Common SEO Mistakes You Don’t Know You’re Making

Don’t Fall Victim to These Six SEO Blunders

By Amy Vaughan

When it comes to digital marketing, the avenues for bringing in leads seem endless. One of these, and arguably the most effective at generating traffic, is search engine optimization (SEO). When conducting SEO, it’s important to remember it takes time to see results, but it’s also easy to fall into SEO mistakes that can immediately tank your rankings or traffic.

Many marketers are often stumped when they see that their months of SEO efforts haven’t even made a dent in their rankings or traffic. If you’re having this issue, you may have made one of these very common mistakes!

Mistake 1: Keyword Stuffing

When optimizing a page for a keyword, you may think it’s a good idea to place that term in your copy as much as possible. The more it’s on the page, the more likely Google will associate that keyword with your content… Right?

Wrong.

Placing a keyword too many times throughout your copy is known as keyword stuffing, and for Google, this is a big no-no. It comes across as spammy, is unnatural to the flow of the copy, and hurts your standing with Google. A good best practice is to have a keyword density of 1 percent, so for instance, if your webpage has 400 words, make sure your keyword is naturally in the copy only four times.

Mistake 2: Poor Title Tag & Meta Description Optimization

Did you know that optimizing a site page isn’t just optimizing the content itself? Many people will focus on optimizing their content and completely forget about the backend of SEO. One of the biggest mistakes made in SEO is forgetting to optimize keywords in the Title Tag and Meta Description of a page.

Title Tags are HTML elements that tell Google the title and topic of your specific webpage. They are also displayed as the clickable headline for your page on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Meta Descriptions are HTML elements that describe the content on your page and are also listed under the Title Tag in SERPs.

Below is a good example of how to optimize a page for the keyword “in home care.” The Title Tag clearly shows the keyword, location, and business, and the Meta Description includes the keyword twice and the areas Visiting Angels serves.

Mistake 3: Repetitive or Low-Quality Content

Remember in high school when your teacher said plagiarizing is wrong and will result in an immediate F in class? Yeah, that still applies today. Consider Google your high school teacher with the best plagiarism detector tool of all time. Content is king when it comes to having a good standing with Google or any other search engine, so it’s important to avoid posting repetitive or duplicate content.

Mistake 4: Not Updating Your Google My Business Profile

Your Google My Business profile is a resource that allows people to have a quick and easy way to find out more about your business before even clicking on your site. To many marketers, this is considered the “new home page,” as it lists your services, products, phone number, photos, address and directions, description of your business, and more. If this isn’t optimized or updated with current information, you’re immediately losing out on potential business.

Mistake 5: Forgetting About Analytics

So, you’re consistently updating and optimizing your site, but you’re still unsure if your efforts are working. Using tools like Google Analytics can give you a better idea of how your SEO is performing, what’s not working, and what you can scale. Without reviewing the analytics of your site, you’re going in blind and that’s never a good business practice.

Mistake 6: Doing SEO When You’re Not a Digital Marketing Expert

One of the biggest mistakes that companies make when pursuing marketing is assuming that they can do it themselves. SEO and digital marketing are full-time jobs that require consistent updates, constant analysis and tweaking, and knowledge of current trends. Hiring an expert in SEO will get you the expertise, diligence, and consistency your business needs to flourish in the digital market.

About the Author:

Amy Vaughan is a Digital Marketing Specialist at ChoiceLocal, specializing in website audits, search engine optimization, and content creation. In her free time, she enjoys climbing, kayaking, reading, and being a dog-mom to her three golden retrievers, Maxi, Holly, and Reagan.