{"id":2715,"date":"2023-08-24T14:06:38","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T19:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getlifted.io\/?p=2715"},"modified":"2023-10-09T14:14:49","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T19:14:49","slug":"6-seo-mistakes-you-might-be-guilty-of-that-could-hurt-your-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getlifted.io\/6-seo-mistakes-you-might-be-guilty-of-that-could-hurt-your-business\/","title":{"rendered":"6 SEO Mistakes You Might Be Guilty Of That Could Hurt Your Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEO is important. In fact over half of the visits to any given website come from a search engine<\/a>. Getting to the top of the SERPs is essential to reaching your target audience and growing your business. Which means that if your SEO strategy is lacking \u2013 well, it can hurt pretty bad.<\/p>\n

You may think your digital marketing strategy is iron clad, but you could be making some of the most common SEO mistakes without even realizing it. Search engine algorithms are becoming more developed by the day. To make sure you\u2019re getting the most organic traffic<\/a> you can, you need to make sure your search engine optimization is at the top of its game. Checking your website\u2019s SEO for some of the most common, but biggest mistakes, is a great first step.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1. Neglecting Keyword Research\/Focusing on the Wrong Keywords<\/h2>\n

Knowing the relevant keywords for your business is one of the most important aspects of landing at the top of the SERPs. This means that if you’re selling shoes, you don\u2019t want to\u00a0 focus on keywords for chocolate cake. But there\u2019s more to it than just that.<\/p>\n

No matter how relevant they are \u2013 you may be beating a dead horse if you\u2019re trying to rank for the wrong keywords. In order to increase your page rankings, you need to research and focus on keywords you actually can rank for. Short-tail keywords with a high search volume are great \u2013 but you also need to include long-tail keywords.<\/p>\n

Short-tail keywords are, well, short. Generic. Think \u201csandwich.\u201d . They might get tons of searchers per month, but there are also tons and tons of web pages ranking for those terms. Long-tail keywords are more specific. Think \u201cbest running shoes for men.\u201d These long-tail keywords have lower search volumes, but they can help boost your relevance and authority \u2013 and they tend to be easier to rank for because there\u2019s less competition.<\/p>\n

2. Keyword Stuffing<\/h2>\n

Having relevant keywords is important \u2013 but not as important as providing high-quality content. If you\u2019re writing your content for the search engines alone and stuffing keyword after keyword into your copy, it\u2019s going to hurt your conversion rates. First \u2013 it\u2019s going to frustrate your potential customers by serving them up low-quality content (because, inevitably that\u2019s what keyword stuffing will produce).<\/p>\n

Second, the search engine\u2019s are advanced enough to catch it, and they\u2019re going to punish you for it. In fact, Google has been cracking down on keyword stuffing for over a decade<\/a>. Focusing on the algorithm instead of your human target audience is a common beginner\u2019s mistake when developing an SEO strategy, but it\u2019s a serious infraction that will hurt your marketing efforts.<\/p>\n

3. Not Focusing on User Experience<\/h2>\n

Writing garbled keyword stuffed-nonsense isn\u2019t the only way you may be frustrating your web page visitors and hurting your SERPs ranking. Google and other search engines prioritize serving up web pages with not only the most relevant content, but also those that provide a quality user experience<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This means that you have to make sure to keep your page load time\u2019s low. Slow loading speed on the first page your visitors land on is especially important, as the lower your landing page speed, the more likely your potential customer will leave. Bounce rate may not be a Google ranking factor<\/a>, but it is going to hurt your conversion rate if customers keep leaving before your page loads. Oh \u2013 and site speed is a ranking factor, so it\u2019s worth some attention.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re having trouble keeping your page speed low, then try getting rid of unnecessary plugins or reducing image sizes. This will help lower your loading speed. You want to make sure your website performance is up to snuff as it’s an important part of technical SEO.<\/p>\n

4. Ignoring Your Meta Tags and Title Tags<\/h2>\n

Tags don\u2019t just help boost your visibility on social media sites \u2013 they\u2019re also important to have on your website. Meta tags and title tags, that is. Meta tags are the different metadata elements on a page such as your meta descriptions, bot attributes, keyword attributes, alt tags, and title tags.<\/p>\n

Most meta tags don\u2019t show up to the naked eye but they do help Google crawl and index your site, which is important for placing high on the search engine results. Having more than one H1, not including H2s or H3s, these can make it more difficult for search engines to index your website. Your page titles and headings can help you place higher on the SERPs as well as let your audience know what your content is about if you place relevant keywords within them.<\/p>\n

You want to make sure to provide alt tags for your images with relevant keywords. This will help the crawlers \u201csee\u201d the images and understand their relevance and increase your website\u2019s SEO.<\/p>\n

5. Not Fixing Broken Links<\/h2>\n

Broken links are another issue that could affect your SERPs placement. Links redirecting to a 404 will not only cause visitors to leave, but it hurts the crawler’s ability to index your site.<\/p>\n

Worried about broken links on your website but don\u2019t have the time to go through and check every single one? Running a site audit on Google Search Console can help you figure out which ones are leading to a 404.<\/p>\n

6. No Backlinks or Internal Links<\/h2>\n

You need a link building strategy. This helps increase your website\u2019s authority, which helps it place higher on the SERPs. For a link building strategy to be effective, you have to link to quality sites, however. And, you also should include internal links back to your own content.<\/p>\n

When link building, don\u2019t skip over writing actually compelling anchor text. Not only is it helpful for your audience, since they know exactly why it\u2019s relevant, it helps the search engine crawlers index and understand the link.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Let Common SEO Mistakes Hold You Back<\/h2>\n

Looking for a lift when it comes to your SERPs placement, but not sure you can navigate the ever-changing rules of the algorithm without goofing it up somehow? We\u2019ve got your back. We here at Lift Marketing know all the ins and outs when it comes to digital marketing. We\u2019re masters of SEO, social media<\/a>, and content marketing \u2013 you name it, we can handle it. Just drop us a line<\/a> and you\u2019ll never have to worry about these common SEO mistakes again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEO is important. In fact over half of the visits to any given website come from a search engine. Getting to the top of the SERPs is essential to reaching your target audience and growing your business. Which means that if your SEO strategy is lacking \u2013 well, it can hurt pretty bad. You may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":2716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[40,44,31,32],"yoast_head":"\nSEO Mistakes You Might Be Guilty Of<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Don\u2019t mess up your SERPs placement by falling victim to one of these common SEO mistakes.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/getlifted.io\/6-seo-mistakes-you-might-be-guilty-of-that-could-hurt-your-business\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SEO Mistakes You Might Be Guilty Of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Don\u2019t mess up your SERPs placement by falling victim to one of these common SEO 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