There is a lot of pressure to develop the best site to beat the competition with newer websites sprouting every day, and strong brands dominating the internet as regards domain authority.
If you feel stranded on whether or not to pursue SEO, consider analyzing your competitors to find out how much keenness they lay on optimization which renders them number one on SERP for most search terms.
The goal is to iron out the few errors you might be making in SEO which have an impact on your website’s ranking on search engines. Here are some of the top seven mistakes to resolve:
1. Improper use of keywords
Optimizing your web pages for the wrong keywords means that you do not satisfy the conveyed need as depicted in people’s searches. What happens when you optimize for wrong keywords is that you experience a high bounce rate, which communicates to search engines that the audiences did not find your content relevant in their searches. Keywords are meant to help you respond to customer needs, and if you are not doing this, you are hurting your rankings.
Overusing keywords in a piece of work is as well a common mistake that hurts your SERP. Keyword stuffing shows a poorly researched copy. You do not want to come across as though you are trying too hard, therefore, give a natural flow in befitting keywords in your content.
2. Duplicate content
Duplicate content is one of the most common mistakes among website owners. The problem with it is that it confuses search engines over which website or web page to index for the duplicate work. You want a particular piece of work to be credited to your website, and with the help of Serpbook.com, rank high on SERP.
Duplication does not only imply having similar content to those on other websites, but also within your content. Audit your site to ascertain that multiple web pages on your website do not coincide as to matters content.
Equally, watch out that your content does not accord to any other piece of work online, lest you land into plagiarism and copyright issues. The solution is to tweak popular niche topics in a unique approach.
3. Lack of visualization
The traffic flow and click-through rates your content receives will boost your ranking on SERP. This is a century of visual fondness, where people are drawn to things that appeal to them aesthetically. If your web pages are not visually appealing enough, you may be losing out on a vast audience reach.Since wall of words can be boring to read through, visualization comes in handy to break down your content in more digestible segments.
Using images, memes, pictures and photographs, infographics, GIFs and videos, are among the ways to take your content visual. You can as well use blocked formats and quotes in portions of your content, coupled with a difference in font type and size, to give your copy a refined edge that will draw people to your work.
4. Low word count
Most website owners are oblivious to the importance of word count in content generation. Search engines rely on written text to understand what a web page is about and this applies to audiences too.As you transition towards visualization, you may find that incorporating images, infographics and video will pay off. However, the word count in a piece of work matters. The appropriate number of words recommended for use in a copy is 1000 words, which are enough to convey the message and solve people’s queries.
5. Low user engagement
Optimizing for search engines is great, but optimizing for audiences first is better. The entire point of ranking top is so you can gratify your target audience. Focusing on user engagement allows you to gain a loyal audience base and rank for it.
A high user engagement translates to more click-through rates and massive traffic flow, which is incredible for SERP. Include a comment section on your website as the first step to increasing interaction with your audience. Other ways are creating user-generated content, engaging on social media, introducing giveaways and sweepstakes, among others. Remember, a happy audience is a happy Google.
6. Failing to submit your website to Google
There is a reason why Google Search Console is a favorite SEO tool. While it is true that Google will eventually find your web pages and index them for search results, you can speed up the process. Signing up for Google Search Console is free and comes with benefits.
Submitting to Google lets you exercise more control over what how you want Google to index your site, and which content to display in search results.
7. Using dubious links
Link-building is essential in SEO, but, when wrongly done, can have negative impacts on your rankings. Some website owners buy links from web spammers, only to satisfy the link-building requirement.
However, this is a disservice to your site because Google has changed its algorithm and can now detect low-quality links, which might render you penalized and lower your position on SERP. Be steady with the websites you link on your content. You want to build a healthy link structure and enhance a positive, credible reputation.
An SEO campaign may be easy to make, but difficult to implement. In any case, once you make an effort to rectify these common SEO mistakes, you can rest assured that your SEO efforts are paying off.