SEO aims in bringing benefits to your company. Nevertheless, being a complicated process, if done poorly it can cause more damage than benefits. It is important to be aware of all the things we should avoid and be mindful off, while developing our SEO strategy.
In this article we will outline some of the most common SEO mistakes you should which avoid at all cost. Let’s have a look at them.
- DON’T RUSH
SEO is a complex and complicated process that takes time to produce results. In some cases, it is possible to achieve your goal quickly, but usually it takes around few months or even up to a year to see a significant growth.
It is because some crucial parts of SEO such as link building and content creation are very time consuming. In order to build links legally you need to wait for your content to be read, appreciated and shared or linked.
Obviously if your content is about to get links it needs to be of good quality. Creating a quality content is also time consuming as you need to conduct in-depth research and post significant number of articles in order to boost your chances of backlinks.
The research of the market, competition, keywords and customers is a long process as well. The big mistake some people make is trying to speed it up. They might use illegal linkfarms, copy content, create low quality content etc. These actions are not sustainable in a long term.
Websites that are using black hat link building techniques might lose position or even get banned by Google. Coping someone else’s content is unfair and won’t present you as an authority in the field. The google bots may detect that as well and punish your page.
It is important to take time while doing your SEO in order to benefit from it in the long term and target proper audience.
- NOT FOCUSING ON CURRENT TRENDS
This is a consequence of poorly done research. In order to position yourself high in search engines you need to offer something that people want. In this competitive environment it needs to be content that is wanted right now and the one you suspect to be attractive in the nearest future.
People are looking for news. If there is any update in your industry, make sure that you are the first one to write about it. This way you can also get more links.
You should monitor the market, look for trends and patterns in customer behavior, keywords etc., so you can be the first one to implement these findings into your strategy and gain competitive advantage.
- IGNORING META DESCRIPTIONS
You can somehow land on the first page of Google but without proper meta description you probably wouldn’t stay there for too long. The amount of traffic on your website is important positioning factor for Google.
Apart from that more traffic means more sales so you really want to attract these customers to your website. You need to fight your competition from the moment your potential customer lands on the Google first page.
After all, if your customer decides to visit competitor’s website and finds quality content/ product there, then he or she wouldn’t bother to visit yours as well. You need meta descriptions to attract them as soon as possible.
Meta titles and meta descriptions should be informative, intriguing and interesting. It is proven that people are attracted to lists and numbers. As an example, a website with title “Reasons to visit Norway” will probably attract less traffic than the one with title: “10 reasons to visit Norway”.
- CREATING FOR YOURSELF
While creating content you should do it with the goal of providing value to your audience, not for yourself. If you would focus only on selling your product you are most likely to get ignored by the viewers.
On the other hand, if you provide your audience with informative and engaging content, aiming in providing value to them you are going to succeed. At the end of this content, you can market yourself in a gentle way.
This way you present yourself as an expert in the field, respecting the precious time of your audience. This way you ensure the long term benefits for your online presence.
