Search Engine Marketing: Stop Losing Customers Before They See You

I’ve done many SEO audits for small businesses and the one thing that comes up time and time again is they’re missing vital information for search engine results. Search engine marketing is often overlooked but it’s the big brother of SEO. 

While you’re focusing on getting your site on top form, it’s important to look at the wider picture. How do people actually decide to click on your site?

First Impressions Count, So Make Them

Search engine marketing is exactly how it sounds, it’s marketing your website pages to get people to click on your site over others. SEO titles and meta descriptions are used as your first impression, yet I’ve seen so many people ignore them or they aren’t optimised for their purpose.

Your Shop Front

If you think of your SEO title as the shop sign above the door for your page and the meta description as the window, would you make sure to take care of them? Of course you would. If your shop sign isn’t clear on what your store is and your window doesn’t plainly display what’s inside, then it’s only natural that people will move onto another shop. As people, we make snap decisions on appearance and in search results that decision feels almost instant. So, first impressions certainly count if you want them clicks to come through from the right people!

What Have I Found in SEO Audits?

As I mentioned earlier, after doing many audits for clients these search marketing elements are often overlooked. Let’s break down the main things I’ve found that repeatedly come up so you can avoid making the same mistakes and get ahead of your competition. 

Missing Meta Descriptions and Duplication

You’d be surprised how many pages I see with a missing meta description per audit. Now, I do understand that some sites have a lot of product pages and it’s very time consuming to add individual descriptions to each page but the solution here is working with your web developer to automatically create a description for these kinds of pages.

The other side of the same coin is that some businesses have addressed this problem by creating a single meta description and applying it to all their product pages. However, this presents a new problem of duplication. Duplicate meta descriptions confuse search users and really confuse Google who then doesn’t know which page to show correctly for a specific search. 

SEO Title Issues

SEO title issues are also pretty common across audits I’ve completed. The main issue is the length of titles, some are too long which when shown in search results are cut off. Imagine having the end of your shop sign missing… it’s the same thing in search engine results. The most common culprit for this error is the default title setting pulling in elements of the page and the site to create a title. Check out your SEO settings such as Yoast or RankMath to see if your pages use this default method.

On the other end of the spectrum, I see titles that are too short. Mainly these issues are because pages such as ‘About’ or ‘Contact Us’ are so generic resulting in titles such as ‘About | Business Name’. These titles work when in context within the site, but you need to look at it from an outside perspective in an isolated setting. What does the search result ‘About | Business Name’ really tell you? Nothing special, nothing that makes you actually want to click. A better example could be ‘Learn Our Long Established History | Business Name’. You see how that’s more engaging?

What Makes a Good SEO Title and Meta Description?

Now you’ve seen some of the issues that regularly come up, how do you make sure they don’t happen to you? Here’s a handy checklist for your page’s meta data:

• Title Length – between 50 and 60 characters is ideal
• Topical keyword – include the main keyword in your title and description
• Engaging language – avoid being generic and boring, think marketing type of language to get those clicks from search results
• Meta description length – between 120 and 160 characters
• Problem solving – aim to show a solution to a problem your audience is searching for

It’s All Part of the Service

Why not take the pressure off and get a professional in to find and take care of your meta data problems as well as many others. It’s all part of the service with my SEO strategy process. Phase One: RESEARCH is all about finding the problems plus other research services to create a personalised strategy for your business. Followed by Phase TWO: REFINE where I fix the issues and write the meta elements for you. Book your discovery call today to talk about your business. 

Or if you’d prefer to go it alone, I’m still here to support you. Use the same templates I use with my clients or follow the strategy process in your own time by enrolling onto the R3 course. 

Either way, you can stop making these common search engine marketing mistakes and prevent them from getting in the way between you are your ideal customers.