you see when auditing a website?

Topical Cross Contamination
The single biggest problem is either a complete lack of topic focus, or a poorly executed topic separation. Many people hear “put keywords in your title and in your content”. That’s all they know. Or they think it’s okay to have five or eight phrases in the title, even if, upon proper analysis, half those phrases belong not just on another page, but in a completely different section of the site. Or they think they can get “the long tail” by filling the content with five, ten or twenty “related” phrases or words.

Text Anorexia.
Next would have to be site owners not wanting to “crowd” pages with text. “Do we really have to have text everywhere?” #SEOFAIL

Internal Link Poisoning
If web sites had a liver, many sites would die of internal link poisoning. So third on my list has got to be over-saturation of links. Mouse over the top nav and see 150 links. Scroll to the bottom of the page and see… 150 links… Click into a section of the site, and see a sidebar with… 150 links… So yeah – site developers, designers and, sadly, SEO “experts” who are addicted to links. The fact, from extensive testing on many sites, has proven itself to me that when you pollute every page on the site with so many links, not only do you cause Google to lose it’s ability to evaluate important content, or content organization, you make it even more difficult to communicate the topical focus of pages and entire sections of a site.

Laughable Link Building
How many people do you think there are that heard article marketing was a good idea, then proceeded to join craptastic article farms? It’s so hysterical how people believe EZineArticles is a good place to submit links, when in truth, all sites like that are good for is polluting your link profile with sites that either already have been, or eventually will be nailed by Matt. Or they’re worthless sites with no weight to begin with. And yea, it’s great for SEO – SEO for the EZine sites and their own rankings. And their profit line.

One of my clients had a guy saying how great article marketing was. He got them to write unique articles. With three paragraphs of “unique” content for each paragraph in the article. Yeah – you know where this is going… 1 Article becomes 3, 6, 9… all on the same topic… The majority of those links? yeah. From Russian spam sites, Chinese domains… Ideal inbound links for a U.S. based professional services company web site. #HAHAHAHAHA

Of course, many people in our industry will point out that some of those links are good because Google really can’t keep up with it. They’ll point out countless sites they say rank for such nonsense. Well guess what? If you really don’t care about quality, if you really don’t respect your clients or yourself, go for it. Have fun. Go to town. I’ll be over here being a professional, getting better results through other means.

An SEO Sucker is Born Every Minute
SEO Suckers are people who think “I’ll just study the competition, then do what they did.” The problem with that, if I really have to explain it, which I really SHOULDN’T have to do, is this… If all you do is what the competition does, how do you expect to get better results? By doing MORE of what they do? Yeah. That will usually only lead to them doing even MORE, then you having to do MORE… and, well, what a sad use of time and resources.

One of the reasons I am able to get the kind of results I do for clients willing to pull out at least most of the stops, is that the reason I look at competitors is mostly to see what they’re doing wrong. It’s usually a hit-and-run review. Or I may look at things they’re doing and see if they’re best practices, because sure, I want to recommend best practices as well. Yet my audit competitive analysis time is usually only a small fraction of my energy. Because most sites out there, to this day, are still managed by Topical Cross-Contaminators, Laughable Link Builders, Internal Link Addicts, and people with Text Anorexia.

#3 – Who needs website audits?

I can only speak about SEO or Conversion Optimization audits. It’s anyone who hopes to ever get their site the highest qualified leads that result in the highest possible conversion rate – all through organic search and related channels (off site factors) and who has the financial capacity and “stay in business long enough” time to apply enough pressure to the existing landscape. And only if their market really does use search to seek them out. And they need to be honest, open-minded and willing. Honest about their current business financial health, and about their real goals. Open-minded to potentially radical changes to their site, and their overall online marketing footprint. Willing to accept the responsibility for ensuring the action plan is carried out. Willing to accept it will probably not be overnight success. Willing to find other marketing methods when I recommend that SEO is the wrong solution for their unique situation.

#4 – What are businesses missing or forgetting on their websites?

You got a month? I got that many things to talk about on this one. I conducted an audit this week for a site that would seemingly be a cake-walk. Very small site. They have just ONE product. Very small actual competitive landscape. (Literally about 10 actual competitors). Very successfully being found for brand-related phrases. (just under 3 million visits to the site so far this year). By the time I was done, it was a:

• 24 page audit and action plan document.
• 14 Strategic Tasks
• 27 Tactical Tasks
• Still going to need a Link Building Audit
• Still going to need a Conversion Optimization Audit

So uh, that’s how it goes. The list of issues that businesses forget or are missing is too long for this article. The fact is that the vast majority of business web site owners are missing so much, yet they don’t even realize it. Or they have a feeling, but supress it. Because to acknowledge it means having to hire professionals – after doing deep due-diligence, people who are truly experts at evaluating, and experts at implementing. But most site owners really don’t have the budget for it. Even though the budget for it would lead to increased income. Because this society is filled with people who have a penny and a dream. And it’s very thin on people who have capital to drive the dream into reality.

So I guess that just means the thing most sites are missing, is a site owner with a proper plan and/or the capital to drive it.

#5 – What recommendations would you give to businesses on finding the right web developer?

The right web developer? Can’t help you there. The right developer is different for every site owner and every market imaginable. Unless, of course, you want to get into crystal balls, metaphysics, string theory and the subtleties of spiritual psychotherapy. If you do, let me know. We’ll talk. 🙂

You can find Alan at his site SearchMarketingWisdom.com or on Twitter @alanbleiweiss

SEO Site Audits, Search Industry Commentary, And Rants – a Lot of Rants…

You can see Alan at the Blue Glass Florida Conference – He will be a speaker. 🙂