SEO Guide

5 MOST COMMON SEO MISTAKES TO AVOID

1) NOT USING THE RIGHT KEYWORDS 

Keywords are how Google (and other search engines) understand what your website is about and how users flnd your site. One of the biggest SEO mistakes made on websites is not using specific keywords. Some people Choose the wrong keywords, some people don’t even optimize their site for any keywords. If you are not getting enough traffic to your website from search engines, then you need to look Into your keywords.

FIX: Use a keyword strategy based on data, not guessing

2) NOT CREATING USEFUL & OPTIMIZED CONTENT 

You can’t just stuff keywords all over your website. It’s not the early 2000’s anymore, and Google knows better now. So how do you work keywords into your website?  CONTENT.  But not just any content. It has to be useful content that people actually want to read and spend time on. Google cares greatly about the user experience. If they give users results that aren’t helpful, then people will lose trust in Google and use another search engine.

FIX: Create useful and helpful content using your keyword strategy from above, and optimize the content for the desired keywords.

3) NOT GETTING BACKLINKS TO YOUR SITE 

A backlink is when a page on the internet links back to another page on the internet. And these are the currency of the internet and SEO. Generally, the more backlinks you have, the better your site will rank for your desired keywords. Keep in mind, though, not all links are created equally.

As long as the links are not spam links coming from toxic websites, then the link is generally helpful to your efforts. However, there are many factors to link building, such as the domain authority (DA) of the site linking to you, the URL they are linking to, the anchor text (clickable words), page authority (PA), domain rating (DR), trust flow (TF) and many, many more. While it can all get confusing and overwhelming if you are not familiar with it, these factors matter greatly to search engines.

FIX: Have a monthly backlink strategy to keep your backlink profile fresh and growing that incorporates the right kind of backlinks to drive results.

4) NOT CARING ABOUT USER EXPERIENCE 

Most searches these days are happening on mobile devices, which means your site needs to be mobile-friendly for it to do well in Google search results. Google cares greatly about the user experience once someone clicks from their search engine result page (SERP) to your website. If the experience is poor, users will quickly hit the back button, and Google (and other search engines) will take notice.

The days of a desktop version and separate mobile versions of websites is mostly behind us. Instead, websites are utilizing what’s called a “responsive” design. This means the design responds to the size of the window it is in. While most of the design will carry over from desktop to tablet to smartphone, certain elements change depending on the size of the screen. This makes life easier for website developers building and managing the site and creates a seamless experience for users.

Not only does your content (information) need to be great, your website has to offer users a great experience as well.

FIX: Have a responsive and user-friendly site.

5) IGNORING THE TECHNICAL SIDE OF THE WEBSITE 

might be the most uninteresting part of SEO for most people, but it matters greatly to search engines. Every technical mistake or issue on your website is a negative signal to search engines and hurts your site’s quality score ranking, which lowers your rankings for your desired keywords. However, on the flip side, every technical issue you fix is a positive signal to search engines, showing you care and are putting in the effort.

A common example of a “red flag” to search engines is a 404 error. You’ve experienced it yourself. It’s when a link or page doesn’t work on a website, and you get an error page asking you to try again. Those errors aren’t fun for users, which means search engines don’t like them either. A technical website audit helps identify these issues, so they can be fixed and improve the user experience and how search engines treat your site.

FIX: Run a comprehensive technical audit and fix any issues discovered.