SEO takes a lot of time and effort. No matter how hard you try and how much time and money you have invested in your website, if you are not doing SEO right, people won't be able to find your website.
In short, SEO is just one of many powerful tools that are easy to start with but very hard to master. Anyhow, to cut a long story short, MSP Launchpad has pulled together the top 9 common SEO mistakes you should avoid.
9 Biggest SEO Mistakes Obstructing Your Digital Marketing Strategy
Here is a rundown of the most common SEO mistakes many website owners usually overlook:
#1 Focusing on International Instead of Local SEO
Most business owners think globally when it comes to SEO. And to be honest, there's nothing wrong with that. However, focusing on global SEO means you are going to compete with bigger, more popular brands in an already saturated market. Let's be honest, they have more resources for SEO and advertising, leaving you no other choice than to start with local SEO.
Focusing on local SEO is much better - it gives smaller brands a chance to compete against companies that have been investing in SEO for years. Fear not - if you start doing it right and stay persistent, you can get there too!
#2 Ranking for the Wrong Keywords
To get a good position on Google, you need to make sure that you are using the right keywords for every page. Most people think they can rank for competitive keywords - and while this is true, it is going to take a while.
For example, if you try to rank for "rental car" or "IT services" (those are highly converting keywords) - and let's assume you are a small business owner - you are, honestly, aiming way too high.
There are going to be competitors who have been executing their SEO strategies for years on end. If you jump in without a killer strategy and consistent implementation, you can forget about outranking them on the best keywords.
You need to find more specific keywords. Otherwise, you are competing with all those companies offering the same thing. In short, it is better to find long tail keywords or those with lower difficulty and significant search volume.
Focusing on long-tail keywords is one of the best SEO tactics to get initial traffic going. Those are phrases that contain three to five words. They get less search traffic but have a higher conversion value. Wondering why so? Because they are more specific. For example, instead of trying to rank for IT Services, you can go with something like IT Services for Small Businesses.
If you gather initial traffic through long tail keywords, your website will gain authority, and then you can pave the way to rank for the more competitive keywords in the future.
#3 Not Using Google Analytics Data
Those who mastered SEO know that Google Analytics is one of the best ways to track your traffic, communicate to Google, and see what type of conversions and internal website traffic flows are important to you. You can find out where your traffic is coming from, see how prospects interact with your site, track those sweet conversions, see which pages are popular, and so on and so forth.
Remember, without using Google Analytics, you have no chance to run an effective SEO campaign and track your progress.
# 4 Ignoring a Silo Structure
The whole purpose of a silo structure is to create a complete, go-to reference setup for those who land on your page. This is super important to help Google crawl, index, and rank your website better.
By siloing your website, you are helping search engines understand the context of your pages, and you can group together pages dealing with the same topic and lay the groundwork for high-converting keywords.
#5 Publishing Weak/Duplicate Content
As you know, content is king, and this is a big one. This is one of the worst mistakes you can make. Pages with low-quality or plagiarized content will ruin your SEO endeavor. Therefore, avoid stolen/scraped, low-value, thin, and automatically generated content.
You need to give something valuable to Google, and it will, in return, favor your content and rank you well. Just think about what your prospects would actually VALUE reading - and write that!
#6 Failing to Keep Prospects on Your Site
Once people land on your site, the next most important step is to keep them staying a bit longer on there. The last thing you want is to put a ton of effort into traffic generation and then see how people leave your website immediately after they have finally found you online.
You should do everything you can to make them stay a little longer and encourage them to click through your website. To do so, you need to create a clear and noticeable CTA (Call To Action), or you can add relevant internal/external links.
#7 Skipping Meta Description and Title/Image Tags
Most people think targeting the right keywords is enough to optimize their content - but they are wrong. Being careless about adding meta descriptions and title/image tags in content means you are missing a critical ingredient for ranking successfully.
Google pays attention to these things while ranking your pages. Meta descriptions' and tags' purpose is to help Google better understand your content and see if it has value to offer.
#8 Neglecting Site Loading Speed
Another common mistake is ignoring site loading speed. The faster your website, the more Google will favor it.
Slow website load time leads to losing prospects and lower rankings and conversion rates. The best way to solve this problem is to optimize your image, clean up code, fix broken links, and implement lazy loading.
#9 Not Optimizing for Mobile
As you already know, PCs left the throne a while ago. A couple of years ago, Google switched to mobile-first indexing, meaning Google will check if your site is mobile-friendly, and if it is not, you can say goodbye to high ranking.
So, besides making your desktop version brilliant, you need to ensure your website is also mobile responsive. This ties back into website speed. While a website can often load fast on desktop computers, once you switch to the mobile version of your website, you will usually find that the speed is an absolute disaster.
Rectify SEO Mistakes to Rank Better
Here at MSP Launchpad, we get it - SEO is a lot of work. There are a lot of different parts you need to implement (not to mention uncommon SEO mistakes you probably never heard about). Anyhow, the thing is that if you start doing SEO right and on a regular basis, you can rest assured your efforts will pay off!
And remember, if you ever get off-track, you can always contact us, and we would be super excited to help you.
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