Biggest SEO Mistakes & How To Avoid Them
It’s easy to make mistakes with an SEO campaign and it’s easy to fix those mistakes as well.
Which SEO mistakes are you making? The mistakes in this article are actually very significant and can really hinder your chances of getting ranked.
Joke;
“Where is the best place to hide a dead body?
Answer: Page two of Google”
Continue reading, and you’ll find out some of the biggest mistakes in SEO and how to avoid them:
For starters –
Not doing keyword research
A lot of websites randomly create content and think it’ll magically get them to search traffic. The problem is that if nobody is searching for those topics, then you are going to get any clicks on your pages. This directly translates into zero traffic.
In a study from Google, 90.63% of pages get zero traffic.
If you want search traffic, your content must be about topics people are looking for within your industry.
How do you find the right topics to write about and build out your content around?
Keyword research is the process of understanding the language your target customers use when searching for products, services, and content in general. It’s the only way to figure out what people are typing into the search engines so you can create that content for them to find.
How to fix or avoid this SEO mistake
Before you publish any page on your search and/or content, make sure the page targets a specific keyword with a high search volume and traffic potential. At Aleada Media Group, we build out keyword research and give our clients an exact plan on how to rank and drive more traffic, ultimately translating into revenue. Contact us for a free SEO audit.
Targeting the most difficult keywords
If you haven’t learned by now, no one clicks beyond the first page of Google. That means for all the keywords you want to target, there is only 10 spots for you to grab. This number is getting smaller these days, with Google introducing different types of SERP features.
Not every keyword is difficult though. Some keywords are highly desirable, so every website in those relevant niches wants to rank for the keywords that are being searched the most. To rank well, you really need to compete hard, which usually means you need tons of resources. Other keywords are less competitive, so it’s easier to rank them.
Now just because a keyword is competitive doesn’t mean you shouldn’t target it. If a keyword is important to your website and will make you money, then you most definitely target it!
But building up to those competitive keywords gradually.
Build up to the key competitive keywords. Start by prioritizing those keywords that are less competitive and you can rank for your skills and resources.
How to fix or avoid this SEO mistake
Research, KD is an SEO metric that estimates how hard it is to rank on the first page of Google for a keyword. They measure it from 0 to 100, the latter being the hardest.
Which KD range should you set and avoid?
The correct answer is that it really depends on the different factors: the authority of your website, your ability to build backlinks, and to be honest, much more.
A good exercise you can do is look up KD scores of the keywords that are already on your website to get a better idea of where you are at and what your website is ranking for.
You can also schedule a call with Aleada Media Group and get a full complimentary SEO audit to discover which keywords you are ranking for and what you might need to fix.
Not building enough backlinks to rank
For Google, links are an important part. They are in the top three. So, if you find your pages are not ranking as high as you’d like. The reason might be simple, not enough backlinks.
How to fix or avoid this SEO mistake.
Reach out to sites that may be interested in the type of content you are providing. There are also strategies you can use to acquire amazing backlinks. If you are interested in learning how to obtain backlinks reach out to us personally and we’ll walk you through the process.
Missing internal links
Why are internal links so important?
- Google uses these links to discover new content on your site.
- The aid to PageRank around your site. The more internal links a page has the higher its PageRank.
- Google looks at the anchor texts to better understand the context of the page.
More offend than not, internal links are not spotlighted in an SEO campaign. And that is why this is a HUGE mistake.
How to fix or avoid this SEO mistake.
When you publish a new page or post. Do a site: search on your website to find other relevant content so that you can add internal links to it. Like this – learn more about SEO
Google not crawling your content
Make sure you’re not blocking GoogleBot from crawling your site.
Do this by checking your robots.txt (yourdomain.com/robots.txt)
You’ll be looking for two snippets of code:
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
Both lines of code tell Googlebot it’s not allowed to crawl any pages on your site. To fix this issue, remove them.
Your website is extremely slow
The page speed of your site is a major factor in ranking. Core Web Vitals metrics that are part of Google’s Page Experience signals are used to measure user experience.
Not only will a slow site affect your rankings with Google. But it will also impact your sales. 70% of consumers admit that page speed impacts their willingness to buy from online stores.
How to avoid this mistake.
There are several free online tools that can run site speed checks. Google Site Audit and you’ll find several of them.
Hosting is also a major reason site speed is slow – You want to make sure that you are using secure hosting that isn’t juked up from another site. We recommend WP-Engine. Click Here to get 40% off your first year and up to four months free!
Treating SEO as a one-time thing
SEO is not simply a matter of fixing the above six things and calling it good.
Even if you’re ranking in a pose position today, there is no guarantee that you’ll be number #1 tomorrow. Ranking high on a search engine is a competition. Your competitors will be working hard and investing plenty of resources to knock off you off the perch.
How to avoid this SEO mistake.
SEO is an ongoing process. You’ll need to make a consistent effort to rank high and grow your search traffic.
That means you need an SEO strategy.
Creating an SEO strategy doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, Aleada Media Group makes it seamless for businesses to accomplish their SEO. SEO is really just a plan that must be executed over and over again.
If you’d like to learn more about SEO or see how we can help you send us a message and we’ll set up a time to speak with you to get you going!
We also have more resources on our blog