9 SEO Mistakes You Made in 2017
1. Creating Individual Pages For Each Keyword
Today the focus is on topics instead of keywords. Each page in a website has a topic that reflects the business theme of the site and it is bigger than a keyword. But the biggest drawback with keyword specific page is it provides little value to users.
2. Aggressive Link Building
Links still matter. They’re the most potent of all ranking signals but the condition is that they should come from valuable resources. Each link is a vote to your website; it is a sort of public endorsement but care should be taken when planning a link building strategy. Google values each link but it is quite sensitive towards quality of links. Avoid purchasing links; connecting to link farms; poor link directories and other unethical tactics.
3. Using Marginal Content For SEO
It is difficult to think of SEO without content but you should avoid adding marginal content for petty gains. SEO is a long term game that involves optimizing content to come in search. It’s true that content is needed for SEO but optimizing poorly written web pages, articles and blogs won’t add any value to SEO. It might look beneficial for short term but it could be harmful in the long run.
4. Ignoring Technical Issues
Every website has technical errors but the problem comes when webmasters keep ignoring the errors. It is learnt that the website owners spend more time on link building and on other SEO and Internet Marketing jobs instead of locating and fixing technical errors like:
• Improper redirects
• Duplicate content
• Mobile errors
• Slow downloading speed
• Unintentional blocked pages
Adding quality content and building links is great but leaving technical errors could cause more harm than the good the content and links could do.
5. Not Optimizing Images
It is a biggest mistake as it is like missing an SEO opportunity. You add an image to your site by creating a file but don’t name the file properly. It could be a keyword instead of XYZ123.jpg. Similarly, there could be a description in the alt attribute as Meta Tags. Having an image relevant with the page topic is beneficial for SEO in the long run.
6. Excessive Linking Between Your Sites
It is an outdated technique that can cause more harm than good. Excessive linking between sites no longer supports backlinks. Also it can hurt your SEO efforts.
7. Trying to play tricks with Google
White Hat SEO means following search engine guidelines. You will be rewarded where you are good but you shouldn’t try exploiting the liberty provided by the search engine.
8. Focusing on keyword ranking
Keyword ranking is only a part of web search that includes location, history and voice. If you’re focusing only on keywords then you are missing the larger benefits of SEO.
9. Practising SEO as a Mathematical Formula
SEO is all about making a website search friendly and it includes studying search engine updates or google algorithm updates and applying those updates to SEO Tips and Strategies. Failing to stay updated would mean losing search engine ranks.
Conclusion
Crazy SEOs are always looking for shortcuts to achieve high ranks but little do they know that there is no shortcut to success. Good SEO gives excellent results and also it remains effective for a long time. Your focus should be on making your site search engine friendly with the help of best practices.