Few individuals doing a Google search will ever go beyond the first page – even though Google provides billions of alternative answers to their questions. Instead, searchers would take the pains of entering another question than simply clicking ‘page 2’ of search results. And even if your site manages to make it to the first page, not every position is great either. People naturally assume that the first search results page they see must contain the correct answer to what they’re looking for. Many common SEO mistakes to avoid can make a difference in the results.
As a result, the first entry takes over 30% of the entire clicks and gathers ten times more clicks than the last entry on the first page.
And when it comes to search results pages, SEO is ultimately responsible for what’s displayed on a customer’s search result page. And failing to obey SEO principles remains one of the reasons why many sites underperform.
So, if you own or manage a website and want to promote or monetize your content, we’ve prepared these tips that’d help you avoid SEO troubles that could lead to disasters.
Table of Contents
What Is SEO and Why is SEO Important?
Everyone knows that SEO simply means Search Engine Optimization, and it’s responsible for the quantity and quality of results a search result page displays. Think of SEO as the gravitational law of page ranking. Having a solid grasp of SEO will determine if your web page rises or falls.
Now, although there are several search engines out there like Duckduckgo, Yahoo, and Bing, Google remains the leading channel for online search, direct traffic, and social media. Google search is by far the most important of the lot, being that it contributes 60% of the traffic generated by a webpage.
Just the same way entrepreneurs must find a great company name idea to give their business a fighting chance, for a site to rank on the first page of any search result page, it must comply with SEO standards.
And more importantly, it mustn’t make any SEO mistakes; otherwise, it’d be lost alongside the other billions of answers Google provides.
Think of SEO as the gravitational law of page ranking. Having a solid grasp of SEO will determine if your web page rises or falls. #SEO Click To TweetHere Are Some Common SEO Mistakes and Disasters You Must Avoid if Your Site Must Grow
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Keyword Mistakes
Keywords are the foundation of how SEO works. In the past, Google provided keywords and didn’t care much about keyword stuffing, but this quickly led to almost everyone stuffing their web pages with every keyword they could find.
Keyword stuffing involves adding a lot of keywords to a webpage with the intention of manipulating site ranking. Google’s algorithms have been steadily improving over the years, making it easier to better detect meaningful keyword placements and punish pages stuffed with keywords.
Ensure you avoid targeting weak keywords that customers aren’t searching for, or keywords that are too competitive because they’d affect your site’s ability to rank.
Also, understand that creating content just for keywords or not balancing long and short-tail keywords appropriately are terrible keyword SEO mistakes. These keyword mistakes also harm your webpage’s ranking.
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Publishing Non-Original Content
Like keywords, SEO algorithms don’t promote web pages with non-original content. SEO algorithm identifies and downgrades plagiarized content, filler content with no real value, and even low-quality content on search results.
The way out is to ensure your contents are always original and use only reputable information. Using headings, avoiding clickbait titles, and providing actionable-practical information for your readers can help improve your SEO performance.
Also, creatively optimizing your content with images and videos can improve user experience and SEO. Remember, high-quality content will always engage your readers. And engaged readers are a good sign for the algorithm.
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Low-Quality Links
External and internal links can help increase traffic to your site, enhance credibility, and domain authority, and improve SEO ranking. The problem comes when the link is poor quality, fraudulent, broken, or if there’s none used.
The internet is built on links, and any webpage that isn’t connected to a reputable site lacks an essential ingredient. It’s an ingredient that’d help boost its performance.
Links also help with flow and user navigation. Not to mention that it makes it easy for web crawlers to find your page during searches.
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Mobile Use
Mobile phones are gradually becoming the primary way most people access the internet. And SEO algorithms also uniquely cater to them, and so should you. Mobile SEOs are now an entirely new field of the SEO market that is quickly gathering its own attention.
When ranking web pages for mobile, Google concentrates a lot on local search optimization. It is a fancy word for how relevant the page is from the user’s location. They also pay significant attention to load time, reliability, and accuracy.
So while crafting your SEO strategy, ensure you plan extensively for mobile users.
The Way Forward with SEO
Growing your SEO is a gradual process. It is, like coming up with a company name idea; you only truly achieve your goals with consistent efforts.
So, don’t be discouraged if you don’t see the results immediately. SEO takes a lot of work and patience. However, a great SEO routine will overall increase the traffic benchmark for your website.
This blog post is from Grant Polachek who is the head of branding for Squadhelp.com, 3X Inc 5000 startup and disruptive naming agency. Squadhelp has reviewed more than 1 million names and curated a collection of the best available names on the web today. They are also the world’s leading crowdsource naming platform, supporting clients such as Nestle, Dell, Nuskin, and AutoNation.
Growing your SEO is a gradual process. It is, like coming up with a company name idea; you only truly achieve your goals with consistent efforts. #SEO Click To TweetYour Turn on SEO Mistakes To Avoid
What other common SEO mistakes can you recommend avoiding? We would love to hear about them and discuss them more in the comments below.
She has 30+ years of experience in marketing/advertising with 11 years of experience in content marketing, social media, blogging, and SEO.
You can purchase her eBook about Twitter on Amazon.
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Hi Lisa,
The biggest SEO mistake I used to make was failing to understand the search intent for my keywords. Many times, I didn’t realize that people using this keyword were really just looking for a specific business, song, or even a definition.
Now, I put more effort into making sure my content lines up perfectly with their search intent.
Cheers!
Hi Patrick, that is something I’m working on to – learning more about the search intent vs. keywords. Having that content line up better will surely help your SEO efforts. Thanks for coming by and have a wonderful day Patrick.
We are a carpet cleaning business and are receiving constant calls from SEO companies promising better search engine ranking. We are having a difficult time vetting these callers to make a decision on who will do a good job. Thank you for the insight, your article gives us good questions to ask a potential SEO partner. Wish us luck!
Hi John, welcome to Inspire To Thrive. I used to get those calls when I first began the business here. It’s hard to vet too which are really from Google or not. Some are resellers and certified but not actually Google, so beware. I’m glad this article helped you to know which questions to ask now, good luck! Thanks for your input. Have a great day.