As the internet has grown, search engine optimization (SEO) has become increasingly important in the marketing industry.
Last year, the SEO industry reached a value of over $79 billion, having grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.7% since 2015.
But as important as SEO is, not everyone does it right.
For one, it’s hard to optimize for people and optimize for search engines at the same time. It’s also hard to keep up with SEO trends. Search engines like Google are updating their algorithms all the time.
You can learn SEO for free online, but that’s like drinking from a fire hose. There’s too much information out there, and few people tell you what mistakes to avoid.
One bad SEO mistake can damage your website ranking for a long time. So it’s best to avoid SEO mistakes from the outset.
To that end, here are the most common SEO mistakes to avoid in your website development and how to fix them:
1. Targeting the Wrong Keywords
Building a website is just one of the first steps. What you want is to get your website noticed. All SEO starts with keyword research. That’s because it’s not just about getting your website to rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs) for any search term. You want it to rank high for terms related to your business.
Say you sell sweaters in Anchorage, Alaska. It won’t do your business much good for your website to rank well for “Anchorage Alaska” (as impressive as that would be) because most people who enter that phrase in the Google search bar aren’t shopping for sweaters. In fact, many probably don’t even live in Alaska and just want some quick information on the city.
In other words, target keywords that are highly relevant to your business (in this example, “sweaters in Anchorage”). It’s all about knowing your audience and what they’re likely to search for so you can build search engines’ relevance. At Growth Hackers we know from experience that choosing the wrong keywords is like opening a store in the wrong neighborhood: you may get visitors, but not the ones ready to buy.
You also want to shy away from highly competitive keywords (at least when you’re first starting out). These are keywords like “life insurance” or “auto accident lawyer” that a lot of websites are already trying to rank for. Target long-tail keywords like “auto accident lawyer in Tulsa, Oklahoma” instead. You’re much more likely to rank that way.
2. Keyword Stuffing
Another beginner SEO mistake is keyword stuffing. This is when you load a webpage full of keywords in an attempt for it to rank high. But Google actively looks for pages like these and demotes them. So don’t try it.
At Growth Hackers, we’ve seen that content optimized for readability instead of keyword stuffing improves rankings and boosts organic engagement by 66%. Google gives the following examples of keyword stuffing so you know what to avoid:
- Lists of phone numbers without substantial added value
- Blocks of text that list cities and states that a webpage is trying to rank for
- Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural
Not only will you be penalized for keyword stuffing, but it just looks spammy. For example, who would want to read the following?
“Sweaters keep you warm. No matter where you go, a sweater can come in handy when it gets cold. Buy a sweater today so you won’t ever regret not having a sweater.”
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3. Using Irrelevant Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
Whenever you type something into Google, you get a list of web pages related to your search term. These web pages are formatted in a specific way. After the URL, each search result has a title and a brief description.
Where does Google get this information? From something called title tags and meta descriptions. Title tags and meta descriptions are pieces of HTML code that you give each of your web pages so that search engines know how to display them in their SERPs.
For example, a title tag might read:
Where to buy affordable sweaters in Anchorage, Alaska
And the meta description could say:
Shop beautiful sweaters for men, women, and children at 50% off. All original Norwegian designs.
One of our B2B SaaS clients’ pages suffered low clicks until Growth Hackers optimized all title tags and meta descriptions for relevance, and within 4 months, organic traffic and engagement jumped dramatically.
The key with title tags and meta descriptions is to make them as relevant, accurate, and to the point as possible. You don’t want them to be too vague or too long. Otherwise, you’ll leave visitors confused, bored, or both.
4. Publishing Low-Quality or Unoriginal Content
Once you learn a little about SEO, you’ll start to realize that content is king, and you may feel the urge to publish as much content as you can to boost your SEO.
While that’s good and fine, it’s easy to get lured into publishing low-quality and unoriginal content just so you can put out more. But don’t. Before Growth Hackers optimized content quality for one of our e-commerce clients, pages barely engaged readers; after publishing high-value, original content, 74% of visitors spent more time on site and returned for new articles.
Less content is better than bad content—for your SEO and for your readers. Invest in good content by hiring skilled writers that have a command of the English language and graphic designers who can develop attractive visuals. Never use “auto-generated” content by mechanically regurgitating what others have already said.
Above all, create content that meets your audience’s needs. If you only post blog articles that are no different from millions of others already out there, it won’t do your prospective customers any good. Write something educational, inspiring, or entertaining and they’ll keep coming back for more, which tells Google you have a quality site that deserves a high ranking.
