Because search engine developers are constantly changing their methodologies, SEO is always evolving. It can be difficult to keep up with the best strategies for attracting traffic and improving conversion rates. Even so, optimizing your web content should be one of the highest priorities for a company seeking to use a content marketing strategy.
In this post, we’ll examine several SEO mistakes to avoid. Some of these mistakes are extremely common but can have a large impact on your success. If you would like to start your SEO evaluation, check out our free SEO analysis service.
Forgetting Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
This seems like a minor technical detail, but it can have a big impact on your SEO. Title tags and meta descriptions are important SEO elements, so don’t neglect them. Search engines scan title tags and meta descriptions when they crawl your website, so if you write them well, they can improve your website’s performance. Learn how to write the perfect meta description.
Title tags are also important for sharing on social media. If someone tweets the content of one of your blog posts, the title tag is often the content that accompanies the link. Therefore, you want to write compelling, descriptive title tags that include important information like your company’s name. Title tags are also important for bookmarks. When someone bookmarks your website, your title tag is the content they’ll see in their bookmark list.
Choosing Ineffective Keywords
You’re very close to your products and services, and you probably view them the way a business owner does. But how do your customers view and describe them? They’re not as close to your products and services, and they don’t understand the specifics like you do.
Choose the kinds of keywords that your customers would search for. Do some careful research before you commit to keywords. You can use tools like Google Trends, Moz Keyword Explorer, and SEMrush to zero in on the keyword trends that customers are mostly likely to use when searching for what you have to offer. Look into our guide on finding the right keywords for your SEO campaigns.
Forgetting about Local Searches
If your business focuses on customers in a certain location, don’t forget to use local searches. You can use region-specific keywords in your blog posts and web content, but you can also use them in your page titles and meta descriptions. List yourself on Yelp, FourSquare, Google Places, and Merchant Circle, as well as any other local sites that could send you traffic.
Businesses that greatly benefit from local searches include restaurants, construction companies, schools and daycares, dry cleaners, and other businesses that people rely on locally. Test different keywords to find out how people are searching for your locality. Do they get as specific as a neighborhood? Do they refer to a section of the city? Keyword research will help you to answer these questions.
Focusing on Link Quantity Instead of Link Quality
A single link from a popular website might increase your ranking considerably, so do what you can to get links that are relevant to your website and industry. Trying to get links from low quality directories is probably a waste of time, however. These sites are not reliable, and the search engines are skeptical of them. If you’re unsure about the strength of a particular domain, use a tool like SEOquake to verify. Check out four-link building strategies for boosting your SEO.
Neglecting Content Quality
It’s all too easy to start neglecting your content quality when you start to focus on your SEO. You don’t have to sacrifice one to the other, however, and in fact, good content is both faithful to its keywords and high in readability.
Resist the temptation to use software that “spins” someone else’s content into your own shape. It’s well worth the investment to create your own, one-of-a-kind copy that sells specifically what you offer to your target audience.
For more information about SEO, or to get a free SEO analysis of your own website, get in touch with us at Park Slope Softworks, an inbound marketing company in Brooklyn. We look forward to helping you achieve your goals. Be sure to check out this useful infographic for local SEO mistakes to avoid
