Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become the backbone in Google ranking race, with millions of material available on how to effectively apply SEO for various platforms. However, SEO trends, much like the software development trend, change with emerging technologies and techniques. Since 93% of online experiences start from a search engine, according to Search Engine Journal; making your website, app, and whatnot SEO optimized has become a necessity. This is why SEO experts are always in high demand. But where it is important to know the latest SEO techniques, it is also important to know about the worse SEO implementations that would reduce your website’s credibility to zero. So let’s dive into the SEO mistakes to avoid at all costs. 

1. Not Staying Updated 

As mentioned above that SEO is an ever-evolving field that keeps the concerned specialist on their feet. But if you fail to keep yourself updated with the changes and latest happenings – you are bound to lose the race, quick.

As Google updates its algorithms and such quite often, it is best always to stay alert regarding the latest SEO changes and trends; otherwise, you are bound to lose traffic, ultimately affecting your entire revenue and profit structure. 

2. Focusing Entirely on Textual Content 

Content may be king, but let us not forget that videos are the future. It is the time of quick video entertainment where two to three-minute videos have become the ultimate game-changer. Of course, YouTube takes the lead in this area, but people have started preferring videos more, and Google SERPs also show videos, as the tech-giant is aware of its popularity.

Not only video content grabs more attention, but it takes lesser time to rank on Google as compared to written content. Nonetheless, written and video content is still the two formats that are taking the lead in terms of SEO mistakes and user engagement. 

3. Website is Not Mobile-Friendly 

Mobiles have become the most-used devices to carry out menial to important tasks, and these hand-held devices also generate 50% of the traffic. So if your website isn’t optimized for mobiles, Google will automatically consider it poor.

So make sure the software development company in Dallas develops your brand’s website optimizes it for mobiles, especially in terms of page loading speed. If your site is taking more than 3 seconds to load, then consider your site a goner. So focus on mobile-first-experience, and this approach will benefit your business in all aspects, including SEO mistakes.

4. Ignoring Branded Anchor Text 

Anchor texts are important in the grand scheme of link building strategy; from getting quality backlinks from reputed sources to making sure they are enough and relevant to improve ranking in search engines.

However, a big mistake would be not to consider branded anchor text that important when most of the sites that observed a considerable boost in their rankings had more branded anchors than the regular anchor texts. This strategy doesn’t only benefit in terms of SEO but also helps in building brand awareness and authority.

So do not ignore brand anchor texts and use as many as possible, avoiding stuffing of it – Brand anchor text will help you rank better and higher on search engines. 

5. Sticking to Traditional SEO Techniques 

In the year 2020, SEO techniques have progressed and changed considerably. Long gone are the days of keyword stuffing, PBNs, and other traditional methods that did work in their own time, and now, are just regarded as bad SEO practices.

As point one stated, you must apply the modern SEO techniques that have evolved with Google. Also, Google’s BERT update has opened many new avenues for you to rank. BERT helps Google understand the content and user-generated queries better. 

6. Not Focusing on Search Functions and Structured Data 

Structured data is often overlooked in SEO implementation, when, in fact, it could be one of the pieces of SEO that makes you rank better and maybe on top of all other search results on Google.

Structured data, in its essence, is a piece of code that search engines can easily understand it and use it to display search results richly. There are different types of structured data for different types of content. So choose, apply, and reap the SEO benefits in terms of improved ranking. 

Via searchenginewatch.com

Likewise, another often ignored factor is the internal search functions of a website. Optimize your search function and make it easy for people to not only search but also organize the data in the most efficient way that it can easily be retrieved by the searcher on your website. 

7. Not Optimizing for Conversion 

Getting quality leads, nurturing them, and eventually converting them into promising customers is the ultimate goal for any business and the main aim behind search engine optimization. So ignoring this main goal and only focusing on ranking better will change the SEO techniques accordingly – harming your business.

So do not just focus on the technicalities leading to a better ranking, but also focus on proving value to these visitors and customers. Not only make your website optimized for seamless user experience but also add promotional aspects like review section, case studies, or some solid display that shows why you should be considered their first choice. 

8. Not Building a Brand 

If you have a product or certain services that you offer – market it under a certain brand that has its own face-value. What does this have to do with SEO? Well, Google loves the brand and ranks them better. This is why SEO is becoming brand-centric every day.

Once you are established as a brand, focus on increasing brand searches. Once people start searching for your business on Google, your ranking will improve significantly. So focus on building your business as a brand and target brand searches to increase authority. 

9. Ignoring Social Media Presence 

Social media has become ingrained in the entire digital ecosystem. Hence, Google pays attention to how people interact with your brand on social platforms. For this, it is important that your social media presence is strong with a winning social media marketing strategy in place. This way, you are bound to succeed in the SEO race as well. 

10. Undealt Error on Site 

Having a site that harbors broken or harmful links will negatively affect your ranking and reputation. A well maintained and looked-after site shows a promising and reliable persona that gains user trust and that of Google’s. So use SEO tools to keep a check on such errors and continuously do a performance analysis test to keep your site in good shape. 

Via lyfemarketing.com

In a Nutshell: 

Shed the traditional and obsolete SEO techniques and keep yourself updated with the changing SEO trends that will keep you ahead of the game. Your website should be optimized in all aspects – be it SEO, speed, and other performance criteria to rank the highest. All in all, stay genuine in your SEO implementation and avoid any poor short-cuts.