.Introduction
When you are thinking about content marketing, then there is one most important thing that you keep in your mind, called optimization of your website. No doubt that search engine optimization is changing day by day. However, it is still one of the most important agendas in the minds of sales managers as it not only helps in bringing new traffic but it drives the traffic towards the sales of the company.
The two main reasons behind the introduction of the new SEO methods are the development in the working of search engines and the diversion of the customer’s or user’s mindset. However, just thinking about the fact that you are using SEO for your website will not help you to be at the top of search results. It is crucial that you do the SEO properly and makes sure that you do not fall into the trap of incorrect SEO methods. These lame or bad SEO techniques will not only take away your traffic, but they will also be the reason behind the bad reputation of your website.
It is not in your hand that if the SEO technique you are using is good or bad. Some bad SEO techniques are unavoidable even if you are using the testing optimization approaches. Testing optimization strategies are based on real-time, and that is the way they are hard to predict, and hence the detection of SEO mistakes becomes difficult as well.
Here we discussed some most common SEO mistakes which take place in your content. And by reading this article you can avoid them in the future.
Top ten common SEO mistakes to avoid
We know that SEO techniques are evolving day by day and certain practices are quite useful. However, certain practices are there that may have a bad effect on your website in the long run. And hence below we are reviewing such harmful practices. These mistakes, if pointed out earlier, while you are implementing SEO on your website, can have a fruitful effect on your business.
1. Selection of the Wrong Keywords
After content, it is the keyword that plays a major role in your SEO technique. Sometimes people make a blunder by choosing a way too generic or a keyword that is not preferred by the users or the traffic you are targeting. This mistake is made while you are choosing the long-tail keywords. While you are thinking about the fact that you need a long keyword to reduce competition, you miss the most important factor in the preference of your customers.
Will the targeted new keyword be able to get more traffic? Are you picking the right keyword? Thinking about these two queries and using the tools like AdWords Keyword Planner, Google Trends, SEMrush and Moz Keyword Explorer, and so on can help you to have boosted traffic with the help of the correct keyword.
2. Stuffing the Keyword
There is no doubt that in the earlier days, when the search engines were not that much evolved, stuffing keywords in your content helped in getting traffic. However, today the scenario has changed completely. Today keyword stuffing is neither crucial and nor it is a good SEO technique. Search engines think of keyword stuffing as a fraud and this practice will not improve a thing and will have a bad impact on your reputation
With the help of LSI or Latent Semantic Indexing, Google has become smart and can recognize your content and keyword without the overuse of the target keyword. Hence this practice should be eliminated so that it will not hurt your SEO practice.
3. Presenting content without focusing on keyword
No doubt that content is the king while we are talking about SEO. However, if you know about SEO, then you must know about the fact that it is not the content but the keywords that are used by the users to get a certain result. It is not the content but the keyword that is searched by the search engine for indexing. Hence producing irrelevant content or content that is not focused on the target keyword can hurt your SEO practice. You are not asked to write millions of pages to get the highest rank, but you are invited to write relevant content on a certain keyword.
This mistake is the result of the different mindsets while you are writing the blog, trying to use different styles on one blog and not focusing on the demand and perspective of the users. Google wants to give the user a result that can help them. Hence, if you produce the content while thinking about the keyword and make your content helpful for the users, only then Google will index you and make you come on the top of the search result.
4. Presenting Plagiarized Content
The term Plagiarism stands for content that is not unique and has been copied from a privileged website. Such content is already present on the servers of the search engine, and hence if you will be using the same content for your website, it will be considered as a fraud and will lead you to be down in the list of indexing. Copying the content from some other website and pasting it on your own is considered spam and highly discouraged.
You should spin the content and make it meaningful and unique. Alternatively, you can create new content of your own by investing some time in researching and writing in your language. This will help you in having a boosted rank on the search engine index.
