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Search engine optimization is something that the vast majority of businesses today recognize that they need to invest in. The trouble is that the landscape of search engine optimization and online marketing, in general, is changing all of the time. If you do not change with it, you’ll only get left behind. To make matters worse, following outdated practices could even result in you being punished by Google and slipping down the search engine rankings. This is the last thing that any business wants to experience.
With that being said, in this post, we are going to provide a comprehensive overview of some of the common deadly SEO sins that businesses are making today. If you notice that you are currently committing any of the mistakes that are mentioned below, there is no need to panic, however, you should make an effort to address these issues as soon as possible so that you can move your online marketing efforts in the right direction.
Low-quality content
Gone are the days when you could simply post poor quality content that was laced with keywords in order to get to the top of Google. Marketing companies used to provide content that was simply structured for search engine bots. However, today it is all about creating content for the reader. If you want to get organic traffic, then you need to make sure that you create content that is interesting, unique, and cannot be found anywhere else on the web. Search engines are concerned with the quality of the content you are providing online users. Therefore, it needs to be relevant and keywords need to be included naturally too. You also need to make sure that the content that you post doesn’t have any spelling or grammar errors. The key to establishing authority online is to create content that is going to be both search engine and human-friendly. Deep editing and proofreading are required before you hit the publish button on your website or blog. However, a few mistakes here and there aren’t going to make or break you. No one’s perfect and many high-authority sites do have occasional errors.
Not making use of search console tools
Another mistake that a lot of business owners make today is failing to make use of search console tools. Search console tools are powerful resources that tell you everything you need to know about your website. After all, if you do not understand how your website is performing at the moment, then how are you going to move forward? Using search console tools enables you to have full clarity over your website and you can deal with any SEO issues that you may encounter. Many website owners have been failing to use these tools and it is having a seriously negative impact on them. With these tools, you will know your analytic details, you will be able to view the status of your links, and you will know the index structure and status of your pages, amongst lots of other critical pieces of information.
Not staying up-to-date with the latest SEO news
As mentioned in the introduction, the face of online marketing is changing all of the time. What was significant one year ago may not be significant today. The fast-paced nature of online marketing means that you need to make an effort to stay up-to-date with everything that is going on. There are lots of great resources and news websites that can help you to do this, so make the most of them. It can be as simple as checking these resources every week so that you know about any new updates coming to the fore. Alexa skill for agencies is one of the best options. One of the biggest mistakes that you can ever make as a business owner is viewing SEO is a one-time thing. It is changing all of the time and, therefore, this means that you need to address it consistently if you want to stay at the top
Not having a responsive website
In addition to the mistakes that have already been mentioned, another critical error that a lot of businesses are making today is not having a responsive website. A responsive website is one that adapts to the device that it is being used on. This means that it will work just as effectively on a mobile phone as it would a desktop computer. When you consider the fact that mobile phones are used more regularly for Internet access then all the other devices today, you see why having a responsive website is so important. If your website is not responsive, then when someone accesses it via a smartphone they are going to find it difficult to use and they may not be able to click on some of the elements. This will result in you having a high bounce rate. The viewer will simply leave your website and go to another website, which will usually be a competitor of your business. Not only is this a negative because it means that you will miss out on potential custom, but the fact that your bounce rate will increase and your website is not responsive means that you will then end up suffering in terms of the Google result pages. It is a vicious cycle, so if you currently do not have a website that is optimized for use on a smaller device, this should definitely be something that you deal with as a matter of urgency.
Irrelevant anchor text links
All of the anchor text that you use on your website must be relevant to the page that you are linking to. An anchor text is simply a live link that you place on your website, which directs viewers to another domain name or another page. The anchor text should clearly explain to both humans and search engines what is going to be contained on the page that you are linking to. This is why it is not recommended to use anchor texts such as click here or see this. This is because they do not indicate anything about the link in question. Instead, you need to use relevant keywords in order to ensure that your anchor texts are not viewed as spam.
Having 404 indexed pages
Another deadly mistake that all site owners need to avoid is having 404 web pages indexed. For those that are unaware, a 404 page is what will appear when someone clicks on a page that is no longer accessible. There are lots of different activities that can result in one of your webpages giving off a 404 page. For example, this could happen if the site you are linking to has changed the location of their webpages or it could occur if you have changed to a different CMS. No matter why it has happened, if your website has a lot of 404 error pages, this can have a negative impact on your search engine ranking. The best thing to do is use a broken link checker to find out which of your pages are dead and then you can fix them. These tools are available free of charge so there really is no excuse to not use them.
Excessive use of keywords
As mentioned earlier, a few years ago marketers would simply produce poor quality content and they would then stuff keywords into the content in order to get the website to rank as highly as possible. Google frowns upon this practice, which is known as a black hat technique. While there is the potential that this tactic could provide you with good results initially, you will then find yourself penalized and dropping the search engine result pages quickly. This is something that is incredibly difficult to come back from. To make sure that you are not posting something with excessive keywords, it is a good idea to try and calculate your keyword density. Keyword density will show you how many times you have used a particular keyword on a page in relation to the number of words that are on the page in total. It is a good idea to have a keyword density between 3 and 5%.
Having too many outbound links or having none at all
Another area of SEO that you need to pay attention to is the outbound links that you have on your website. Outbound links are links to other websites and domain names. Firstly, all pages should have outbound links. However, you do need to avoid going overboard as too many will appear like spam. In addition to this, you should not simply post links to any old website. You need to make sure that the website has a high domain ranking and that is of good quality. Not only this but it needs to be relevant to your website. If you have a cake store, for example, and you were to link to a plumbing company, then this would severely hurt your search engine ranking, no matter how reputable the other business and their website is.
