Common SEO Mistakes Businesses Make: Part 1
Every business who creates a website expects that this website will bring in traffic and help them grow their business. Unfortunately, many are surprised to learn that this doesn’t happen on its own. There are specific search engine optimization (SEO) steps you need to take in order to enhance your overall marketing strategy and to allow people to find your website, and if you don’t do this well and do this regularly, your website won’t produce the type of profit you expect.
If your website isn’t pulling in the amount of traffic you had hoped it would, check whether you may be making these common SEO mistakes.
Using a Landing Page-Only Website or a Free Website Builder
It is understandable that you have a budget, and at first glance, a landing page looks like an inexpensive way to start building a web presence. However, those landing page websites perform poorly with SEO. To clarify, a landing page looks like any other website at first glance. When you click on the buttons in the navigation bar on the top, though, the page scrolls down and takes you to a specific part of the homepage rather than an entirely new page.
In this type of company website, if someone searches for a keyword that relates to one of your services, Google doesn’t have a specific page to send them to. All they can show the searcher is a general homepage, and that won’t show up as high in the search results as a page that talks only about that topic. In addition, only having one page on your site means you have little or no ability to have internal links within your content, and internal links are vital for SEO.
Keep in mind that free DIY website builders have similar challenges. They may be capable of adding multiple pages to your website, but they don’t have all the SEO-friendly customizations and coding options you need.
Forgetting About Off-Page SEO
As important as it is to optimize your website for search engines, your website isn’t the end of the job. You want your business to show up in other ways as well. For example, if you are a medical spa and someone searches for a medical spa in your area, you want to be one of those businesses Google displays on the map at the top of the user’s search results.
The most crucial step you need to take for off-page SEO is to have a robust Google My Business listing. It should be thorough, with your accurate business name, description, phone number, address, website address, service areas, and business hours. You also want it to include plenty of photos and posts.
Copying and Pasting Content
You may have heard how much a blog on your website can help your search engine optimization. Some companies believe they can do this by copying blogs from other websites and posting them on their own blogs.
As we explain more thoroughly in a previous SEO blog, having duplicate content that appears somewhere else on the web will actually hurt your search engine optimization. In addition, this is an ethical issue and a legal copyright issue because you are plagiarizing someone else’s content.
Ignoring the Back End of the Website
Most business realize that when Google is judging how relevant a web page is to a user’s search terms, Google looks at the content on the page. You may not realize that Google also takes clues from the coding in the back end of your website.
In particular, every page on your website needs to have a title, description, and list of keywords that are based on thorough keyword research. You also need to make sure the URL for each page of the website uses strong keywords and is consistent with the content on that page. Be sure that you follow all the appropriate search engine rules and regulations for these URLs and meta tags as well.
On top of this, you need to keep up with maintaining and updating your website’s plug-ins and other technical aspects on a regular basis. If you don’t, you’re at risk for a range of security problems as well as poor performance, which will hurt your SEO.
When you are trying to build a successful business, you can’t afford to make investments without seeing results. This includes your company’s website. Search engine optimization is essential for any business that wants their website to bring in more customers and boost their revenue. If you are ready to take that important step, call McCauley Marketing Services to get started right away.