In today’s rapidly changing online world, marketers are putting their best efforts and resources to gain the highest page rankings in order to get in front of their target audience. As generating organic traffic to your business website is one of the most daunting tasks for many businesses. Whether you are running a small business, established enterprise or an e-commerce store, you need to stay on top of the SEO game and carefully see what your competitors are doing.
Google is continuously updating its algorithms which define how it ranks websites and show them to users. Following Google’s SEO tips and best practices will help marketers to get their websites on the first page of the search results. To improve the rankings of your website, you need to focus on creating high-quality SEO content and put your efforts to optimize your website design.
If you want to get higher rankings, you need to improve the organic traffic to your website which will eventually help you get more conversions and boost ROI. Here are some common SEO mistakes you should avoid at all cost that will ultimately protect your website from Google penalties.
- Posting Low-Quality, Duplicate Content
- Targeting Wrong Keywords
- Building Cheap Links
- Keyword Stuffing
- Don’t Give Much Importance to User Friendliness
- Ignoring Local SEO
Posting Low-Quality, Duplicate Content
Google love in-depth, fresh, long-form content instead of short, keyword rich posts. Users are looking for relevant and accurate information and willing to learn as much as they can about a topic, product or service before they make a purchasing decision. Marketers can increase their website rankings by simply putting more efforts into creating high-quality, well-researched and unique content. If any of your webpage or blog have duplicate content, chances are your site will be penalized by Google. Your rankings will be decreased which will eventually badly affect your bottom line.
It is strongly suggested to identify all the web pages of your site with identical content and replace it with high-quality, well-optimized, informative and fresh content. Using unique content on your website that provides greater value to the site visitors will make your website stand out from the competitors and improve your website position on the SERPs.
Targeting Wrong Keywords
If your content doesn’t contain relevant keywords, chances are your business website will not get a higher ranking on the SERPs. Google is smart enough and can easily identify poor quality, overly optimized content. Targeting wrong, irrelevant keywords is one of the most common SEO mistakes that you should avoid in 2019 to get better rankings. Sadly, many marketers don’t understand competition. They target those keywords that have less or no chances of rankings.
So, it is a great idea to create content that features relevant keywords, fluffing the needs of your prospective customers and help you achieve your business goals. In addition, using targeted keywords in your content will help you attract more organic traffic, generate more leads and drive more sales.
When it comes to creating an SEO strategy for 2019, it is advised to use the AdWords Keyword Planner to find the relevant keywords for your business. It is always a better idea to target lower competition keywords as it will help you rank your site higher on search engine rankings.
Building Cheap Links
Being an online marketer, you can’t deny the true importance of the backlinks in the SEO world. Links play a vital role when it comes to determining the rankings of your website. But sadly, many marketers build low-quality links which can harm their site rankings and get your site penalized. Creating links through high-quality content is the most effective and safest way to boost your rankings. Remember. Google value quality and accuracy; so always try to get quality links from guest blogging, directories, and forums as it will prevent your site to look spammy and increase your rankings.
Keyword Stuffing
Using too many keywords in your content is a major SEO mistake many marketers make that will cause your website to be removed from search listings. For instance, if you are targeting “web design services in Dubai”, you should use it smartly and strategically throughout the page as it looks more natural.
Stuffing your webpage with web design services in Dubai phrase will make your content look spammy and unhelpful. If you really want to increase the visibility of your website, start creating content by keeping real users in mind and try to solve their pain points. When you focus on creating information-rich content that uses relevant keywords and long-tail variations, it will ultimately help you avoid keyword stuffing and increase organic traffic to your website.
Don’t Give Much Importance to User Friendliness
Google wants to provide the most accurate results for a user’s query. If they provide users with irrelevant and low-quality results, chances are users won’t use Google ever. Obviously, nobody wants to spend time on a spammy, irrelevant website that doesn’t contain any helpful information. Therefore, it is important to provide your users with the best possible user experience when you are optimizing your website for SEO.
Whether you care to believe it or not, UX is the most important aspect of SEO that can catch the attention of more and more visitors to your website. A poorly-designed website, low-quality content, stock images, and bad CTAs can make people abandon your website which increases your bounce rate and decreases your conversion rate.
If your website offers a great UX, interacts with users effectively, and provide useful information, it will ultimately reduce your bounce rate and boost your rankings on search engine results pages.
Ignoring Local SEO
Today, consumers prefer to purchase products from brands that are near their location. This is why when users search a product or a service, Google shows those brands that are local and nearest to them. It has made it important for local businesses to get their company listed in Google My Business and provide detail information about their physical location, contact details.
If you haven’t provided your contact details, chances are search engines will not consider your website for rankings and ranks your competitors who have provided complete information about their business. If you want to stay competitive, capture the local market by optimizing your landing pages and local listings.
Bottom Line:
To stay on top of the SERPs in 2019 and beyond, it is important to keep up with the ever-changing Google algorithms. Pay attention to creating quality content, building high-quality links, provide an out-of-the-box UX and use relevant keywords to strengthen your SEO strategy and achieve your marketing and sales goals. By avoiding these SEO mistakes, you will definitely increase your search engine rankings and keep your website safe from Google penalties.