If you’ve explored digital marketing – perhaps as an interest or as a profession – you’ve most likely read about search engine optimization (SEO). Interestingly enough, if you’re one to want to get your company’s name out there, chances are you may think about developing an SEO strategy for your company. However, you have to be aware of key mistakes in an SEO strategy that people make all the time in order to make the right calls. What are these, though?

SEO: Knowing The Unknown

If you think modern trends in digital marketing are leaning away from SEO, Smart Insights research states that SEO is in fact very much alive and well in businesses. Unfortunately, despite the growing popularity of SEO, 254 of their 500 small-medium business respondents are aware of only the basics of SEO, and without any advanced technical knowledge on the subject. To make matters worse, 49-percent of their respondent organizations have no clear cut digital marketing strategy. If this isn’t remedied, then there are chances that their companies might not have successful campaigns in the long run. If you don’t want to be part of this worrisome demographic, do consider avoiding these key mistakes:

Making It Hard To Find Relevant Content

Google, perhaps the largest search engine to date, arrived in the 1990s with a simple goal in mind: to make sure the website with the most relevant content is shown on the top of its list. Fast forward to a few decades and a few confusing algorithms (both known and unknown), and this maxim stays true. It’s your job to make sure your content is relevant if you want to go to the top.

One of the most important tenets of SEO is not just making sure your content is good, but they are found easily as well. This means your website layout itself must be friendly and navigation should be easy. This also gives incentive for readers to stay longer and read more pieces.

The more straightforward and simple your website, the more appealing it can be for your readers. This allows you to show them relevant content without needing them to navigate across more web-pages than needed to get to the content they need.

Wanting Results To Show Overnight

If you’re chasing after returns of investment, chances are you’re going to want to see results from the get go. Unfortunately website metrics take time to measure, and your website and content are going to be compared across millions and billions of others in search engines. This means results won’t be arriving overnight, and you shouldn’t rely on methods that say so.\

• Sometimes, the desire to see returns of investment quickly may make people want to rely on black hat methods to gain traction. This can include stuffing keywords or hiding words you want to rank inside a particular page.
• Questionable traffic patterns and redirects, as well as low-quality and duplicate content, can result in a drop of ratings as well.
• If you’re having trouble with finding the right strategies for your website, perhaps seeking the help of a digital marketing agency can give you the kind of helping hand you need.

Relying On Quantity Over Quality

A while ago, you’ve read that Google (and in this case, other search engines) is looking for websites with the most relevant content to rank highest in their search engines. Note that the phrase specified “relevant” and not “many,” which is kind of difficult to grasp especially given how sometimes it really takes a lot of content to be shown in search engines. So is there a workaround?

• Make sure that you organize a content calendar for your articles, graphics, and other content releases. This is a good way of ensuring that what you release is actually appropriate for your campaign strategy, so you can always find a way to anchor yourself towards your company’s goals.
• Remember that content you should post must be of quality, which means these should be well-researched and written with the consumer’s needs in mind.

Your Website Isn’t Compatible With Content

You may have gotten yourself a good content calendar, but if the content you’re posting isn’t exactly the kind of content that your website can handle, then you’re in big trouble. While graphics such as photographs, custom banners, and videos can increase a site’s appeal to your audiences, not using them carefully can harm your SEO.

• Remember that you have to balance all these graphics and content with the time it takes for your website to load. If your site’s performance lags because of these features, then you’re better off with less of these.
• Remember that search engines take note of how long your audience stays in a site before they leave. Unfortunately, audiences have a tendency to get out of a site if it takes too long to load, especially if there are other faster sites out there. If your website doesn’t load fast enough, then you’re in big trouble.

Conclusion: It’s Adapt And Conquer

When it comes to SEO, it’s important to remember that there’s no one “perfect” strategy, as SEO evolves almost everyday. The arrival of newer and more updated technologies means there’s a lot of opportunities for viewers to optimize their content, and as such it’s your job to ensure you adapt your SEO accordingly to meet these needs. Avoiding the key mistakes above can at least help you focus on developing your SEO more to meet these demands.

Henry Cedeno

Henry Cedeno is an award-winning marketing professional originally hailing from the music industry where he oversaw national marketing campaigns for top tier music artists. In 2016 he founded a digital marketing agency to service the business community after realizing how behind businesses had fallen when it came to online marketing. Online Impact 360 is a digital marketing agency with a strategic focus on SEO, web design, & online advertising campaigns. We help business owners, maximize their online visibility, move them to the first page of Google for their industry so consumers can actually find them when searching online.