SEO Mistakes – What Not To Do in SEO by a Certified SEO Agency
With SEO trending in searches and increasingly becoming a priority, We thought it might be beneficial to see some SEO Mistakes – what not to do in SEO – from a certified SEO Agency. While there’s plenty of mistakes that you can make with SEO, we are going to cover 5 big ones that you may be over looking.
SEO Mistakes people make:
- Keyword stuffing
- Not building a site map
- Forgetting to submit your sitemap
- You’re Not creating content that solves a problem
- Not making content mobile friendly
Before we dive into the full breakdown, i want to take a moment and remind you that we are SEO Certified. You can check out more here.
1) Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search. While yes, keywords are important for ranking in Google, they are only a very small percentage of the total impact. Keywords are more important for helping you to plan and outline your content, keep it concise, and making it relevant.
While A LONG time ago keyword stuffing was maybe an effective form of SEO marketing, today it might have the adverse affect. Keyword stuffing is widely condemned by search engines. It’s a readily know fact that keyword stuffing can lead to a search penalty. In other words, if you stuff your page with needless keywords, it wont help you rank higher. Google may even flag your page/post and remove them from the search page all together. YIKES!!
2) Not building a site map
Okay, if you’re not doing this one…shame on you. Sitemaps are an index of all of your pages, posts, files, etc that you want Google (or other search engines) to follow. This can be done manually through your IT and Marketing teams or via a plugin like Yoast SEO. Google just doesn’t crawl or index a site because you make a post. The page/post needs to be requested or introduced to Google. This can happen because Google found it, someone of importance links to it, or you can recommend it to google through a sitemap.
Some of the benefits of a sitemap that also help with ranking:
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Organize large websites: The sitemap essentially serves as a directory for all webpages, allowing users to quickly find what they’re looking for. This will help you organize your page and content in a way that’s user friendly. Google LOVES user friendly sites.
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Easily add new content and update posts: Sitemaps are critical for websites that change frequently. Having new information, stats, or content a sitemap helps you know where the new info might fight in. It also helps Google know when a page/post has been updated.
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Find internal linking opportunities: Your sitemap also allows you to quickly identify internal links, which are also critical to improving SEO.
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Identify areas to improve site navigation: You can also use your sitemap to see weaknesses in your page’s overall navigation. Having all of your pages and posts outline, will show you how to best outline your page.
3) Forgetting to submit your sitemap
Creating a sitemap for you site isn’t enough though. Just because you make one, doesn’t mean Google is just going to crawl your site. You have to play nice and request Google to use your sitemap. This is a one fo the biggest SEO mistakes. Don’t go through the effort of making a sitemap and not submitting it to Google.
You can upload your sitemap through Google’s search console.
4) You’re not creating content that solves a problem
Why do people use Google? To find a solution to a problem they are having. As such, your content should be answering questions people have. Especially when searching for local solutions. According to impactplus.com, “Where to buy” + “near me” mobile queries have grown by over 200% in the past two years. Which means not only should your content be a solution to a problem, but it should be a local resource. You should always build content that helps readers – that’s what brings them to your site and use your services!
This content can be boosted even further by providing a video with your post. 62% of Google universal searches include video (Searchmetrics). Having a video not only boosts your social engagement, but it also helps boost your search rankings too!
5) Not making your site mobile friendly
55% of all worldwide online traffic came from mobile. More and more mobile use is increasing, and it will continue to increase. Meaning your site’s adaptability and responsiveness should be the upmost importance for usability.
But it’s not just about usability…it’s also needed for SEO. Because of the increase in use of mobile devices, Google and other search engines looks at the responsiveness of your site. If your site in’t dynamic and doesn’t present well to mobile users, then it could really hurt your SERP rankings. Although this is last on the list, it should be one of the first SEO mistakes you fix!
That wraps up our SEO Mistakes.
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