Developing an SEO strategy for your website can easily take your business to the next level.SEO for business comes with a wealth of benefits such as better ROI, increased clicks, higher brand credibility, increased brand loyalty & trust, increased visibility, increased web traffic, higher conversions and elevated sales/profits among many others. Of course, it all depends on how your SEO is designed. Many businesses fail to gain extensively from their SEO strategies due to making silly SEO mistakes.
What are some of the most common SEO mistakes businesses do?
1. Choosing the Wrong Keywords
Keywords matter a lot as far as SEO is concerned. Unfortunately, most businesses continue to choose their keywords wrongly thus end up paying a costly price for their mistakes. Most of them assume that using generic keywords or broad keywords will attract increased traffic to their websites. Regrettably; wrong keywords end up attracting the wrong audience. It is wise to focus more on using specific phrases that relate to your business. Using relevant keywords is the key to better SEO rankings, increased traffic, and higher conversions. The good news is that you can find an embarrassing wealth of trending keywords using various tools such as SEMrush, Google Trends, and Google Adwords Keyword Planner.
2. Keyword Stuffing
Finding the right keywords is one thing and using them appropriately is a different thing altogether. Many people think that it is appropriate to use relevant keywords extensively throughout their content. Well, they are normally wrong. Going overboard with keywords can have disastrous consequences. For instance, keywords stuffing can trigger various search engines to register your content as spam. Resultantly; it impacts negatively on your SEO performance and ranking. Keywords should be used in a way that they look natural in your content. Avoid keyword repetitions and stuffing to boost your SEO rankings effortlessly.
3. Overlooking the essence of Meta Descriptions, title tags, and image tags
Disregarding the use of title tags/Meta descriptions/ image tags when creating SEO content can be a costly mistake for any marketer. The three factors play a vital role in improving your SEO ranking and performance immensely. Including them in your content can lead to increased traffic, higher clicks, new leads, increased conversions and better sales.
4. Ignoring external and internal Links
Any experienced marketer understands the essence of including quality external links in their content. Nonetheless, all external links should be relevant and from reputable sources for effectiveness. The good thing about using high-quality external links in your SEO content is that they lead to improved web traffic, enhanced brand visibility, higher conversion rates, and increased new leads. It is also important to consider inserting valuable internal links in your content. However, overdoing it can result in your web page being treated as spam by search engines.
5. Creating non-mobile friendly websites
One of the greatest mistakes people do when doing SEO for their businesses is forgetting to make their websites mobile friendly. In our modern age of advanced technology, people rely more on their mobile smart devices such as ipads, iPhones, and smartphones. Creating a great mobile friendly website can tremendously boost your rating on major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing among others. For effectiveness purpose, ensure your mobile-friendly site loads fast. Remember, slow websites are a total turn off for many internet users leading to low web traffic.
6. Publishing Duplicated content
Sorry to bust your bubble but this is one of the silliest mistakes people make when doing SEO according to one law firm SEO expert. Publishing non-original content can trigger penalization by search engines. Duplicating other people’s content is highly prohibited. For more effective results, focus on creating meaningful and original content. It is the only way of avoiding hurting your SEO performance. It also reduces risks of having your website downgraded.
7. Creating irrelevant and uninteresting content
This is yet another common SEO mistake that businesses commit. Your content should correspond to your target audience’s needs effectively. Additionally, your content should be about your keywords for effectiveness purpose. Google among other search engines has a preference for websites that match their content to their keywords. After all producing relevant content that matches your keywords is the easiest way of boosting your SEO performance.
8. Focusing on Link Quantity rather than on Quality
Using a high volume of links does not necessarily yield the desired results. Most businesses think they will get better SEO rankings for using hundreds of links. Unfortunately, it is never the case. In fact, stuffing your content with inferior quality directory links is the fastest way of damaging your website’s credibility. It is best to emphasize on links quality rather than on their quantity for better SEO ratings.
9. Not partnering with reputable social media Influencers
Partnering with reliable social media influencers can boost your brand promotion effort enormously. Disregarding the essence of developing solid relationships with high social media influencers can have negative effects on your marketing campaign. Consider partnering with credible influencers to attract more audience to your website.
10. Disregarding Analytics
Many businesses forget about analytics when optimizing their websites which can be a major mistake. Analytics such as Google Webmaster and Google Analytics among other tools can be quite invaluable as far as SEO optimization is concerned. Analytics are meant to help you review or gauge your SEO performance and optimization results.
11. Mass Directory Submission
Submitting your website to mass directories can be a grave mistake as an entrepreneur. Most mass directory submission ads claim to have higher volumes of high-quality back links but it’s never the truth. The truth is that it takes much effort, time, commitment and hard work to build valuable backlinks. Embracing hundreds or thousands of low-quality links can damage your website’s credibility drastically.
12. Using Paid Links
While many people think using paid links can be beneficial, some major search engines such as Google discourage it. As a matter of fact, Google, in particular, states clearly that acquiring links via link brokers is a violation of website guidelines. Paid links can lead to degradation of your website. Additionally; they can also attract huge penalties by search engines.
13. Not involving professionals
It is common for people to succumb to the temptation of creating their own business websites. While it can be thought to save money, it can have negative impacts on your SEO ranking and performance. On the other hand, working with reputable SEO specialists has many advantages including maximum web traffic, higher SEO rankings, increased conversions, improved clicks, better sales, increased business visibility and SEO performance.
Now that you know which SEO mistakes to avoid, consider focusing on executing highly effective SEO strategies and tactics for maximum web traffic, higher conversions, new leads, increased clicks and consistent growth for your online business.
