The 5 Biggest SEO Mistakes You Might Be Making

Are you making one or more of these SEO mistakes?

SEO Mistake #1: No original content

I’ve worked with a lot of clients who before working with me used a company that for xx amount of money each month they’d post a blog article. This sounds great right? Everyone has told you that you need a blog and this is easy. You don’t have to do any work. Each month you have a new article on your site and it seems like a great deal.

The problem is that with a rare exception these companies are using the same articles across all their clients. Even the same images too. Google has long warned about using duplicate content. They want original quality content.  Services like these can hurt rather than help your ranking.

I’m always more inclined to have my clients write their own blogs anyway. Unless you have a rock-star copywriter on your staff, the blogs sound better in your voice. And who knows your company better than you?

SEO Mistake #2: Skipping keyword research / using words people do not search for

Do you know what keywords you want to rank for? Have you done any research in terms of what words might be best? This really is one of the first things you should think about. These keywords or keyword phrases (more likely) should be specific and narrow enough so that you have a chance of ranking.

If your keyword phrase is something technical or not a well-known word you might rank great, but no one is searching for it. It’s not only about ranking; you want to look at are these phrases someone will actually search for. Think about your ideal clients—are they using these words? And if not, what are they using? Make sure you do keyword research!

SEO Mistake #3: Overstuff page with keywords

After people come up with their keywords they might go overboard. Have you ever seen a site that says something like:

Massage Therapy in Chicago

And then something like… A massage in Chicago is exactly what you are looking for. ABC Massage is a great massage clinic in Chicago. When you are looking for a massage in Chicago you should call ABC Massage today!

See the overstuffing there? It might be a little bit of an exaggeration to show my point, but I’ve seen similar. 

SEO Mistake #4: Not including any keywords

The other side of the spectrum I often see is that the keyword phrase is only included once or sometimes not at all. One time I was working on an acupuncturist’s website and they told me their main keyword was acupuncture for their entire site (not a good one because not specific enough but I went with it as an example for them). Can you guess how many times I found this keyword … ONCE! On their entire site. Google had no idea this was an acupuncture clinic’s website. We quickly fixed that by doing some more specific keyword phrase, adding and modifying copy. 

SEO Mistake #5: Your site is not mobile responsive

And lastly (only because I wanted to try to keep this concise) another mistake I see is that the site is not mobile responsive. Google algorithm changes about a year ago now mean they will be ranking websites optimized for mobile first. Estimates put out vary between 65%-80% of your traffic will come from a mobile device. If your site doesn’t look great on a mobile phone that needs to be fixed as soon as possible. This is also for user experience not just SEO.

Ultimately Google’s job is to show the results that are most relevant to what the person is searching for. If being on the first page of Google was easy – everyone would be able to do it. That doesn’t mean that your search engine optimization has to be so overwhelming. If you looking for someone to help get your site optimized, schedule a consultation with me here. I’ve helped hundreds of clients around the world not only with optimization, but teaching them how to continually optimize their site on an on-going basis.

Rachel Muraca
Virtual Design, LLC
WordPress Web Design
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