When it comes to SEO optimization, most of us are pretty confident that we’re doing everything right. After all, SEO is super easy, right? All you have to do is make sure you use the right keywords, include links and, of course, write about something people would actually search for. It sounds simple, but is it really as easy as it seems?
Oftentimes businesses find themselves putting lots of time into SEO work but for some frustrating reason still not seeing positive results. You’ve done everything you could, but for some reason are still on the second or even third page.
Before you freak out and start everything over from scratch, make sure you are not making these 5 common SEO mistakes:
1. Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is considered one of the most common and insidious on-page SEO mistakes. Yes, you need to use different keywords in order to make your piece of content more searchable. Using these targeted keywords in every single sentence, unfortunately, won’t boost your rating above the skies. The secret is to use appropriate keywords just the right amount within your content. If you use too many keywords throughout your text (i.e. keyword stuff), a search engine will consider all of them spam, which will turn out as a negative indicator for your SEO performance.
2. Duplicate Or Thin Content
Beyond unethical behavior and plagiarism, this technique simply doesn’t work anymore. Google algorithms get smarter every day and now they are able to figure out not only if you have duplicate content but will penalize you for that as well. In terms of the thin content, if you are not detailed enough and just touch up on some basics, your content piece will never stand out from the millions of similar pages out there on the web. To secure yourself and your page ranking, get comfy, play some inspiring music and write that perfect piece everyone will love. Good content is lengthy, has appropriate keywords, is properly formatted, and answers the questions your users are typing.
3. Irrelative Content (i.e. Content That Doesn’t Match Your Keywords And Search Terms)
When you go out of your way to optimize for multiple keywords in one post, you’ll most likely end up having numerous topics mixed all together. Failing to focus your text on the main keywords substantially raises your risk of creating irrelevance on your web page. You know that Google’s goal is to show the most relative search results, right? Then you should also know that the only way to produce highly relevant content is to focus on one particular topic or keyword and make sure everything relates back to that topic.
4. Missing Title Tags Or Meta Descriptions
Title tags, meta descriptions and alt tags for images are your best conductors to an easy win. These are two of the only sections that Google and other search engines give us an enormous level of control over, so never skip any of these. First of all, make sure you create a strong title tag that contains your target keyword. Next, write an attractive meta description. Even though it’s not affecting a search engine ranking, it’s still extremely important for the searchers to choose your link among all the ones shown.
5. Paid Links
In order to maximize its efficiency, search engines choose quality over quantity for many SEO aspects, including links. Google, for example, has flagged most of the paid links, which appear as an “irregular linking activity”. If you ever decide to drive traffic to your website with this approach, you’ll definitely see a hit in your organic ranking. Our advice would be to focus on other SEO areas that will actually benefit your ranking and visibility.
What To Do If Some Of The Mistakes Are On Your Record?
Don’t sweat it! Now when you have identified some of the SEO mistakes you might be making, it’s an easy fix. It takes one marketing guru to help you with all SEO pitfalls you might be falling into. Just search for a good one! In the meantime, if you want to see how your page ranks today, request your free marketing evaluation from Atlantic Health Solutions now!
