You’ve heard about SEO for a while, and now you’re starting to get into it. You’ve heard it will increase web traffic, although you’re not sure how. In this sort of scenario, you’re probably making several mistakes!
Get stuffed
When it comes to SEO mistakes, one of the worst SEO mistakes you can make is this. Keyword stuffing is a big SEO mistake. Companies who want to avoid SEO mistakes must avoid that SEO mistake!
Notice anything about that paragraph? Yeah: I just used the term “SEO mistake” five times in three brief sentences (and it probably annoyed the hell out of you). This is called keyword stuffing, which makes that paragraph a little hypocritical. When you’ve got keywords you want to attain Google hits, it seems like the answer must be to have the keywords appear as much as possible. Makes sense, right?
Where’s the tracking?
You should be able to see how well your SEO campaign is doing. Many business owners get into this whole pursuit without any idea as to how they’ll ensure it’s actually working. If it works but you can’t tell, then how will you know what precisely went right? If you’re not getting any more hits or sales, how can you tell what went wrong?
SEO efficacy can be tracked in many ways. Increased hits and sales are usually a good sign. An increase in email subscriptions and blog followers helps, too. More Twitter followers is also a helpful indication! But the best thing you can do is work with SEO analytics. Many SEO professionals can help you out in this area.
I don’t know what I’m even doing
One of the most common mistakes, as well as the most exasperating, is this. Business owners assuming that the SEO game is fairly straightforward. That it can be done correctly with little previous experience.
Spoiler alert: SEO is pretty complex. I have an SEO guidebook within reach of my laptop and it’s nearly 1000 pages long. It’s not something you can pick up overnight, though you can certainly learn useful tricks. It’s not as simple as merely checking out a few articles to see what mistakes to avoid. (And yes, I’m aware this is one of those articles.) Remember what SEO stands for: search engine optimisation. Does that sound like child’s play? If you get stuck, don’t be afraid to hire some experts to help.
In the with right crowd
Google’s algorithms are pretty darn thorough. They crawl throughout your website and check pretty much everything. This includes all of the links that you use in your copy. If you’re citing a particular website as a source of information, then you need to use a high-quality, popular website.
Linking to websites that have bad reputations, or simply aren’t quality enough, is going to reflect badly on you. And yes, Google will often use its own metrics to assess whether or not that website is a good one. So the copy and other content of your website might be excellent. But your rankings will be hurt if you then link people to low-quality websites with little Internet presence or authority.
