Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid on Your Website

Whether you’re building a new website from scratch or conducting a makeover of your current site, keeping SEO in mind at all times is crucial. Strong on-page SEO will improve your site’s visibility and help to drive more traffic in your direction. With a higher likelihood of visibility also comes a higher likelihood of increased business.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a large set of policies and practices meant to improve the overall appearance and readability of a site so that it ranks higher on web pages. By using prominent SEO strategies such as proper formatting, relevant topics, link popularity, target keywords, and more, search engines can better determine if your content will meet the needs of the readers.

Why Does SEO Matter?

Take a minute to try and imagine how many new web pages are published daily. There are currently over 1.88 billion websites on the Internet and, while they may not all be active, the majority of these websites have existing content you may need to compete with.

Optimizing your SEO strategy can help a new site stand out from the crowd by presenting relevant information in a readable form for search engines. This can help you rank higher on a search results page, especially if you’re in a smaller niche, to drive more traffic to your site, instead of the competitors.

4 SEO Pitfalls to Avoid

Ranking in the top couple of positions on a search engine can be extremely difficult. Rest assured, though, that it’s not the end of the world if you don’t. In a study of four million Google search results, it was found that the first three Google results get 54.4% of clicks. The remaining majority ended up clicking content listed throughout the first page.

Therefore, when building an SEO strategy it’s perfectly acceptable to not be in the top three. As long as you avoid the falling SEO mistakes, you’ll have a better chance of ranking on the first page for search engines:

1. Overstuffing content with keywords

Keywords are the ideas and topics that are most related to the content on a website. In regard to SEO, keywords are the commonly searched words and phrases for that topic. One key strategy in SEO is to integrate these keywords into your content, but it’s very possible to overdo it.

If you’re putting keywords every couple of words, it will heavily impact the readability of your site and search engines will knock your ranking as a result. Keep keyword use natural and use keywords in important places, such as the title or introduction, rather than everywhere.

2. Keeping broken links on your page

Establishing your site as one of authority is a major part of an SEO strategy. By using verifiable sources and linking out to those sources when citing information, search engines will recognize the authority. However, if you have backlinks on your website that no longer lead to the intended page or simply don’t work, search engines will reduce your ranking.

3. Failing to reach potential customers with your content

SEO isn’t just about articles and blogs on the Internet. Search engine optimization is an entire range of strategies that encompasses digital marketing as well. If your advertising strategy is not sound, potential customers won’t be direct to your site(s).

Don’t just focus on optimizing your written content, rather place an emphasis on overhauling your enticing marketing presence on platforms such as social media, digital ad pages, and more.

4. Focusing on the wrong keywords

Finally, accidentally focusing on the wrong keywords for the topic you’re trying to discuss is a major SEO error. After all, if someone looks up different dog breeds to consider adopting, for example, and an article has that as the title but is written about cats, it won’t be ranked highly.

Only use keywords that are relevant to the topic at hand and be sure that anything discussed stays on that topic.

Grow your digital presence

Building your own corner of the Internet is a daunting proposition, but an effective SEO strategy can accelerate the process. Optimizing keywords and not overstuffing them, ensuring all links are ones of authority, and reaching customers with effective marketing are all just the tip of the iceberg. Everything counts when it comes to SEO.

In fact, moving up just one result on the search page can increase click-through rates by over 30%, which goes to show the importance of building a successful campaign. Get your website ranked on the first page to get as many eyes on your content as possible by using the services of an SEO strategist or with an effective internal plan.