SEO guidelines change rapidly. Strategies that you have in place today will not be as effective in a year or two. It is an endless learning process and brands should always be on their feet to learn and adapt to new SEO rules. Unfortunately, it is very easy and common to make mistakes. A good starting place to jumpstart your SEO is to learn what NOT to do. Here are some common SEO mistakes you might be making:
Starting Your Strategy Without Enough Intel
Finding the facts is an important stage in building effective strategies. The same applies to building your SEO strategies as well; without enough information, time and effort spent on SEO are wasted. Research all keywords that are relevant to your industry and know which ones are commonly used by and work for your competitors. Also knowing what your target audience are searching for also helps determine what kinds of content are relevant for them. Google Trends and Soovle are just some of the useful tools you can use in finding out the right keywords you should be using.
Not Giving Your Websites Enough Attention
Remember that your website is your brand’s virtual store front in the digital world. It shouldn’t just be unique and attractive but also very visible. Google considers many factors when it comes to rating and ranking your website.
First, make sure that your website’s layout and content loads in under a second and are responsive to different screens. Next, all of your web pages should be available and linked together well. Having too many 404s will make your website look unreliable. Lastly, your file names and alt tags should also contain some of your keywords to be searchable. Avoid giving your files generic names like “image1” and make sure they pop up in the first few results pages when people search using the relevant keywords. Failing to do these website SEO steps usually result in Google penalties, so make sure your website is regularly monitored.
Simply Targeting Your Customers and Neglecting the Influencers
Your content needs to be able to attract potential customers, but to make sure that your SEO isn’t falling behind, you need to be able to create content for influencers or people with high following in your industry. Engaging with influencers helps build high quality links and promote your content to a wider audience, giving you more site activity and Google authority in return.
Focusing Too Much on Social Media
Social media is a powerful tool. If utilized well, social gives great boost to your SEO. Some brands make the mistake of focusing too much on social media activity and forgetting what their overall SEO strategy is all about. Use social media for link building and your websites as home for your content.
Sticking to Just Google
Although Google is the most popular search engine worldwide, other search engines, such as Bing and Yahoo, still account for 36% of search engine market shares. That is a reasonable number for your business to register to other search engine companies. You never know what other opportunities you can get if you never try.
Being Too Linear
SEO doesn’t end at having your content posted on your website and linked to social media. It’s a continuous process that involves measuring and analyzing results. Keep in mind that the main goal is converting traffic into sales. If you’re not getting the kind of conversion rates you need for your business to grow, then you have to go over your strategies again.
Knowing what not to do helps you learn what to actually do better. If you’re making the same mistakes then it’s time to get your feet wet again. Don’t wait until all your time and money are put to waste.