The Worst SEO Mistakes You Can Ever Make

So, you’ve decided to focus on SEO for your traffic strategy. It’s been months, and your traffic, sales, and leads haven’t increased. When SEO doesn’t work, it’s usually because of mistakes or faults. It’s easy to fall into SEO traps, especially if you’re a beginner. Organic marketing takes time to master, provided you consume knowledge on a daily basis and learn from the experts. Let’s not even talk about the fact that Google changes its algorithms and ranking system all the time. Don’t waste your time and your energy implementing tactics that don’t provide any results. Here are just a few of the most common SEO mistakes, according to the experts.

Producing Content Just for Content’s Sake

We found that, according to the best practices, it’s necessary to create content systematically to enhance your brand’s exposure and authority, not to mention to increase your site’s indexation rate. Consistency in brand messaging plays a vital role in the growth and success of a business. It establishes credibility, helps build trust, and strengthens reputation. If you’re creating content just for the sake of creating content, it means you’re doing something wrong. Instead of creating value for your readers, you waste precious resources. Without a keyword strategy behind your content, you’re better off not producing content at all.

More isn’t always better. Create fewer but more comprehensive pieces of writing. For instance, you can invite an expert to an interview on your podcast. It’s a win-win for both parties. Before you start producing content, take the time to think about your readers’ needs and what actions you want them to take. Knowing your audience is the key to writing success. If you don’t optimise your content for search engines, it’s highly unlikely that people will find you. That’s because you’re not discoverable. Write catchy headlines, use keyword-rich phrases, structure your posts, link to your articles or website, and incorporate imagery.

Ignoring HTTP Status and Server Issues

Technical issues with a website are more often than not related to the HTTP status. These include status codes, such as:

Check to see if the HTTP status codes are those expected and apply corrections, if necessary. Now, let’s talk about server issues. They can have a direct or indirect impact on crawlability, indexation, and search rankings. The user of your site gets interrupted, and so too the trust they have in the website. The result is a loss of traffic, sales, and/or leads.

Using Optimised Anchors

For as long as anyone can remember, digital marketing professionals have used texts with keywords to improve SEO. This tactic doesn’t work anymore. It’s not enough to build links with keyword-rich anchor texts to rank fast. The specialists at Passion Digital point out that having an over-optimised anchor text can attract a penalty, so put in the time and effort to naturalise your links. Building too many links with targeted anchor texts no longer provides value. Google and other search engines want links to occur naturally and organically.

Here are some examples of links that violate the guidelines:

To a search engine, this will look like spam. The healthy alternative is to use anchors such as:

Hereafter, avoid over-optimising any of your anchor texts. This will save you a lot of headaches.

Forgetting About Local

When optimising their websites for search rankings, many organisations concentrate their efforts on traditional SEO only. More precisely, they tend to ignore the geographic components of the search. This is a huge mistake. Consumers rely on search engines and directories to find local businesses, so optimising via top keyword searches can give you a competitive edge. More than half of Internet users check Google reviews before they select a company. It’s worth customising your Google My Business page. Enter your business hours, messaging preferences, business description, and add some photos.

You’ll want to work with an expert SEO company from your area. If you want to improve your Google.co.uk SEO rankings, it’s a good idea to hire an SEO agency in London. Their inherent understanding of the local audience will give you an advantage over the competition. If you want to grow your business at a national scale, the SEO agency can certainly help. Not all digital marketing efforts offer a solid ROI. Many factors go into local SEO, and it could take months for you to understand what Google wants. A local SEO agency knows what regulations and restrictions apply. You can meet and develop a strategy in-person.

Making Things Difficult for Crawlers

Search engines use crawlers to collect information from the Internet. These search bots look at web pages and follow the links on those pages, much like a person who’s browsing the Internet. If a website doesn’t have crawlability problems, the crawlers can easily access its content. Based on the data obtained, the search engines include the pages in their search index, so they can be found by users. If you overlook crawling issues, some web pages won’t be visible to the search engine. Assess your site for broken or blocked elements that restrict its crawlability. Maybe you have duplicate pages. If your online platform has multiple pages with identical content, indicate your preferred URL to Google. You can leverage 301 redirects.

At times, meta tags prevent your site from being crawled. A noindex tag can stop Google from indexing a page, so it won’t appear in the search results. The good news is that the issue can be fixed by removing the noindex tag from the problematic URL. Crawlability issues hurt your SEO, so pay attention to the technical usability factors of the website. Your site won’t be indexed by the search engine, not to mention that it affects user experience.

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