Getting more website traffic is a direct outcome of a well-implemented optimization strategy. Because of search engine algorithms being dynamic, it’s vital to know that the same SEO techniques can’t keep going on for years. Thus, you need to pay heed to changes and work on maximizing your chances of better search engine ranking. Along with focusing on supreme quality content, you also need to be mindful of factors that impact how well your webpage ranks.

Although brands are very much encouraged to utilize SEO and they always strive to achieve the goals of using SEO successfully, still there are certain unavoidable mistakes that are being committed by them. The mistakes are also made sometimes because of unawareness and misconceptions. Nonetheless, these mistakes cost heavily on brand building and reputation of the company, which is why it’s suggested to assess where all things can go South.

Here is the list of 11 mistakes that should be avoided while optimizing your content according to search engines.

  1. Copied business profile pages

The biggest mistakes that a company can make is having its My Business profile copied from somebody else’s. Google and other search engines don’t tend to rank such brands high who have their profile pages duplicated. It might lead to bad customer experience because they see only two same results for a single search.

Moreover, it also wastes the search engine’s resources as well. This is why many search engines have made duplication of pages against their policies. Hence, each location should have only one My business profile page.

  1. Irregular website audits

An audit is the authentication of your work performance. It validates your website’s performance and sees that your progress matches with that of the client’s requirements. It answers the questions about the user-friendliness of your site and the speed of your mobile webpage. The in-details examination of the website reveals the updates needed and checks the loading speed, quality of content, etc. of your site. It makes you actively aware of the prevailing status and tells you about the improvements required.

Hence, the audits of the websites should be regular. The irregular audits lead to unawareness about the glitches on your websites, therefore avoiding the improvements. Such glitches lead to a considerably lousy experience for visitors and hence, reduce the rank of the site. This is why the website audit should be regularly performed.

  1. Irrelevant categories

Another common mistake made by the site makers is deliberately ignoring the relevant categories on their business profile page. The more the number of sections of your advertisement, the larger the number of prospects you are likely to get. Thus, it is better to have more categories but ensure they are significantly relevant to the content you’re listing on your site.

You should never select irrelevant categories as it is against the search engine’s policies. It’s crucial to always research thoroughly about several relevant sections for your business before setting up your page.

  1. Missing contacts and citations

Another mistake that businesses do is not giving all the relevant contact information on their sites. The companies should make sure that all the appropriate contact information like name, address, numbers, fax numbers, email IDs, social media handles, etc. are appropriately given. This information should be provided in the text form and not in image form so that the search engines can easily read this data and validate its reliability.

Search engines also compare the information on your website and your business page. It also analyzes the info given on the other sites that have your contact information. You have to make sure that the data present across all the web pages about your business is the same. Also, you should not miss essential citations. If you avoid citations, then your ranking on search engines like Google might drop.

  1. Low on content

If you want to rank significantly high on the search engines, then make sure to have high-quality content on it. If the content on your website is of low quantity and less than 500 words per page, then your web page rank drops. It is because the search engines like Google want to give their users significantly relevant web pages which answer most of their questions.

Generally, web pages with more quality content have more information. Hence it’s essential to review your content and have at least 500 words relevant content per page.

  1. Not updating SEO strategy

Many companies think that one SEO strategy is going to work forever, hence they don’t update their web pages based on the trends. They stick to the same approach for a more extended period and do not update themselves.

With so much of technology coming into the digital world, it is mandatory for companies to improvise their SEO strategies as per trends and make sure to improve their visibility online on each and every platform.

  1. Social media ignorance

Social media is the new trend and with the rise in marketing strategies through social media, you just cannot ignore your online presence on it. The companies which are highly active on social media are ranked higher on search engines.

Many times companies forget to consider social media marketing as a prominent marketing strategy. They don’t realize that their presence on social media is increasing their ranking and it is the most creative opportunity to create a buzz about your business. The best way to promote your content is social media and hence, it should be significantly emphasized upon.

  1. Overuse of keywords

One of the biggest mistakes that a marketer makes is writing content for the sake of SEO and using irrelevant keywords in it. Businesses try to copy the words and phrases into the content marketing pieces just for the purpose of it and thus, making their content irrelevant.

The companies should try to write the content that is relevant and thoughtful for their target audience rather than just writing it randomly for the sake of adding keywords. The keywords that you are using should be related to your business and page. Moreover, they should be relevant enough to attract users. Also, the keywords should not be overused because then it becomes repetitive and reduces the quality of content.

  1. No efforts in getting customer reviews

Getting online reviews from customers is one of the hardest tasks. If you are lacking in that part on your business profile page, then you are bound to lose your rank. It takes real effort to get customers reviews.

Companies should make sure to provide relevant links which are user-friendly to make it easy for their customers to review the page. If it is taking too long for them to review, then they would ignore it and hence, you should make sure to provide enough support and links to the customers. Although it is a slow process, with time and continuous efforts, a large number of customer reviews will definitely provide you with certain competitive advantages.

  1. Paying for backlinks

Search engines never rank the owned media higher than the earned media. Companies need to understand that they themselves are required to create their own goodwill online and create organic traffic to their websites rather than the brought ones. Many sites buy backlinks to direct the traffic to their own web pages. Such traffic generated is not of relevance as these are not your target audience.

Businesses need to understand that using owned media which generates irrelevant traffic to their websites will definitely reduce your rank in search engines. Hence, instead of buying backlinks from highly recognized websites, companies should try to get backlinks and traffic through authority. The traffic generated through authority will be of high-quality and will definitely lead to the increased rank of websites in search engines.

  1. Not redirecting the audience to the new website

Yet another most common mistake which tends to affect your SEO is changing your sites without directing the existing traffic from the old URLs to the new ones. If the old traffic is not redirected from the old URL to the new one, then the search engine wouldn’t know where to send the traffic. Hence, you end up losing substantial traffic of audience in this process.

Hence, the companies should make sure that whenever they update their web pages, they should link their old URL and the new URL so that the old traffic can be redirected to the new one and you don’t lose any of your audience that you target.

Takeaway

These 11 mistakes are most common which let in the decrease in ROI for your money spent on SEO marketing strategies. You should always try to work smartly in this manner that you don’t forget to pay attention to these things and never avoid such instances where you could commit these mistakes. The prevention of these mistakes will lead to the increased rank of your page and hence, providing you with enough ROI for your SEO marketing strategies. Be attentive about constant changes search engines make and implement these so as to enhance the effectiveness of your marketing strategies.

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