Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Choosing the Wrong Keywords

Optimising for the wrong keyword is a simple and very common mistake, usually because of the failure to perform proper keyword research. When you optimise content, you need to ensure you know what your customers and potential customers are searching and looking for when they try to find your services or products. It is also important to try to use niche and long-tail keywords to ensure you rank properly, as these keywords will have less competition and will reach the people most likely to convert.

Keyword Stuffing

Another amateur mistake which many people may perform with good intentions is keyword stuffing. Using your keyword more in your content means your content is more relevant and will rank higher – but using your keyword too much means you are keyword stuffing and search engines will penalise you for this. A good method to avoid this is to aim for your keyword to represent between 0.5% and 2% of your content.

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content can be pages on your website having similar/duplicated content or one of your blogs being copied from another website. These web pages can be penalised and pushed down the SERP ranks for failing to be original content. Users who have duplicate content usually perform this by mistake, and think they are simply adding fresh content which will boost SEO – instead, they are harming their SEO by using spammy practices and copying content from other websites.

Mobile Responsive Design

In this day and age, the importance of mobile responsiveness can’t be stressed enough. Over 50% of searches on Google are performed on a mobile device. Plus, in 2015 Google pushed an update dubbed “Mobilegeddon” which gave a hefty boost to websites which were mobile friendly and penalised websites which weren’t. Google is also currently pushing an update for mobile-first indexing – where the mobile version of your website is indexed before the desktop version. This update is being rolled out on a site-by-site basis and Google estimates it will take years before all websites are migrated to the new mobile-first indexing system. We have a blog covering mobile-first indexing.

With all these updates, you can take a pretty good guess that mobile responsiveness is important when trying to rank in search engines. These days, if your website isn’t mobile friendly you simply aren’t going to rank and you’re missing out on a lot of potential customers! You can use Google’s online tool to test if your website is mobile friendly.

Analytics

Another mistake is the failure to analyse your campaign. SEO is just the same as any other marketing campaign and strategy – you need to figure out what metrics and data to track in order to be able to determine whether or not your campaign was successful or not. This goes beyond simply searching for your keywords and seeing where you rank on the SERP. Are users bouncing from your website? Are they completing conversions? Using software such as Google Analytics is great to track your SEO campaign and website performance and shouldn’t be underestimated.

Blue Whale Media

At Blue Whale Media, we are the experts for local SEO marketing and rest assured your website performance is in good hands with us! We also specialise in PPC, email marketing and social media marketing! Call the team today on 01925 552050 or use the contact form below!