Search engine optimization is a sophisticated art especially to rank a website of a small and medium business. It seems very easy to do SEO but when it is time to rank a website, many people step back from the hardship involved. The easy way to understand the game plan is to understand what doesn’t work. Today, we will discuss in detail the SEO mistakes to avoid in 2018.
Purchasing Links | SEO Mistake
It is considered, and true to some extent, that number of inbound links pointing to a website will increase the probability of a website to rank it high. The method to obtain a number of inbound links pointing to a website entirely define the credibility to search engine.
If someone thought to deceive search engine by purchasing the links to increase the number of inbound links is simply a fool. The website which sold the links is typically offering the placements where they are not beneficial for the customers of your products. For example, links from footer, alt text from images, text-based links from the left column, etc. are all the links which have the least benefit for the customers. While crawling, If a search engine finds inbound links pointing your website from these places while crawling, they give the least weight to them. More often, the search engine can penalize a website if found such links in bulk. This practice is considered as SEO mistake and it should be avoided in 2018.
Submitting to the wrong directories
Directories are the good feed of latest information about the upcoming websites for the search engines. Search engines crawl web directories more frequent to capture the data. While capturing the new records from web directories, search engine always prefers the relevance of directories and categories. If a website is submitted to a web directory or a category which is not relevant to your website, the search engine doesn’t weigh the submission.
It is highly recommended to choose the proper web directory and/or category of a web directory for your website. This practice is considered as SEO mistake and you should avoid it in 2018.
Article Marketing
Article marketing is about writing an article, spin it 10 to 15 times and then publish it on article directories. The sole purpose of this technique is to get links. It was a good choice before Panda and Hummingbird updates from Google. This practice is very dangerous and recommended to avoid this SEO technique.
The best way to do article marketing is to adopt the guest posting. In this technique, you request relevant bloggers to write about your product or service.
Keyword stuffing
Search Engines dislike stuffing your business keyword everywhere on your web page unnecessarily. It was considered in old times that a page with a maximum appearance of your keyword will weigh good to the search engine. Google has improved their search quality and disappoint the practice of stuffing keyword on a web page.
The better way to increase the existence of the keyword on a website is to blog about the product or service that you are focusing most on your website. On-site blogging not only increases the keyword density on your website but also provide relevant stuff around the keyword.
Unnatural anchor text
Anchor text is to inform search engine crawler that you must further crawl the link given in the anchor text to transfer value of the page where it is placed. On contrary, if we look at the anchor text from the reader’s perspective it should pass the value to the reader.
An unnatural anchor text will be one which doesn’t relate it to the context of the text where it is placed. This is among the SEO mistakes that must be avoided in 2018 as search engines like Google has prompted to avoid all unnatural links to place on a web page.
Contextual linking is the better approach in placing anchor text on your web page. Doing so will inform search engine that there is some relevant information given around the anchor text. Plus if someone is intended to get more information about the topic, s/he can click on the given anchor text for detailed information.
Broken links
If a link on a webpage is no more exist, it will be considered as the broken link or dead link. There might be a possibility that the link placed to the anchor text is placed with the wrong URL. This happens when there is the huge number of web pages on your website and the link that was placed at the time of publishing is no more available.
To avoid this situation it is highly recommended to get assistance from Google Webmaster Tools to find out what links are not available anymore. It is highly recommended to keep the information on your websites up to date to have better customer experience.
Posts that are shorter than 300 words
There were days when bloggers put few words on the web pages like less than 300 words even. This practice was adopted at the time when people were considering getting more advertisement from AdSense. After the evolution of Hummingbird update from Google, this practice has become highly dangerous for the small and medium businesses.
Always publish an article which is more than 700 words. Always put more value in the article/post that you are going to publish no matter as a guest post or on-site blog.
Allowing links in comments
Comment section after the post is highly controversial. The reason behind was the attempt to participate in the conversation without any logic. Having a comment section where the comments are not putting value in the conversation are baseless. People used to leave comments just for the sake of getting the link and link juice from the page.
It is highly recommended to only allow comment section with a login requirement from popular social channels. You should use some plugins or code to not allow leaving a link in the text area of the comment section.
Not using anchor text for internal links
When it is about on-site SEO, most of the internet marketers forgot to properly link the internal pages for more value to the visitors. Doing so the purpose of the website is not fulfilled as well as if there is some relevant information present on the website it is hard to reach to that section.
Google doesn’t appreciate this practice and it is highly recommended to avoid this SEO mistake in 2018 for your small and medium business website. Always link web pages of a website to let visitors find relevant information on the website.
Duplicate content
Intentionally or unintentionally if a piece of content is repeated on the two or more URLs of a website or different websites it will be considered as duplicate content. This SEO mistake is highly observed on the spin content as there are minor changes done by the spinners in a piece of content. This is an open violation of the Google’s quality parameters and if you or your internet marketers tend to do so, please stop.
It is better to publish less but quality content. Publishing quality content will pay you back with high and
the unexpected value in return.
Not optimizing for local searches
According to Wikipedia; “Local search is the use of specialized Internet search engines that allow users to submit geographically constrained searches against a structured database of local business listings.” It means if you have a business in Toronto or Quebec, you must optimize your website to appear in local searches. You must enrol your website in Google local business, Facebook and many more local business listings. This improves your website to appear in the local searches but also improve your business.
Poor website navigation
If a website doesn’t allow you to reach to a particular section which is important for the business as well as for the visitors, it contains poor website navigation. The menu of a website plays a vital role in guiding website visitors to move from one section to another. If a website doesn’t guide website visitors properly it is a clear case of poor website navigation. Doing so you are not allowing the user to properly navigate your website thus earning a poor customer experience. This SEO mistake is a must to avoid in 2018.
A proper navigation in the header and footer is a good sign to earn a better customer experience.
Not having a mobile-friendly site
Today more than 58% queries are put from the mobile devices. If your website is not mobile friendly, it will not appear in the search results from the mobile devices. It is an open evidence that you will lose the chunk of 58% traffic that you can only avail if your website is mobile friendly.
If you are using a content management system like Word Press or Drupal always go for a mobile responsive theme. If you are developing your website other than these a CMS always go for a mobile responsive development environment.
Unreasonable SEO expectations
Never expect to get results from day first doing SEO efforts for your small and medium business. There are people in the market who will claim quick results but at the end of the day, it is not seen. SEO is an art which pays you back gradually. Always put your best efforts and then wait for the results to appear gradually.
Competitor analysis is the best thing to find out what is done by the competitors who are ranking in top 10 positions. Always follow their footsteps. The better approach is to meet and exceed the top 10 competitors by avoiding the SEO mistakes in 2018 and after.
Underestimating content marketing
Content is the king so it should be treated alike. If the content is developed and distributed taking your audience in the mind it will pay you back. Such a content not only earn you a link but also improve your ranking in the search engine.
Never go for content for the sake of earning links but to earn better customer experience. Such a content will always go viral and get you inbound links on natural flow.
If you are creating content for the sake of content, you are doing a big SEO mistake and you must stop from the very moment you are reading these words.
Conclusion
Doing SEO is one thing and avoiding SEO mistakes is another. It is a common call that SEO doesn’t pay you back. The misconception is hidden behind all the SEO mistakes that marketers do without having proper knowledge about the latest SEO updates. We intend to list all the major mistakes which are common. If you know something new please do share within comment section to let us add to our list of SEO mistakes.
Thank you for this information. Will use this information while doing SEO for website.
Good post!