Search engine optimization is undoubtedly the most effective mechanism to rank a website better online and gain higher exposure that will result in more conversions and leads. When it comes to SEO, the competition is always very high as every marketer is trying their level best to outrun each other and get their site rank better on the major search engines. However, this close competition also opens the doors for making mistakes, which could hurt your SEO, really bad.
It goes without saying that every little bit of good SEO can be a blessing for your site while a blunder can undo all the success you have gained till now. With that being said, here are some of the common SEO mistakes that you should avoid during your online marketing campaign:
Incorporating Keywords to GMB
If you run a website, you must have heard and acknowledged the essence of keywords. It is natural for businesses to consider adding keywords to their GMB or Google My Business listing with an intention to boost their rankings on Google. Although it is true that integrating keywords to your business name might help you with your Google rankings, if those phrases or words do not fall under your brand’s legal name, using those keywords would be a direct violation of the guidelines set up by Google My Business. It will make you a spammer and you will be penalized by Google for bad SEO practices that might even get your site prohibited from ranking on Google for a long time.
Not Making Your Site Secure
It was in 2014 when Google first declared that having equipped with a secure site falls under the list of positive ranking factors. Even though this announcement had not that great influence until recently when Google started showing warning notifications such as “Not Secure” on their Google Chrome browser when users tried to enter sites that were not made secure. From a user’s point of view, you will never enter a site that displays such warning signs or has the confidence to put any sort of personal information out there.
With a secure site in your arsenal, not only will you be more likely to rank better for your site on the search engine result pages, but you will also be improving the conversion rate on your site. In case you are wondering how to make your site secure, the first and foremost thing that you need to do is buying an SSL certificate and install it on your site.
Poor Page Loading Speed
While Google has not yet provided any specific metric for pages with a slow loading speed, the reports disclose the fact that users tend to leave a website if it fails to load within the first 3 seconds of the click. Having a slow loading time on your site can hurt your rankings, as Google prioritizes the user experience on top and if the visitors on your site leave your site being unhappy, you will see a drop in your rankings and it may be difficult to recuperate. In order to ensure that you have a fast-loading site, make sure that you are regularly opting for the test on Google Site Speed Test. All you need to do is simply enter the URL of your page and you will be provided with results for both a desktop device and its mobile counterpart. Perhaps the biggest benefit of this test is that Google itself will offer you tips and tactics to improve your site’s speed.
Not Understanding the Context of Anchor Text
Needless to say, you will come across various website pages and find a hyperlink phrase such as “click here for more information”. These are one of the most generic calls to action or CTA and when you use them as anchor text, you are simply wasting a great opportunity to help enhance your SEO with help of Vision Smash Baltimore Company. Ensure using anchor text in a helpful and relevant manner to aid the person who will be reading the content that you have published on the page. Apart from that, you can also think of adding your highly valued keywords in the anchor text since it can enhance your SEO and perceived by Google in its ranking factors. Although make sure that you are not overdoing it, as it will be considered as keyword stuffing for which Google can backfire you.
Not Utilizing Image Alt Tags
As the web is all about images, videos, and text, it is crucial to leverage all these pieces for telling your brand’s story. If you fail to optimize your images, you are missing out one of the basic elements of your overall SEO campaign. While choosing what to integrate into the alt tag, make sure you are describing the image without focusing on what the image was showing. Besides, when you are uploading an image for the alt tag, if the image is directly pertaining to the actual location of your business, you can geotag the image and fuse a geotag location as per convenience.
Not Implementing a Google Map
If you are wondering how this can be a mistake that can hurt your SEO, the answer is pretty simple – it helps your valuable customers and clients to find you without any hassle. Another advantage of adding a Google Map to the “Contact US” page of your site is that even Google will find it easy to access your physical address and drive traffic to your site and business when users perform a local search based on your keywords.
Avoiding Pages That Fail to Rank on Page One
It is usual for you to think that you need to create more pages once your current pages fail to rank on page one of the search engine results. However, this is both a mistake and a waste of efforts as you can do a lot with your current pages by helping them and making some required changes. When you have pages that are ranking certainly well for your keywords on page two or three of Google, you can definitely implement a variety of strategies to get those pages to be positioned on page one.
Conclusion
SEO mistakes happen and you can learn from it in order to improvise next time. Keep the aforementioned points in mind and turn the blunders easily into opportunities for SEO success.
