Search Engine Optimization Shortcuts – The Easy Way
It’s no secret that you need a good SEO strategy to rank well in search engines and organic traffic to your site on its own. Top SEO Consultants say that Google’s algorithm changes all the time, so what worked a few years ago might not work in 2023. This is why it’s important to keep up with search engine optimization (SEO) trends and not use old techniques. As a professional SEO company, we advise business owners to avoid making the 10 most common SEO mistakes listed below.
1. Not Having SSL
Security will still be one of the most important things in 2023. Stories in the news about data breaches at Facebook, Sony, and Equifax have made people more careful about their personal information when they are online. Google has also taken steps to put security first. For example, they have started giving sites safe exposure and have an SSL certificate.
An SSL costs little, and some hosting services even give them away for free. So being a site owner, still getting one and putting it on your site is a good idea. With an SSL certificate, your site will be HTTPS secure, which is a very important ranking factor for Google. Because of this, Google is putting a “Site Not Secure” warning on websites with an HTTP connection instead of an HTTPS connection.
2. Not having enough content and not linking to other important content on the site
Google gives a lot of weight to sites with a lot of useful information and content. Therefore, we recommend adding blog posts to your website regularly. This lets you:
- Add more content
- Become an authority in your field
- And use more keywords on your site
You should also ensure that your main pages, like the “About Us” page, have useful information.
Internal linking is an important factor that many businesses need to focus on. Internal linking is when you link from one post on your site to another page on your site. This will help your site rank higher and move some ranking power from one page to another. It will also let Google crawl more of your site’s pages. But, again, a good Internet marketing company can help you link to the right pages on your site.
3. Not optimizing for local SEO, also known as GMB optimization
Local SEO needs a whole new game plan because its main goal is to improve Local Rankings and GMB Optimization. If you want your business to grow, you need to improve and get more people to visit your website by making it better for local searches. You can start by choosing the right keywords that are relevant to your area and making good content that will help your audience.
For example, as a Calgary SEO Company, one of the keywords we want to rank high for is “Calgary SEO” and “Calgary SEO Company.” On the other hand, if you were a reputable “Calgary landscaper,” your keywords might be “landscape design Calgary,” “landscaping Calgary,” or “landscaping companies Calgary.”
These keywords are focused on the local market and get a lot of monthly searches. So, getting on the first page of Google for these high-demand keywords with good local intent will give your website a huge boost in traffic, which will increase your sales and your bottom line.
Additionally, it is also important that your website clearly shows your city’s name, phone number, street address, and business name. You can also use the same information to set up a Google My Business account. Lastly, make profiles on Yelp and other popular local directories and link them to your website.
4. Not making content that link-worthy
Your SEO value will go up if you get backlinks from good sites. It will show Google that your content is useful and that people trust you as a reliable source of information. But making content is one of SEO’s most difficult and tricky parts.
We all have heard about content marketing, which includes blogging and creating content. But only a few people know what content is worth and how it affects different people to visit a website.
Most people start making content without planning it or doing the right research. You need to know that you will only get links if your content is good enough for linking. Focus on making helpful content that can be used as a source by others.
For instance, you might want to make infographics or data charts that other people can link to so that those visiting their websites will find your content useful. Search Engine Journal says that link-worthy content is a piece of writing that has been carefully researched and thought out and has four parts: informative, educational, inspiring, and fun.
5. Not Using a multimedia approach
According to Forbes, digital video marketing is worth $135 billion in the United States alone. As a result, 76% of businesses that used videos said they got more customers. Videos are becoming more and more popular very quickly. So, more and more people are interested in watching videos. These videos should be entertaining, educational, and informative and show users how to do something.
By 2023, 80 percent of all mobile traffic worldwide will be used to watch videos. Therefore, videos, pictures, and other forms of visual content are very important for SEO. Google algorithms likes content full of useful information, and videos are one of the best ways to do that. So, putting more videos on your site and blog posts will help your site rank higher.
6. Not having unique Meta Descriptions, Title Tags, and other Meta Tags
On-site optimization, or “on-page optimization,” is another overlooked SEO factor. This means that sites do not get benefit from or use Meta Tags as much as they should. Optimizing your title tags and Meta descriptions should be a part of every SEO strategy because they help Google understand what your content is about.
Thankfully, this is easy to do. There are a lot of free plugins, like Rank Math SEO and Yoast-SEO, that make it easy to change the metadata of your posts. First, ensure that your site’s title tags and Meta descriptions have your most important keywords.
7. Thinking that people will link to your content without optimization or formal link building
As mentioned above, it’s important to have content people find link-worthy. You must correct yourself if you think you will get backlinks by making content. You’ll be lucky to get even just one backlink. You must work for backlinks or plan a link-building campaign to get them.
There are many ways to build links that will help you get high-quality backlinks. One of the best ways is to reach out to bloggers who do link roundups or create curated blogs and ask them to include the links of your site.
After all, you’ve already made content that is worth linking to. Another way is to reach out to blogs with links to websites that are no longer active and ask them to link to your useful blog post. Again, any SEO company will be able to help you with this.
8. Putting up a guest post without checking out the site(s) first
SEO experts say that guest posting is one of the best ways to get high-quality backlinks, but you should look into the site you are writing for. You cannot write for any site you want. It takes a lot more work to research and study sites to find the ones that aren’t spam but worth writing for. After all, getting one link from a good site with a high Domain Authority score will help your SEO more than getting 100 links from bad sites with low DA scores.
Getting a link from a site that is spammy, has a limited amount of high-quality content, has too many outbound links, or is otherwise low-value can hurt your site. The site should be related to yours and talk about similar things. Getting a guest post from a website whose content fits with your brand or is in the same industry category as yours is important. If you are unsure, talk to a digital marketing consultant or an SEO consultant.
9. Not Trying to reach organic traffic
SEO can help bring free organic traffic to your site, but you need to do more than write a few blog posts, sit back, and expect a lot of people to visit. Instead, you should promote your content in a planned and active way.
Social media is the best place to start. You can share your post on social networks like Google My Business, Facebook, and Twitter. Social media will not only bring more traffic to your website but posting often and getting more social shares will also help your SEO rankings.
Email marketing is a great way to promote your content. The easiest way to get more people to visit your website is to email people who have asked to hear from you and your brand. You can add a call to action section, e.g.”Send to a Friend,” “Tweet This,” or “Share on Facebook” on the content of your email newsletter. This strategy will get other people to share it.
As we have already said, if you have helpful and valuable content, you should also look for link roundup opportunities. This will help your rankings by getting you well-deserved backlinks for your hard work.
10. Not paying attention to the speed of your Website
Page Speed is very important. People’s online attention spans are short because most people use handheld devices and smartphones. If your website loads quickly, people will stay, which will raise your bounce rate and could increase your rankings. Google also takes the speed of a page into account when figuring out how to rank it.
There are steps you can take to make your site run faster. One way to fix this is to switch to a better hosting company or plan. Changing to an optimized and lighter theme and getting rid of plugins that aren’t needed can also help. Also, try to keep the file sizes of the images and other media you use as small as possible. Finally, adding a caching plugin to your responsive WordPress site can make it faster and better at work.
Google has even given web developers a tool to help them understand how fast page loads.
Conclusion
If you make these 10 mistakes, your website’s rankings and traffic will stay the same. But of course, every business and website is different, and you may have specific ways to improve your site to rank higher in search engines.