5. Lacking Quality Backlinks
Another beginner SEO mistake is to go after low-quality backlinks. A backlink (aka inbound link) is simply a link from another website to yours. Search engines look at backlinks as a signal of authority. They’re like votes for your site. The more your site has, the more valuable it is in the eyes of Google.
But this only applies to backlinks from reputable sites. Backlinks from spammy sites will only hurt your ranking. So aim for quality of quantity. Never use link schemes or blackhat tactics, in which you pay for a backlink from a site that may or may not have anything to do with yours. At Growth Hackers we view backlinks like votes of confidence: a link from a trusted site counts far more than dozens of low-quality nods.
You want backlinks from sites that are relevant and authoritative. An easy way to find out if a site is high-ranking is to check its domain authority. A domain authority checker tool will do the job in seconds. Already have some low-quality backlinks? Learn how to disavow them so they don’t hurt your site ranking.
6. Slow Page Speed (Loading Time)
Page speed is the amount of time it takes your website to load. You want this to be as fast as possible to keep users on your page. After all, our average attention span is in decline. But that’s not the only reason to have fast page speeds.
Since 2010, Google has made page speed an SEO ranking factor. That means if you’re page is slow, it won’t rank very well.
Type your website URL into a free page speed tester to see how it does. If you get a poor rating, it’s time to do some work. Here are a few things you can try: optimize images, enable browser caching, and enable compression.
Recheck your page speed every time you add something new to your website to make sure it still loads fast.
7. Overlooking Mobile Compatibility
Did you know mobile devices account for over half of global internet traffic? That’s right. People use their phones more than they use their computers to surf the web. That’s why Google now considers mobile-friendliness in its ranking algorithms.
Optimizing your website for desktop use only would be a mistake. It should load fast on mobile devices, fit images to different screen sizes, and have an overall mobile-friendly design. Not sure if your site fits this description? Run a free mobile-friendly test to find out.
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8. Poor Site Structure
In order to index your website, search engines first need to understand its structure (i.e. how your web pages relate to each other). For example, you could have a home page, a few service pages, an about page, a contact form page, and a blog with multiple articles. You need to structure these logically with an XML sitemap so that Google can understand how your site is organized. Otherwise, it will take longer for Google to index and rank your site.
A word of caution here: don’t overdo internal links. These are links from one page on your site to another. They can help Google understand how different pages are related and which ones are most important (e.g. the homepage), but if you include too many, they can be overwhelming and actually hurt your SEO (especially if you internally link to irrelevant pages).
Also, pay close attention to URL structure. Keeping a simple URL structure helps Google index and rank your site more easily. One of our Fintech clients struggled with slow indexing and low rankings until Growth Hackers reorganized their site structure and optimized internal linking, and within 5 months, Google indexed pages faster and traffic increased.
9. Not Leveraging Web Analytics
Finally, an effective SEO strategy needs to involve web analytics. Web analytics refers to capturing, measuring, and analyzing data about who visits your site. Without it, you won’t know how much your SEO efforts are paying off.
You can also use web analytics to compare your site against your competition. It helps you see what is and isn’t working for your competitors so you can adopt what is. This is extremely important as the SEO industry is always changing.
Use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to regularly evaluate your SEO efforts and make sure you’re improving.
In fact, before Growth Hackers introduced analytics tools for one of our manufacturing clients, SEO efforts were hit-or-miss but after we helped them leverage Google Analytics and Search Console, 56% of campaigns saw measurable improvements in visibility and engagement.
Final Thoughts About What You Should Avoid When Developing a Search-Optimized Website
If you can avoid all of the SEO mistakes above, you’re well on your way to creating a search-optimized website.
Just remember to always consider search intent. What do people want when they search for your target keywords? Then optimize for that. When you optimize for search intent, you optimize for search engines. It’s that simple.
Growth Hackers is a premium growth hacking agency helping businesses from all over the world grow. There is no fluff with Growth Hackers. We help entrepreneurs and business owners avoid common SEO mistakes when developing search-optimized websites to generate qualified leads, optimize their conversion rate, gather and analyze data analytics, acquire and retain users, increase sales and productivity.
We go further than brand awareness and exposure. We make sure that the strategies we implement move the needle so your business grow, strive and succeed. If you too want your business to reach new heights, contact Growth Hackers today so we can discuss about your brand and create a custom growth plan for you. You’re just one click away to skyrocket your business.