5. Forgetting the Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, meta keywords, and image tags
HTML plays a crucial role, and the content that is typed within the <Head> tag that is <title> tag and the Meta tags play an important part in the SEO techniques. However, most people forget to use these practices and publish the content without using these crucial tags. Although the search crawlers will come to the website for indexing even when you are not using the tag, however, the time taken by them to reach your website will be way too much that you can even think of. The potential of your content will be deleted, and the performance given by your SEO practice will not be up to the mark.
Image or any media is important as it is the best way to express. However, do you the fact that the search engine cannot feel those expressions unless you tell them to feel them? Yes, an alt tag or the image tag that has the content about the real feeling behind the media helps the engine to crawl and index your website and media.
6. Do not using the Quality Links and anchor text
Link building is one of the most important practices when you are practicing SEO. It does not matter if it is the inbound links or the outbound links. As long as they are keyword-focused and relevant to your website, they will be fruitful. This practice is avoided or forgotten by the people. However, backlinking to reputed sites and using simple, understandable, and keyword-relevant inbound links can help you to have a solid reputation in the search engine. If your URL has the keyword that the user is looking for will help to increase your clicks, and the user will spend some time on your website.
Another important and missed part is the use of anchor text. If you are stuffing click here in every line that it will not only be considered spamming but will also hurt the quality of your content. Using the relevant anchor text will not only help you with indexing but improve your content quality as well. Hence you should not forget about the anchor text while you are posting an outbound link on your website.
7. Using internal links everywhere in your content
Internal links are the most crucial part of your website. While a person comes on your website, it will click on the internal links while he is reading the content on your website or out of curiosity. Clicks on internal links are good for your rank. However, most of us use the internal links in the content even when they are not relevant and don’t have anything to do with the blog or the article that we have posted.
This practice is similar to keyword stuffing and is considered spam. Instead of doing your website a favor, this practice will be considered a fraud, and you will have a bad reputation online. So one must use the internal links only when they are required and when they are relevant to the content.
8. Not investing time in making your website fast and mobile
Today, most of us use mobile instead of laptops or computers. Most of the online shopping and surfing is done on mobile and even the search engines after the Mobilegeddon update knows about website that is mobile friendly and website that is not. Hence if your website is not giving a quality performance on the phone and is not easy to understand, trust us, Google will never let you be on the top of the search ranking. Hence you must invest some time in making your website design mobile-friendly. If you do not want to have a search engine, you must give your users a smooth mobile experience.
An important factor is a time taken for the website to load. No one wants a slow website that is taking ages to load and hence your website should have a good or quick loading speed. You can use the tools like Pingdom and GT Metrix so that you can analyze the speed of your website and improve it. Keep the point in mind that A slow website will always have a slow SERP.
9. Underestimating the power of social media
Social media is the place where people will similar interests communicate with each other and share different ideas. Hence in SEO social media can play a crucial role if we target some of the influential people who can spread our market to the target audience. This social perspective can not only promote our business, but it can bring more people whom we were not targeting at all. Sharing content on social media will not only help in targeting the audience but search engines as well.
Posting blogs on the sites Digg, Reddit, or Quora, without using the power user or the influential person can also make some noise about your website and lead to good exposure among users and search engines.
10. Forgetting About Analytics
Last but not least, is about analyzing the progress. We all know the fact that SEO will not give results in the first go. You will have to be patient and make sure to give your best shot in every SEO practice. However, without analyzing the results of the SEO practices, you will never be able to improve or know if you are going in the right direction. Setting a regular review of your website can give you significant optimization results.
With the help of primary tools like Google Analytics and Google Webmaster, you can measure the performance of your website.
Conclusion
Today, SEO is one of the crucial parts of marketing. However, these ten mistakes are not only common, but people do not even bother to have a check on them. However, by reading this article about “most common SEO mistakes to avoid” you can get ideas about how can we make quality content.
It will not only help in improving the SEO technique, but one can get the best possible results on the search engine index.
