Optimising your website for search engines is very time-consuming and requires a lot of patience, so don’t let these simple SEO mistakes hinder your success.
If you’re struggling to rank your website at the top of SERPs and you want to increase your organic traffic, then continue reading…
Here’s a quick summary of SEO mistakes you need to avoid:
- Not having an SEO plan
- Not investing in a fast and mobile-friendly website
- Skipping Page Titles & Descriptions
- Not Adding Fresh Content
- Only Focusing on On-Page SEO
SEO Mistake No. 1: Not Having An SEO Plan
There is no point in learning SEO, learning all about your target audience to then only take little or random action.
Your SEO needs to be well planned in order to maximise the opportunity from that knowledge, it’s critical for success, yet just 36% of small business owners have a roadmap in place.
If you don’t have one either, then you need to build one now. Here’s are some things to consider when building it:
- Competitor analysis – understand their rankings, the keywords they target, what content they produce and how often, how is their search engine performance?
- Get tools in place – look for technology that will help your workflow and strategy such as keyword planners and SEO audit programs
- Create a list of tasks and actions that need to be carried out to reach goals that you agree on
- Agree on roles going forward, decide who will add content, make sure it’s aligned with your other marketing efforts, perform audits, and so on.
SEO Mistake No. 2: Not Investing In A Fast & Mobile-Friendly Website
Hiring a family member or friend that is “good with computers” to quickly build you a cheap website will only hinder your SEO rankings.
SEO is not just about the content on your pages, it’s also about the quality of your website, how good it is on mobile devices, and its speed.
Remember, search engines want their users to be happy, so they always present them with the best websites possible for their query.
Top Tips:
- Make sure you have a responsive website design on all devices
- Create separate mobile content to give mobile users the best experience possible
- Make improving your wites load time a priority, this will reduce the number of people that bounce from your website
Be sure not to skimp on your business’ website if you want to rank well with search engines.
SEO Mistake No. 3: Skipping Page Titles & Meta Descriptions
We see it all too often, websites with “Home” as the page title – not the most compelling is it?
Fixing your website page titles and adding a meta description is such an easy fix that can have a huge impact on your SEO.
Most website CMS systems give you the ability to change them by default, but it often gets overlooked and not seen as important by business owners.
Top Tips:
- Be sure to check out Google’s best practices on creating good titles and descriptions
- Write unique title tags and meta descriptions for all pages that make users want to click your page over a competitor
- Be sure to include the keyword that you’re targetting, but be careful how you use it
- Avoid going over the character limits to ensure users see everything you want them to
SEO Mistake No. 4: Ignoring Local SEO
Have you ever used the “near me” search when you’re out and about? Local searches have grown over 900% in recent years – yes you read that right, 900%.
So it would be a critical marketing mistake to not claim or properly manage your Google My Business listing. Spend some time on optimising your listing, provide as much information as possible about your business – be sure to include some photos!
To optimise your website for local SEO, be sure to have a dedicated ‘Contact Us’ page which include all of your business addresses with a map, phone numbers and a contact email address.
76% of local searches result in a phone call, make sure you make it is super easy for them to do so by making your phone number clickable on mobile.
More local SEO tips:
- Include testimonials on your site/contact page
- Use schema on your website
- Prioritise getting more review
- Claim social profiles
SEO Mistake No. 5: Only focusing On-Site SEO
Don’t forget that on-site SEO is not the be and end-all, of course, it is a major component of ranking your site, but do not overlook off-site SEO strategies.
Off-site SEO tells search engines what everyone else thinks about your site – if everyone is linking to it, it must be good right? Think of it as word of mouth for the online world – the more good mentions you get, the higher you will rank.
Right at the core of an off-page SEO strategy is building backlinks, it can be a difficult but very fruitful task. There are a few different types of backlinks to consider:
- Self-created links – these can be the easiest to create, but not the best from an SEO perspective. Adding links to your site on forums, blog comments, and online directories are all examples of self-created links. Tread carefully with these as they can be frowned upon by search engines if used excessively.
- Natural links – these editorial links come without any action from you. For example, if a beauty blogger adds a link to their post that points to their favourite make-up brand, that is a natural link.
- Manually built links – things that are difficult to get are usually worth having, the same can be said for backlinks. You can manually build links with a deliberate link-building strategy – this is what we would recommend. Write amazing content, then reach out to other bloggers and influencers asking them to link to you.
If you avoid these 5 mistakes then your SEO strategy is sure to be on the right track!
If you would like any assistance with your SEO strategy then be sure to get in touch and we would be happy to help.
