It’s no lie that SEO has a huge impact on your business’s success. But how do you filter through the terabytes and terabytes of information and myths on SEO accuracy and mistakes? It can be excruciating feeling the need to keep up with the seemingly endless stream of eBooks, guidelines, and Google updates. Trust me, I get it – I’m writing this blog about it right now.
And because of this universal struggle to understand and harness all of the immense SEO information out there, we have decided to observe the SEO trends among top IT companies ourselves and find the most common mistakes that they make.
The first step is to sort out the misinformation, better known as “FAKE NEWS” these days. Everyday hundreds of thousands of terabytes are uploaded to the internet, many of which contain this false information we’re looking out for. And if for some reason you are just finding out that not everything online is true, oh boy do I have news for you.
So, let’s bust some of the other internets’ greatest myths about SEO!
SEO is not dead!!! In fact it’s never been more alive. Whether you recognize it or not, everything you post online, on your webpage, or on your blog is being indexed and categorized by Google and a variety of other companies. If you want to show up on search engines, you HAVE to practice SEO!
SEO has a direct impact on your business’s wins and losses. You can add more value to your business by creating worthwhile content that will increase your rankings and brand visibility.
Now let’s get down to some REAL mistakes.
5 of the biggest SEO Mistakes you need to avoid in order to grow your business
MISTAKE 1. Selection of the Wrong Keywords
What to choose? What to choose? That’s always the question when it comes to keywords and search engine optimization. And the biggest mistake you can make is selecting the wrong keywords. Don’t feel bad, keyword selection can be very tricky, many factors must be considered in the selection process.
So how do you know you are picking the wrong keywords? One of the best ways to avoid it is by getting to know the “psyche of your potential customers.”
Don’t just jump on a trend for now reason. Yes, using recently trending keywords can be very valuable, BUT ONLY if the trend is relatable to your content and customers. Don’t waste your time one content that your customers don’t care about. For example, we would never write a blog about who we think will win the upcoming Superbowl. However, we might write one about the information, statistics, and analyses used by professionals to predict winning sports teams. See how trending topics can be manipulated to fit your brand?
Here are some additional TESTED tips to avoiding using the wrong keywords and screwing up your SEO strategies. (I use all of these myself.)
- Focus on search engine preferences
- Use Long-tail keywords
- Know what your customer is searching
- Avoid the use of generic keywords
- Use the same phrasing as in search engine
- Use keyword generator tools for relevant lists
It doesn’t need to be huge undertaking requiring all your resources. If you want to optimize your SEO strategy to start getting better results, just start small. Easiest way to begin is by looking for your business’s related keywords on Google and YouTube. You can follow up with additional research on other platforms and search engines.
Once you find a good keyword associated with your business, type that keyword into a common search bar and see what pops up. You can scroll to the bottom of the page to see relevant keyword searches. This is another easy way to find alternatives for your keyword.
MISTAKE 2. Failure to Optimize for Global Searches
Have you heard the old saying “think global, act local”? Well in the case of SEO its “think global, act global”. Don’t make the mistake of recognizing the impact of the rest of the world, not just the country you operate in. This is especially true for businesses that have global customers. The truth is most companies have local and global clients, so don’t forget to appeal to them all.
The most common mistake one can make regarding global SEO is mishandling the global keywords. Make sure that you are using region-specific keywords, phrases, and content. If you fail to do so, it will greatly affect your Meta Descriptions and SEO intent content. It is important to use the right kind of content backed by the correct usage of keywords in order to attract your customers.
In addition, make sure that your business is listed on global review sites such as Google and Bing. Adding Backlinks will also help improve your visibility and brand awareness. Don’t know what a backlink is? Its easy. Any place your web address is listed on the internet and “links back” to your website is a backlink. More backlinks, better SEO.
You can also use tools like “Google Trends” to help you find keywords and apply filters to specify your region-based search.
What else can you do to avoid global SEO mistakes?
- Use Macro-level keywords for potential countries
- Select trending keywords and topic as per global search
- Utilize global SEO tools and search engines for latest info
All this effort will allow you to avoid the most common but deadly SEO mistakes in global markering. And as a reward for all your research and hard work, your SEO ranking is sure to go up. (The dream of every marketer and company)
MISTAKE 3. Quiting before the SEO results start to show
Do you even know why your doing all this work? A surprising amount of people do not. Sound off in the comments with why you use SEO using hashtag #SEOexpert
Now, how many of you are running short on time and patience? Slow and steady wins the race, and it’s no different in SEO. Consistency is KEY. Content might be king, but consistency is the key. Develop a long term strategy based around consistent posting of content relevant to your audience. This is the difference between growing your organic traffic and remaining static.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but it typically takes 3 months – 1 year to see ANY significant change in your website traffic. Which means if you give up early, you’ve got no chance. So don’t give up. Build quality content, engage with your users, and add strong backlinks.
Again, please don’t quit, just because the SEO rank progress is slow doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
Meanwhile, focus on:
- Keeping a check on your Google ranking
- Analyzing your performance and improving on it
MISTAKE 4. Lack of “relevance” in content
I touched on this earlier, but just because a topic is trending doesn’t mean it’s relevant to your company/brand. This is even more important to remember when you have strong competition. Often times companies in competitive industries will create content just for the sake of it. It contributes to a lack of quality and therefore negatively influences your SEO strategy. SEO mistakes don’t just have to be technical, they often break unspoken rules that may or may not be common knowledge.
As I said, content is the King, but the King can only exercise its powers when it’s in the right territory. Similarly, you have to create content on your website consistent with your brand. All content should fit nice and neat in your marketing strategy.
Don’t waste your time and resources on creating irrelevant content. It won’t help you with traffic or SEO ranking. Create content of value, while focusing on your keywords and business strategy. You can also include the pain points and issues faced by your customers because that’s what they are searching for – as a marketer myself, I know I am constantly looking for the latest and greatest news in SEO – that’s why I’m writing this myself, because I know you’re looking for it too. Pain points bring us together.
But don’t ignore the structure and framework of your content either. If you want to do proper indexing, you have to use headers, keywords and address the audience through body content and short and sweet headings. (Maybe you noticed that while reading this very article?!)
“Evergreen” topics are value-based content that do not expire and is presumably relevant forever. Evergreen content will be searched and viewed more often, helping boost your SEO rank and becoming popular on Google and other search engines.
Remember, your audience belongs to a wide variety of individuals. They come from groups of diverse ethnicity, cultural background, and societal setup. WRITE FOR EVERYONE!
MISTAKE 5. Not Reviewing your SEO analytics
This is as basic as it gets – track your websites SEO results with analytical and optimize based on what you find. If you’ve made any SEO mistakes you should be able to find them with the proper analytics. Look for areas in which you are lacking in order to continually improve your results. (C.A.N.I. – constant and never-ending improvement). A regular review of the analytics will help you identify the improvements as well as the areas where you need to refocus more.
You can use so many SEO tools to analyze the website analytics and performance of your content. For example, Google Analytics is one of the greatest SEO tools. It allows you to learn about the keywords that are helping you, and the ones that your competitors are using to target.
How do I fix my SEO mistakes for better optimization?
You can start by preparing reports with Google Analytics:
I understand the competition is tough these days – I feel it myself. And the challenges just seem to keep growing for online businesses, but if you want to see REAL improvement in your SEO, keep in mind the above mistakes and make sure to avoid them all!
If you have any questions related to the development of tools, product management, or marketing your content in a better way. Please write to us. Myself along with everyone at vteams will be more than happy to hear from you and help you find the solution.
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