Have a Safe and Sane SEO Summer

What can send you into a panic when it comes to SEO? For many business owners, it’s seeing that a keyword they thought was their ticket to good rankings has dropped off the radar. For others, it’s seeing a significant decline in traffic. In any case, remember: there are not many true SEO problems, and for those things that are genuine problems there is almost always a solution. You can reduce the risk of sending yourself into a panic over your SEO by sticking to the following “safe and sane” SEO practices this summer.

Consider the source: Of your traffic, that is. If a great deal of your traffic comes from Google but you suddenly decide to start focusing your efforts on ranking in Bing or Yahoo!, then your Google traffic could start to suffer. If your SEO isn’t broke, don’t fix it. As much as it is up to you, keep your SEO budget focused on the portal that brings you more traffic; it’s just a generally safer SEO practice.

Remain calm: After Google Penguin, many sites saw their rankings going haywire for a little while. Some businesses found themselves not ranking for their own brand names for the first time. Rather than panicking, the sane way to handle a situation like this may be to wait it out. You may not have lost as much traffic as you think, particularly if your traffic comes from referral sites. Chances are, things will work themselves out if you are consistent with refreshing the site with quality, keyword-rich content. If they don’t, stay calm; then, ask your SEO provider what can be done.

Deliver the goods: Your audience needs a pleasant user experience and will not use your site without it. If you rank on the first page of Google for your major keywords but fail to give users an easy, fast and satisfying experience once they are on the site, they will quickly go elsewhere. To prevent this, stay on the safe side by keeping your checkout process simple, shipping costs low and loading times fast.

A safe, sane SEO summer can give fireworks to your site rankings down the road. When the season is over and consumers start to spend more time online, you’ll be at an advantage because you took the time to do a little preventive maintenance.