You have decided that you are going to focus on SEO so that Google, Yahoo and Bing send visitors daily for free. So, she rushes to start doing her keyword research and comes up with a few phrases that drive traffic to her website. Because of this opportunity, she optimizes her website and gets so many links that she hopes her website will go up in search results. After working for a few weeks and months, the website moves up but you are still on the same page. You do everything right, but your website is not ranked on the first page and you keep wondering where the problem is.
SEO is one of the best strategies that you can implement in a few weeks, but it takes a long time to master to compete for high traffic words. With some adjustments, you will get the first ranking. In most cases, what you need to do is fix the errors to get more results. These are the five common mistakes that most people make.
Don’t use analytics
SEO is not about the sheer amount of traffic; it’s about conversion. It’s easy to get caught up in seeing the phrases that send the most traffic and get discouraged if you can’t do it with the ones with the most traffic. But the traffic is not so important. Most of the time, low-traffic phrases will turn out to be better ones because they are concrete and getting first page rankings will lead to few sales. The best way to find it is to track it down. It’s important that you use an analytics package like KISSmetrics to set up conversion tracking for keyword phrases and compare them against each other to see if they’re producing good results. Knowing this will help you optimize your website and know which efforts to focus on and which ones to leave out.
Not optimizing for local search
If you’re running a business that focuses on customers within a region, it’s vital that you learn about local search. Most search engines like Google handle this differently compared to keywords that are global. Start by including specific keywords in your page titles and Meta description. You can also include the address and phone number on pages as a header and footer to display in local results.
Not optimizing for the right keywords
It is easy to fall into this trap. Global keywords should be only when serving local customers. Generic keywords should attract visitors who are not interested in what you offer. You have to be specific. When you focus on generic keywords, this will bring traffic, especially if you are going to be successful. Sometimes you’re better off choosing specific phrases that lead to quick rankings and qualified traffic.
Not having title tags and meta descriptions
There are websites that have the company and website name as the title for each page of their website. This is a big mistake. Each page should have a unique title and not just for SEO purposes. Page titles are shared in tweets and used as text when someone bookmarks your website. Descriptive and unique titles are vital. It is possible to carry the company name on the pages and focus on specific keywords that are not specific to each page.
Don’t use anchor text
Using a call to action is important because it helps increase clicks. For example, if you write a blog post and link to your eCommerce service page, make sure the anchor text is “eCommerce website design services.” If you absolutely must have a call to action, include keywords that are relevant to the link.