Common SEO mistakes

Whilst tweaking your website for SEO purposes it is easy to make mistakes that will have a detrimental effect to your SEO effort. Bellow are the most common.

Degrading the visitor experience

When making changes to the website, for SEO purposes, it is possible to degrade the function or easy of use of the website for the visitor. It is paramount that visitors can understand what each page of the website is about, and can easily find and navigate other areas and pages of the website.

Reduction in marketing message effectiveness

One of the key points of your website should be to effectively delivery your marketing message. Using tactics to trigger a sensory experience that the visitor will remember is an important task. Ensure your SEO effort does not reduce the effectiveness of your marketing message.

Outbound links loose you visitors

It is common to add topical outbound links to a page. This increases the quality of the page, and allows the visitor to find more information about the topic, even if on a different website. Google have suggested that this is an important factor in determining the value of pages in their search engine algorithms. However, if visitors are leaving your web pages because they find a link to what looks like a better source of information, then you should remove the link. Outbound links are important, but consider carefully those you include.

Your search engine aimed text is hard or repetitive for visitors to read

Almost every SEO makes the mistake of adjusting, or repeating text in the hope of increasing search engine results. The most important factor about any copy text, is that is easy to read and understand for the visitor. Repeating keywords (the most common mistake) or keyword phrases makes any piece of text difficult to read. Keyword overkill can cause more harm than good in search engine results. Ensure all text is aimed at visitors, and not search engines. Concentrate on quality.

Using bullet points when they are not necessary

It has become popular for SEOs to use a series of bullet points to try and deliver a complex message. This makes the message difficult to understand. It does not add any benefit to SEO or the website.

Your search engine tactics concentrate, and attract, traffic quantity and not quality

Always ensure you are attracting relevant visitors to your website. It is better to have 5 visitors looking for the information and services you offer, rather than 10 visitors who do not want what you offer. Always ensure you concentrate on attracting visitors who are after the information that you have.

Visitors leave your site without exploring it

It is estimated that once a visitor arrives at a website, they decided within a few seconds whether to continue browsing or to go to another website. Do your visitors leave on the page they exit? Ensure you internally cross link your pages, so that visitors can find information on other pages. Also ensure your menus and navigation sections sell other sections of the website. People rarely look at site maps.