The question is: How do you know what’s going on in your workflow that could be causing your website to be overlooked by search engine crawlers? SEO strategy experts like Pillar Point Digital have combined the top common SEO mistakes website managers make that kill rankings to help you pinpoint any problem areas.
Mistake #1: Overlooking (or Ignoring) the Importance of Keywords
You’re trying to get your website seen by the search engine crawlers so they connect you to the active users querying your business. But how does Google know you’re a clothing store and not a cardiac surgeon? The answer is how well you incorporate keywords into your website’s content and descriptions.
It can’t be stressed enough how much content — more specifically, keywords — matters to SEO. As you create your website, you’ll include text that naturally describes your service or product, but SEO is so much more than these blurbs. You must use the right keywords on every page, determine and stay on top of trending keywords and phrases, and compare your website to ensure your pages aren’t competing with each other.
This mistake is easy to fix by using SEO tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush (paid), or Answer the Public and Google Trends (free). Generic KW use is enough to get you on the third or fourth search engine results page (SERP), but the top five results on page one account for about 70% of all user clicks, and click-through rates (CTR) decrease significantly after the first page. In short, use keywords strategically to get your webpage seen by search engines.
Mistake #2: Publishing Low-Quality Content
Speaking of the importance of content, if you’re not regularly updating your website with engaging, original, in-depth articles, your rankings likely aren’t performing as well as they could.
Search engines look for helpful content that isn’t repetitive or keyword-stuffed. They want to see pages with unique descriptions, even if the product or service is the same. Your website content should be original, not copied from somewhere else. Higher rankings are given to pages with valuable content that is more than 300 words long (if the keywords are on target).
Fixing this mistake takes a few steps:
- Perform a site audit to see if your website has any duplicate or low-quality content. Look for pages that aren’t performing, and adjust them by expanding content or merging the information into another, similar page. Your focus should be on ensuring your content offers value by answering questions or solving problems.
- Eliminate duplicate descriptions in meta descriptions and tags. Use keywords where relevant to optimize your meta title and description alt text.
- Add internal linking where possible.
- Capitalize on relationships with other related businesses to get backlinks.
Use these steps when creating new content on your pages, and remember to keep your blogs and FAQs over 300 words and include relevant, long-tail keywords. If creating content isn’t your thing, consider hiring a content writer to freshen up your website regularly to help ensure it ranks higher in searches.
Mistake #3: Skipping the Tech SEO-side
Most people are confident enough to handle the basics of website setup and content creation. But when it comes to the technical side, they’d rather skip that part and hope for the best. This common mistake is an instant rankings killer.
Keywords and content are important, but to keep people from trying to trick the system, search engines came up with a balance: the website’s overall performance matters just as much. So, if you have incredible content stuffed with plenty of keywords everywhere possible, but your site speed is bogged down, or your links are broken, your webpage won’t rank.
To fix this, use Google Search Console or a similar tool to identify where tech SEO issues are appearing, then follow their tips to correct them. Depending on your knowledge level and comfort with DIY tech, some of these problems may require the help of an expert.
SEO Can Be Your Website’s Best Friend — If It’s Done Right
We get it. Search engine optimization can be intimidating at best, and downright frustrating if you’re trying to keep up with the constant changes. That’s why so many people hire SEO professionals to do the job for them. But if you’re handling your own website ranking protocols, you don’t want to be inadvertently slowing down progress with these common SEO mistakes. Grab a paid or free tool to help you fix these issues, and see how well your rankings soar!
