We’ve often talked about how marketers get stuck in the business and assume that everyone else knows the language. Who hasn’t heard of the SERPs (search engine results pages), or understand why it’s important to be in them? Internet marketing and SEO including SEO mistakes has been around for years, but there are still people who come to us and say, “What is search engine optimization? Do I need it for my business?” It boggles the mind.
And then there are the people who know about SEO, have read tons of blogs about how to optimize their site, and make the most basic mistakes. Or the optimizer that’s been in the game for so long that they’ve forgotten to look at some of the basic areas of a client’s site; don’t be mad at them, we optimizers look at so many things on so many sites, it sometimes becomes a blur.
Whether you’re new to the game and never heard of this crazy thing called SEO, or you’re an optimizer that’s been doing your job since the first Internet business, it’s always good to revisit the basics every once in a while.
This post covers some of the top mistakes. If you’re new, keep them in front of you so you don’t do them. If you’re a veteran, it’s worth the refresher.
With that said, we hope you find today’s SEO mistakes informational and helpful!
Introducing the 10 Worst Mistakes in the World of SEO
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short, is a term that’s rapidly becoming common for most people. The power of SEO is indeed unique and somewhat simple to understand. In a nutshell, SEO is an activity that improves search engine rankings. Search engine rankings are important for business-oriented websites to be successful. Having a high ranking means that a site places in the top 3 search results of Google. Even making it to the front page is a good result.
Ranking in the front pages of Google with good SEO knowledge is often simple and easy, depending on the topic. Although the ways and methods which people engage in for better rankings are always changing, some processes are more harmful in the long run. The is why many people fall into the trap of committing the most glaring mistakes when handling campaigns. Here are these errors and how people should avoid them at all costs.
Wrong Keywords
SEO is all about optimizing keywords. An experienced team should know which part of a blogger outreach strategy is using the right keywords. The most common mistake that people make is neglecting how search engines and clients prefer the use of long-tail keywords.
Although most owners would want to describe their products and services the best way they can, they might forget that their clients use other words to “actually” find their product. If this is the case, it becomes a total miss. Content creators are all optimizing for the wrong keywords, while users are searching for other words instead.
To avoid such mistakes, a lot of great tools like SEMrush, Moz, Google Trends, etc. can help users find the best keywords to use and for them to have a better SEO ranking.
Keyword Stuffing
Even if you’re using all the right keywords, using a lot of them can become counter-productive. A lot of people fall into the trap of thinking that using a lot of keywords can get higher SEO rankings. Search engines do the opposite when this is the case. It flags content that utilizes a lot of keywords as spam. Being listed as spam massively hurts a site’s SEO ranking.
This practice is called Keyword Stuffing. This is a major SEO mistake that a lot of beginners fall into. To avoid this error, proper placing of keywords in an article is critical. Although there is no real percentage as to how many keywords constitute “stuffing,” content creators should limit using 5-8 keywords depending on the content length.
Plagiarism
A lot of people become lazy and end up publishing unoriginal content and plagiarized works. Not only does it bring SEO ranks down, but this mistake can become a potential lawsuit if the original creators pursue a case. An expert blogger outreach platform knows better in regards to using content that isn’t theirs in the first place.
Rephrasing and editing parts out of an original piece or work is still plagiarism. Aside from being fresh and creative, original content gets a lot of more attention and gets higher ranking in SEO.
Misleading Internal Links
It’s natural for a team to think about their high-performing pages and their links. Adding these links to fresh content gives it more visibility and opens up additional opportunities for new markets to come. Just make sure that these links are related to the content and not just “for the sake of adding links.”
Misleading internal links are in the same league with keyword stuffing. Your potential clients might see the excess and inappropriate links as annoying. Do not overdo it by putting in unrelated links.
Using Weak Headlines
People sometimes fall into the trap of using titles that, to them, may sound catchy. For a sure way of checking a headline, tools like SEMrush, Google Alerts, and Coschedule are all useful in helping content writers with the best way to optimize their articles and titles.
Although there a ton of words that one can use to improve a headline, using words that seem out of place can ruin a title. For example, “A Tactician’s Approach to Advanced SEO” may sound good but Coschedule only scores it at 63.
For a great title, it needs a score of 70 and above. An alternative title for the one above could be “Approaching Advanced SEO like a Pro: How to be like one” which scores a hefty 78 on Coschedule.
Not taking Advantage of Specific Markets
Another trick in ensuring that content goes noticed in the world of SEO is to make sure that it relates to a target market. Properly optimizing content and then not considering a specific goal can make all the work useless. An example of this problem is writing about sports injuries and then pitching it to a website that features women empowerment.
These problems are easy to overlook because the focus is sometimes shifted to the keywords and the article. The target audience is completely forgotten. When this happens, content can be tweaked but will cost time and more resources.
Overselling
Believe it or not, a lot of users who search for interesting reads online find it annoying when the content they stumble upon is promotional and leans towards selling something they don’t even want in the first place.
A good example of this scenario is when someone is reading about diseases of the male urinary tract and then finding something promotional like “men often buy this product to cure this illness. Click here to buy.”
Quality
Never ignore the potential of a quality article. A lot of content makers are guilty of creating content for the sake of quantity and tend to forget that the essence of being a success in SEO is the quality of the article itself.
Quantity
Although quality is essential in articles getting more attention, quantity is also critical. Quantity doesn’t solely focus on the amount of content produced by a content maker, but the length of a single article itself. If a piece is too short, it could leave clients dissatisfied and leave immediately. If it’s too long, it could otherwise bore and make them go away as well.
Mismatching content and keywords
Keywords aren’t the only thing that your clients and market are looking at, because they’re also interested in the content as a whole. There are some cases in which the articles don’t match the keywords.
Content which utilizes this move can seem unnatural and annoying for a reader, especially if it’s a call to action link. Here’s an example (take note that keyword here is “Apple”): People who like basketball often love playing in parks. These people love eating Apple and everything nutritious. Players such as Lebron James and Stephen Curry all enjoy practicing as well.”
The example above shows how the keyword and article do not match. Although the sentence in which the keyword appears makes sense, the whole article does not jive with it at all, as it talks more about basketball and it’s current stars.
Takeaway
SEO is indeed a powerful strategy in bringing success, especially for business-oriented sites. Although it’s relatively easy for some people to utilize this power, a lot of them make mistakes when it comes to creating content.
Such errors can become costly and do more harm than helping a person to increase their SEO rank. Some of these practices are keyword stuffing, which is a practice that may mark a website as spam. Another erroneous method some individuals use is copying other’s work and publishing it as their own. This act is called plagiarism and is punishable as a felony.
Avoid these mistakes, develop unique content and use proper keywords; soon the results will show for themselves when your site lands on the front page, or even in the top 3 results, of Google Search.
