Three Easily Avoided SEO Mistakes

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If you are not on the first page of a Google search result, you have limited visibility. The best place to be is the first result, which gets most all organic trafficOrganic search traffic (sometimes called natural or unpaid search) is the traffic that's driven to a website because of unpaid placement on a search engine results page.. The second search result has 17% of all traffic, the third 11%, and so on. The last result on the first page receives only 2.4% of traffic, meaning that even if you do show up on the first page of a search result, your journey isn’t done. Increase your page ranking by avoiding these easy to make SEO mistakes:

1. Producing Poor Content

The first mistake anyone online can do is to create poor quality content. It doesn’t matter if you are a successful company or a single blogger, your content should be to a high standard. This means that not only should your content be grammatically correct, it should also provide value and insight to your readers. The single best way to increase your ranking is by making content that others link to and reference. Keep it simple and easy to read so that your content is more shareable and readable.

2. Not Optimising for Local Searches

If you are a business or individual who operates in a specific geographical area, it is a huge mistake to not optimise for that neighbourhood. This means that, instead of creating a post that is not location specific, add references to the relevant area. Use town names, nicknames, and other location-specific words and phrases over generic phrases and keywords. Start by adding your address in the footer of your website and putting your company on local directories like Yelp or Google.

3. Using Poor Quality Links

Not all linksHyperlinks, also known as links, are the connection points on a webpage that take you to other webpages. are the same. When a low-quality site links to your site, Google won’t interpret it as highly as if a highly-ranked website were to reference you. You want to be linked by websites that are relevant to your industry and do not spam content with numerous outgoing links. This same principle applies to links you use in your own content. Ensure that those you reference are quality publishers.

SEO is not easily understood by many, but doing it right and by producing high quality content you can start to naturally increase your page ranking. To further your ranking, however, you will need to use white hat techniques to get your website out there.

James Owen

James has been involved in SEO and digital marketing projects since 2007. James has led many SEO projects for well-known brands in Travel, Gaming and Retail such as Jackpotjoy, Marriott, Intercontinental Hotels, Hotels.com, Expedia, Betway, Gumtree, 888, Ax Paris, Ebyuer, Ebay, Hotels combined, Smyths toys, love honey and Pearson to name a few. James has also been a speaker at SEO and digital marketing conferences and events such as Brighton SEO.