Investing in search engine optimization is a must for today’s business ventures. By optimizing your website to maximize online traffic, you’re embracing an organic process that can put you brand in front of the right audience. Being ahead of the competition in today’s digital landscape requires courage and intelligence. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the tool you need to get ahead.
Think about it for a minute. Billions of searches are being made on Google, Yahoo, and Bing every day by users looking for an answer to a question; a solution to a problem. You already have the answer; you already provide the solution. Yet, the people looking for you won’t know that you exist if they don’t find you first. Good SEO drives quality traffic to your doorstep. More importantly, good SEO optimizes your marketing funnel so you attract the “right” kind of traffic, increasing your chances for conversion.
Smart search engine optimization positions your business optimally in a crowded and noisy digital landscape. The right strategy can help you compete with established industry players and significantly increase your brand’s visibility. However, there are also grave mistakes that can pull you down. It’s your responsibility to know about the mistakes that can accompany the process.
1. Lack of Quality Content
Traffic generation relies largely on the quality of content published online. When content fails to generate traffic, the real reason usually comes down to trust. Errors and inaccuracy breed suspicion, and when your audience questions your reliability, that’ll affect engagement rates. Would you engage in something that is doubtful, or in someone you are unsure of? I didn’t think so…
What you publish is what you are, and in digital marketing, your audience will know you only through what they see, hear, and read about your brand. Mediocre presentation is unlikely to get attention. Marketers must appropriate the right amount of resources to producing unique, useful, fresh content that is also accurate. Optimizing content must be a priority, otherwise, your content strategy will not be sustainable, and will eventually fail as the market adopts modern best practices.
Businesses that suffer the consequences of being outranked learn this lesson the hardest way possible. A drop in search engine rankings can result in huge losses for your business. Therefore, you need to curate your content and publish information that’s compelling and sound. Never lower your standards or expect audiences to settle for the mediocre.
Optimize your content, and always think about reputation building. Invest time and resources in a solid content marketing strategy and you will find yourself at the very top of the leaderboard.
2. Lack of Mobile-Optimization
Publishing subpar content tops our list of unforgivable SEO mistakes, but lacking a mobile version of your site comes in at a close second. A essential strategy for maximizing conversions is mobile optimization. So, you need to be asking yourself: “What does tailoring the experience mean to me right now?”
It all starts with responsive design, which Google endorses, and is becoming the norm. Making the necessary adaptations for overall functionality and multi-device use is worth every penny you spend. In a cross-device world where over 50% of searches are mobile, only the ignorant will fail to see the necessity for mobile optimization.
But, it doesn’t end there. Users demand a certain level of quality when it comes to their mobile Web experience. Bye website with confusing navigation. No thanks website with a long loading time; and what can you do once they kiss your brand goodbye? There’s always a more user-friendly website, a more responsive design; a better brand; a competitor.
Yours can be the go-to site if you embrace mobile-first indexing. When you champion mobile-first indexing, Google uses the mobile version of your site as the baseline for rank determination. If you don’t consider the “mobile-first” approach, perhaps your competitors will. In the end you’ll be out of the reckoning just because you’ve rested all your hopes on the desktop site.
Remember as well that valuable content trumps tricks, and the mobile experience you provide must offer a glitch-free engagement with your brand. Mobile optimization must always include indexable and crawlable content formats as well as inclusion of structured data and social metadata.
Lastly, if you haven’t heard about a mobile audit, then prioritize it because it’s a prerequisite for gauging your success and identifying potential issues. If you are unaware of the factors that can undermine optimization, you might be wasting resources fighting a losing battle with more equipped competitors. Find out where you’re at right now and detect problems that could hinder progress. Test for mobile-friendliness now if you haven’t done it yet.
3. Lack of Analytics Tools in Place
To say you can’t do SEO without analytics is a complete understatement. Thankfully, there are several tools that can help you measure, track, and improve your SEO efforts.
Google Analytics is undoubtedly the most popular website analytics tool available. It gives you access to a wealth of user data, which makes it indispensable. It’s made by Google, who’s also responsible for determining your ranking, but having it doesn’t make Google prefer your site. That is a myth, and it’s better if you shake off the false notion at the outset. Google Analytics, in itself, will not help you rank better, but it will provide the data you need to optimize your SEO campaigns.
SEMRush provides SEO-related data to a million users to date. While it’s not as popular as Google Analytics, it has a few awards to boast. SEMrush took home three awards in 2017–Best SEO Software Suite Award (European Search Awards), Best SEO Software Suite Award (US Search Awards), and Best Software Innovation Award (UK Search Awards). The platform is mostly renown for it’s analytical tools that track/research links, keywords and paid ads.
Ahrefs is another tool that offers keyword, backlink, and content research as well as web monitoring, rank tracking, and competitive analysis to users. Users like it for its power and reliability as an analytics tool and it’s arguably the best backlink indexing tool on the market. You can take advantage of their huge (and relatively accurate) database to uncover competitor strategies, research industry trends, and find the best ways to make your site rank better.
Conclusion
Lacking in quality content, not having a mobile version of your site, and maintaining an online presence without an analytics tool are three of the most unforgivable mistakes you can make with your business. Pay attention to the SEO experts, and avoid these mistakes!
Most importantly, don’t make the mistake of underestimating the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) for your business. It’s been around for a while, but it’s a different landscape now. For best results, keep up-to-date with any algorithm changes and tailor your website accordingly.
