SEO Mistakes You Didn’t Know You Were Making
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is one of the trickiest facets of online content creation and marketing to get a handle on. This portion of web management requires great attention to detail, regular maintenance, in-depth research, and the ability to put yourself in your reader’s shoes. You may be overlooking critical SEO techniques that could be holding your site ranking and searchability back. Listed below are some of these common SEO mistakes and how to resolve them to improve web performance.
Choosing the Wrong Keywords
Selecting your keywords based exclusively on a business perspective – as many SEO professionals and content creators do – may backfire. You may think your chosen long-tail keywords are ideal; however, it is easy to inadvertently target the wrong readership due to a lack of consideration for your target audience’s priorities. (For instance, you may mistakenly target B2B instead of B2C readers.) Put yourself in your readers’ shoes to determine which keywords would perform well in theory, and which would actually be suitable for your site.
Neglecting Internal Links
Remember that SEO is not exclusively focused on keyword rankings. Once you’ve drawn your audience in, you need to provide high-quality content that will encourage them to continue perusing through your website.
Further, the quality of content you provide should work to establish your platform as a trustworthy center of information within your niche. One of the best ways to do this is by linking to related content within your website. This encourages readers to explore your site further and supports Google’s ability to crawl your platform.
Forgetting to Use Google SEO Tools
SEO tools can provide invaluable insight into your site’s performance in rankings, traffic, and more. Working without tools like Google Analytics and the Google Search Console is risky, as you may be wasting hours of your time implementing ineffective SEO techniques. On the other hand, having this technological support keeps you informed on whether there are errors present on your platform, which sites are linking to your content, and more.
Leaving Noindex (or Nofollow) Commands in Your Header Code
Before launching a brand-new web platform, many people use noindex meta tags to prevent their unfinished website from appearing in search results. This allows the web developers to work behind the scenes, ensuring that all content is ready and perfected before unveiling the platform for public viewing and interaction.
The only problem with the noindex meta tag arises when it’s forgotten in the header, even after launching. With this in place, no one’s going to be seeing your site. Remember to remove this before the big day, so your audience can experience your shop and content.
Leaving Content to Gather Dust
A critical part of healthy SEO is your site’s “freshness” factor. Google has a specific algorithm to determine how up-to-date a site’s content is, so anything sitting around for too long without significant changes falls lower in the rankings. Fix up your site’s freshness by monitoring the following:
- Are your cited statistics up to date?
- Are your keywords still relevant?
- Has new information arisen that makes your content false or obsolete?
- Has Google recently changed search algorithms?
Go through your platform and review these mistakes to determine where you might be overlooking critical SEO weaknesses. Remember, SEO is not a one-and-done job. Perform these check-ins regularly to ensure your site is always performing at its best.
To discuss your SEO Needs, contact Ancell Marketing today at 778-285-2288.