SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, determines whether your website shows up on the first page of Google search results, or gets lost in a sea of competition. You know you need to pay attention to SEO. You know you need to rank high for the search terms people use to find businesses just like yours.
The problem is, Google is constantly changing how it ranks websites in order to refine the user experience. If you do any of the following, you may actually hurt your rankings.
- Duplicate Content. You know Google likes frequent updates and lots of content on your website, and investing in that can be expensive. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts here. Copying content tells Google you have nothing new or valuable to offer – even if it’s your own content, to begin with.
- Keyword Stuffing. In the early days of search engines, the more times a keyword appeared on a page, the higher you’d rank in that search. But Google caught on to marketers who were writing nonsensical, useless content simply as a vessel for holding buckets of keywords.
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- Focus on 1-3 keywords per page
- Shoot for a concentration of 1-3% (one to three occurrences of each keyword for every 100 words on the page).
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- Not Using Social Media. More and more, Google is depending on traffic from social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to decide how to rank websites. Make sure you’re using social media retargeting on your website, SEO keywords, and best practices in all of your social media posts, too!
- Writing Low-Quality Guest Posts. Sure, guest posting on other sites that share your audience is a great way to build backlinks. But only if you post on quality, reputable sites. If you’re getting links from bad sites, Google will actually punish you for it!
- Publishing Low-Quality Guest Posts. On the flip side, accepting guest posts from other authors are a great way to add new content to your own website without a huge investment on your part. Pay attention to the links the author includes, however, because if you link out to poor quality websites, their digital reputations will rub off on you and hurt your rankings.
There are dozens of other mistakes that small business owners make when trying to improve their SEO. If you’re making them, you’re not alone. Between the millions of other tasks you take on for your business, it’s hard to find the time to build good SEO, much less stay up to date on which tactics to use.
But don’t worry. We’ve got your back. Not only can we take many of those marketing tasks off your plate (like, website design and maintenance, blog post writing, and social media management in Southfield, Michigan), we can hook you up with a great SEO team who will analyze your existing website and help steer you toward better search engine optimization rankings – and better traffic. Whether you are local to Southfield Michigan, or in another state, we can work with you. Contact us today for details!
