SEO as a technical marketing strategy can be complex to apprehend and put into action. Down to aspects such as user experience, back-link usage and SEO analytics, many small business owners instead slightly brush over SEO activity.
However, by doing just that, they will be missing out on one of the most invaluable marketing tools in today’s consumer-driven world, along with making many technical SEO mistakes. Are you doing just that?
It’s understandable that without in-house SEO knowledge and skills that such a strategy will be tricky to digest and implement.
Although technical SEO carries a specialist representation, it’s in fact no different to other areas of marketing, when considering the need for education, adoption, and trial and error.
However, many business owners are instead overlooking the educational step and are advancing to trialling SEO activity, resulting in many common mistakes. Here 6 common technical SEO mistakes businesses make, devaluing their search engine optimisation strategy.
The importance of effective SEO
Search engine optimisation, to those who lack tech-savvy input, is highly devalued. This is however unfortunate, as SEO is one of the most important ways of marketing a business, product or service, down to its proactiveness, its promotion of credibility, its reach capabilities and its place in the decision-making process.
In fact, 81% of people make use of online search engines when making a purchase, which if used correctly, a strong SEO strategy can motivate and sustain.
Reasonably, at face value, SEO is a complex activity and specialism to digest. Understanding algorithms, search engine best practices, back-end website processes, and keyword rankings can be a job in itself.
There are however many reinforced benefits of ranking high across search engines, which makes the educational step of adopting SEO extremely worthwhile. By doing so, you’ll not only have the chance to use SEO at its full capacity, but you’ll also have the opportunity to avoid many common online business mistakes.
If you’re looking to start, maintain or scale-up an online business, it’s time to take note of the 6 common technical SEO mistakes businesses make, which if avoided, can support your business goals.
6 common technical SEO mistakes businesses make
Many businesses will unknowingly be making such mistakes surrounding technical SEO. Yet through low awareness, will also devalue the tool of SEO when considering online business goals. Here are some mistakes to be aware of and avoid, to ensure that you can benefit from the value of technical SEO.
1.Overlooking the value of SEO strategy
Firstly, many small businesses in fact lack an SEO strategy. Recent research found that only 36% of small business owners in fact format and follow an SEO strategy. Imagine if such negligence was followed when considering pricing strategies or operational strategies, which if experienced would cause many internal problems.
This is a key SEO mistake that is understandably reducing the value of technical SEO, as little structure, direction or planning will be present. Definite goals, proactive steps and strategy breakdowns are required on a regular basis to ensure that delivery of SEO can be achieved.
Consistently searching for new technologies, evaluating competitor rankings, associating overarching digital strategy and assessing keyword performance are all activities businesses can partake in to create and maintain a technical SEO strategy.
2. Failing to be specific with demographics
Business owners, in their mind, will have a definite target audience to promote to. However, this understanding is very rarely translated into SEO activity.
Being broad with demographical information is one of the most common SEO mistakes currently made by businesses. Such broad outlooks will reduce understanding of keyword research, will dilute content quality and will reduce visibility across search engines.
As SEO is a part of the decision-making process, it’s time to implement activities by stepping into the consumers shoes. Considering trends, considering needs, considering relevant search terms, and considering information beyond demographic standpoints can help to humanise the technical aspect of SEO.
3. Following ineffective SEO activities
SEO activity must be compliant, must be completed consistently, and must be sustainable. Many businesses are however going wrong by investing in ineffective SEO activities, such as keyword stuffing, overlooking meta tags and descriptions, avoiding link building and disproportionately using internal links.
For SEO to work, activity must be fair, must be fulfilled at every angle, and must be consistent, again advocating the need for an SEO strategy. By remaining compliant, active and invested, search engines will rank pages, content and links as credible, offering SEO results.
4.Producing and sharing samey, disengaging content
Online content should be original, useful, engaging and relatable. However, one of the 6 common technical SEO mistakes businesses make is that they do the opposite, by sharing thin copy, by producing samey content, by promoting products and services, rather than resolving customer pain points, and by misleading audiences through clickbait.
Unfortunately, this type of content will not stand up to the standards of search engines, diluting efforts and plunging content into an over-saturated market. Instead, to avoid such SEO mistakes, content should be audience-focused, should resonate with keyword searches, and should be engaging through best practice multi-media content.
5. Overlooking the relationship of SEO and user experience
SEO and user experience are two different specialisms. However, they go hand in hand, which many businesses overlook. A common small business mistake is that focus may be placed on churning out keyword-rich content, yet the functionality and quality of their website will be lacking. The investment of SEO activity will then be worthless, down to a low-quality online platform.
Page load speed, mobile-friendly frameworks, the flow and functionality of tabs, click-throughs and formats, and web design should all be worked on in unison with SEO activity to profit.
6. Forgetting to measure SEO success
Completing SEO activity is all well and good, however, without measuring such activity and considering improvements, a strategy will be pointless. This is one of the most common technical SEO mistakes businesses make, down to complex perceptions of statistics.
There are however many tools, including Google Analytics which can help to easily assess the performance of SEO activity. After all, evaluating and improving are both vital to rank sustainably across search engines.
Avoid common SEO mistakes with our help here at Maxweb Solutions
If used correctly, SEO is one of the most effective tools to build credibility, increase visibility, remain relevant, and trend across digital channels. However, through the above mistakes, many businesses are failing to make a positive return on such investment, down to a lack of awareness, education and strategy.
Avoid common SEO mistakes by working with our team at Maxweb Solutions, to develop a strong and impactful SEO strategy, to increase the sustainability of your online position.
Sources
https://www.smartinsights.com/search-engine-marketing/search-engine-statistics/
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/10-common-seo-mistakes/178734/#close
Posted on Friday, April 9th, 2021 in SEO.
