seolounge
Top 5 SEO Mistakes for New (or neglected) Websites
Below is a short list of basic SEO principles and common SEO mistakes for website owners to keep an eye on to achieve healthy SEO rankings. Ensuring you avoid these top 5 SEO mistakes will take a lot off pressure of you in the future if you do choose to hire an SEO consultant or SEO service.
1. Not having your website crawlable
As we might not imagine, many small businesses do not have a website. And more times than not, there site is not indexed by Google. Submitting and ensuring that you site domain – at the very least- is found in Google is an important first step to proper SEO. Furthermore, it’s important to have your best content accessible by the user. Don’t hide content that may be a good resource for readers to far within the site. So click around and make sure that the good content is easily found.
2. Word Usage onsite – Write for the way we search.
One of the most important points I bring up when consulting with a new SEO client is the fact that we now optimize for the way users search. If you think of your last few searches, you may have typed something like “What is the distance from Earth to the Moon?”. As opposed to saying “Moon distance”. If you’re looking for your site to become a resource for this type of information, you need to use this content and search string on your site and within the content.
3. Avoid link building – Compelling content will generate links naturally
One of the most common discussions in SEO is the practice of link building. For years, links pointing to your site created a vote of confidence in the eye’s of Google and then ranked your site higher for those terms. With the landscape expanding and changing, this practice is now either abused or debated, and we should now rely on creating content that’s sharable and intriguing. If it is, users will generate links on your behalf and take all of that link building stuff out of your hands.
4. Forgetting to use your title and description on your most important pages
Your title of your page should tell the story of the entire page. Think of it like a book and a table of contents: properly outlining your website with structured content will help not only search engines determine the best page to deliver to your user, but help your users onsite action, thus keeping them engaged.
5. Failing to use your Webmaster Tools resources
Webmaster tools can be your biggest ally in the fight against your competition. Google Webmaster tools will update you on your site’s health and alert you to anything that may interrupt it’s results, rankings or indexing. So keep an eye on alerts and address any errors to keep a healthy website.
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