8 Common SEO Mistakes To Avoid

What is search engine optimization (SEO)?

To understand the possible SEO mistakes one can make we should first take a look at the definition of search engine optimization. Definition: search engine optimization is the managing and creating of website content such as descriptions and keywords in order to help the webpage to rank higher in the searches in different browsers like Google or others.

Why knowing SEO mistakes is important?

To drive traffic and readers to your site, your pages got to be optimized for Google and other search engines to “crawl” them – which means analyzing every part of it.

For your pages to be valuable you will have to structure your web content and architecture properly, intelligently, and holistically. As a result of this visitors will be able to find your page easier and click through it.

However, it is easy to make SEO mistakes when building your architecture. Here are a number of the foremost common mistakes made by content providers.

SEO mistake #1: Using text in images

A great way to spruce up a webpage is by using images. They can be helpful for a number of things like breaking up text, drawing attention to a brand or helping visually explain a point. However, images are not important for SEO. Search engines use the text part of your page and don’t really pay attention to the text inside images, whether it’s a brand name, graphics on a chart, a button, or an image just for decoration.

Therefore using too much text in your imagery will only cause problems with accessibility. Furthermore, if you are using some description for your images it is better to add it as a caption and/or an alt tag (100 characters) to explain the contents.

SEO mistake #2: Stuffing keywords into your content

When content creators put as many keywords as possible on a page it is commonly referred “shoehorning”. While these SEO mistakes leads to horrible UX for the website it is done with the intent to overly manipulate the ranking in the search results.

SEO mistake #3: Forgetting to crosslink

Writing good content for your website builds trust and visitors are more likely to continue roaming the website after initially finding it. However, if you want readers to stay reading and successfully go to the other parts of your websites where they can read more you are ought to plan a customer journey. This means including more links to more content, if the visitor doesn’t have a clear part where to go next they are most likely to leave.

SEO mistake #4: Content that specializes in trendy short term topics

In some cases writers focus on relevant content within the moment, writing articles that are about current events and special occasions. For instance, every year during the World Series, they tie in their products around specific teams, players, cities, and game days. However, even though those pages are relevant for the time, soon after the given event is over the article is deemed irrelevant by search engines and therefore it is considered one of the SEO mistakes.

SEO mistake #5: Thin content or content behind a gate

Often times landing pages made for marketing campaigns are also used for organic search campaigns. The folly here is that the types of landing pages that work for paid advertising – pages that contain a Buy button and little content – don’t work well for organic search visitors.

When a visitor of your website clicks on it and it is greeted by almost no content or content hidden behind a series of clicks and forms they are almost certain to leave. Website visitors are usually checking your brand or product and they’re not necessarily able to purchase or share their personal information in touch forms to access gated content.

SEO mistake #6: Ignoring search engine marketing (SEM) data

Too often than not a poor communication exists between the SEM and the SEO departments. While search results list paid and organic listings side by side, that is often not the case for the teams driving each effort. All too frequently paid and organic search content creators don’t take all marketing channels under consideration when creating financial year plans and allocating budget and resources. This is a huge miss. When SEM and SEO teams don’t work together, they lose opportunities to maximize top-performing marketing campaigns.

SEO mistake #7: Trying to optimize every page at once

Google won’t index every single page on your site. It’s less likely to include multiple pages from your site on its first page of results. You must determine which page on your website is THE most important page to focus on for important keywords. For example, if you sell mayonnaise, you would possibly want your homepage to rank favourite for “mayonnaise”, as people are presumably to explore the remainder of the location from there. Or, perhaps you would like your store page to rank in order that customers from around the world can order condiments from you. You probably won’t want your website’s blog post featuring a tuna fish salad recipe to require the highest spot in Google.

SEO mistake #8: Targeting the broadest keyword possible

The broader your keyword, the tougher the competition, and therefore the harder it’ll be for your page to realize a good ranking. For example, you’re probably not getting to show abreast of the primary page of search results when someone searches for “food”. But if you focus on being specific and avoid the other SEO mistakes, you’ll probably rank higher.

Rubicom helps you learn more about our SEO services and how SEO can help your business. Visit our services and get in contact with us.

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