SEO, or search engine optimisation, is a continually changing industry and unless you keep a close eye on the daily rumours, discussions and bulletins, it can be easy to use an outdated approach. This article looks at the common SEO mistakes that marketers don’t realise might be hindering their business.
- Keyword Stuffing
Once upon a time, businesses were told to stuff their website content with as many keywords as possible. This would show Google that your website was about these topics and in turn your rankings would get a little boast. SEO today is very different, Google’s algorithm has wised up to sneaky tactics and now websites with unnatural keyword densities are gifted with a Panda penalty. While keywords are still relevant to SEO Google are searching for context and understanding, and so are your audience. Keyword stuffing is also associated with increased bounce rates because why would your readers stay on your site and look at your content if it doesn’t make sense?
- Low quality content.
Unless you have been hiding under a rock you will have probably heard at some point in the last two years that ‘content is king’. There is a huge emphasis on businesses to churn out regular content but the old ‘quality over quantity’ phrase has never been more appropriate. Don’t put poor content on your website just because you need to fill up your blog or increase the amount of words on your pages. If you want to reply on crap content then there’s a good chance Google’s Panda will be paying your website a little visit. Spend time creating helpful content that your readers will appreciate and make sure you proofread your content for spelling mistakes and poor grammar. Creating great content can be quite time consuming which is why most businesses are turning to consultants and agencies for their SEO services.
- Neglected title tags.
Title tags are one of the most important attributes for SEO and a bit of effort here will go a long way. A lot of webmasters however fail to realise their importance. Common mistakes involve using the same tags for different pages or putting the company name at the beginning of each tag. Title tags should be unique and representative of each web page and while it is perfectly fine to include the company brand in the title tag, prominence should go to the topic of the page.
- Duplicate content
Duplicate content is seen as a bad practise and while it might seem convenient for webmasters to duplicate descriptions for similar products on their ecommerce site, it can lead to problems with traffic and lower rankings. Look at it this way if you have duplicate pages on your website, how does the search engine know which one to index?
- Poor backlink profile.
Inbound links are very much still an important ranking signal. Google appreciates quality backlinks but the key word in this sentence is ‘quality’. While it might be easier to get a large volume of links from link exchanges or low quality directories, these link building methods have become highly discouraged and will probably earn you a penalty from Google’s very strict Penguin. Instead focus on natural link opportunities.
