Common SEO Mistakes That Bloggers Make
Growing your blog’s traffic can be difficult and very time consuming. But with search engines you can get your blog and content found faster and for free.
To figure out how to do that, and help you understand what you’re doing wrong, I invited the amazing web strategist and SEO expert, Mariah Magazine, to share her thoughts on the subject, along with some amazing SEO tips for bloggers.
Most of the content floating around the blogosphere about SEO is targeted towards improving your SEO, right? Which is freakin’ awesome. As bloggers, we definitely want to be aware of the steps and tasks we should be doing to constantly improving our ranking with search engines….but what about the mistakes?
Dodging SEO mistakes are just as important as the tasks to improve it. Because SEO is a finicky little thing. Just 1 mistake can totally derail all of your efforts. Sounds extreme, right?
I wish I was kidding, but it’s true.
So here’s the top 3 Biggest SEO mistakes that you should avoid on your website:
1. Not Using Keywords Correctly
One of the most common misconceptions about SEO is that it ONLY revolves around keywords. While that may have been true 5 years ago, now, in the SEO world, keywords only play one part in the algorithm. Here’s a few ways you could be using SEO keywords incorrectly:
- Keyword stuffing: Keyword stuffing is when you literally stuff a piece of content with the same keyword over and over. It’s insanely obvious to your blog readers, it makes their eyeballs bleed a little, and it’ll get you penalised reallllll quick.
- Using the wrong kinds of keywords: In order to use the RIGHT keywords, you have to know who your target audience is and what their problem is. When you know that, you can create blog posts that give them a solution. Think about how we use search engines…..usually we need something, whether it’s searching for a solution to a problem, or answering a question.
So when you’re trying to figure out your keywords make sure you’re choosing ones that are used by your target audience and align with what you’re offering. So if you’re a copywriter who’s target audience are online business owners, you’re not going to write a piece of content like “How to become a copywriter”….because your audience wants to HIRE a copywriter, not become one.
- Using keywords that are too competitive: Sometimes when I ask clients what they want to rank for in Google, they’ll give me insanely competitive search terms like “graphic designer”. In a perfect web world, that would absolutely be possible but there are hundreds of thousands of graphic designers that are competing to show up on page 1 for “Graphic Designer” so the likelihood of you beating out top names like Indeed, Forbes, or Adobe for search terms like that are slim to none….or it would get insanely expensive to do.
So to get more bang for your buck, you’re better off spending your time trying to rank for key phrases (a combination of 4 or more keywords) that are more specific. So for example: Freelance Graphic Designer in Buffalo NY — not as many people are searching for that term in comparison to “Graphic Designer” but the people that ARE Searching for it are actually your EXACT target audience AND it will be a hell of lot easier to rank for because the competition is lower.
Want more information on SEO keyword mistakes? Check out this blog post!
And if you want the inside scoop on how to do keyword research correctly, check out this Keyword Research for Beginners post!
2. Ignoring How Your Website Works
Google doesn’t come out and let us know about too many factors that affect your ranking, and even when they do, most of the time the explanations are super vague. But, they HAVE told us that how your website works is a HUGE part of your rankings.
And when I talk about “how your website works” I’m not just talking about your navigation menu and your contact form. I mean, those are super important, but you also have to pay attention to the deeper foundational things like.
- Website Speed: Not only does website speed matter for you website visitors, it matters for SEO. Users expect every single page on your website to load in under three seconds, and, therefore, so does Google. And we’re not just talking on desktop, we’re talking mobile too….so make sure you’re checking how fast your website loads on a mobile device too! Or find out how to speed up your website here.
- Broken Links: One of the ways search engines rank websites is by crawling their links. If there’s broken links on your website, it can stop search engine spiders from crawling your site….and if they can’t crawl it….they can’t index it to show up in search results.
If you tend to leave your broken links for too long, it could take a toll on your SEO ranking because websites with too many broken links can be a signal of low quality to search engines.
AND it’s super annoying as a website visitor, to be on a website, want to click on a link, and be taken to a dead page. No bueno. Watch the step by step tutorial on how to find + fix your broken links.
- Being Secure: In October 2017 Google started labeling websites that don’t have an SSL certificate (HTTPS) as unsecure. And secure site are labeled as “secure” and have that cute little green padlock next to them. Google’s whole reason behind this is to make the web as safe as possible….as it should be. So since Google is taking security seriously, as a blogger and website owner, we should too.
- Mobile User Experience: Being mobile responsive isn’t good enough anymore. That’s standard. Google EXPECTS websites to be mobile responsive, but what they also expect is for your website to work WELL on mobile devices. So things like links being too close together that it makes it hard to click on a distinct option, not having enough whitespace in content, or pop-ups being intrusive….are ALL things that Google judges your website on.
3. Ignoring Your Website Analytics
Data. That word alone sounds so….boring, right?
I know, I know. But you know what else it leads to? A better understanding of your audience, improved SEO, AND increased website traffic.
Why? Because the whole point of SEO is to get your target audience to your website. And then once your audience is there, we want them to convert….aka sign up for you list, become a customer or client, or inquire about your services.
And increased website traffic alone doesn’t do much to grow our businesses or blogs. It’s targeting the RIGHT website traffic that pulls in all of the results we want.
So if you’re not looking at your analytics, then the effort you’re putting into SEO is all a guessing game and you actually can’t even tell what’s working and what’s not…..which totally sucks.
If you don’t have Google Analytics setup on your website already, follow this step by step tutorial here.
And if you DO have Google Analytics setup, take a few minutes and find out the answers to the following questions:
- How many unique and returning visitors come to your site (and specific pages)?
- Where are your website visitors coming from?
- If it’s google, what are they typing into Google to find you?
- If it’s social media, which platforms is it?
- If it’s referral traffic, which website is sending you the most people?
- What’s your bounce rate?
- How long are people spending on your pages and posts?
- Which posts are the most popular?
- Which posts are the LEAST popular?
- Which page are they leaving after?
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Answering those few questions alone will give you a TON of information about your website visitors. And that’s information that’s backed by legit data. If what you’re seeing doesn’t match up with who you thought was on your site and why….then maybe your messaging, content, and keywords are off.
But please remember, it’s not the NUMBERS that we’re obsessed with. Every single number in your Google Analytics represents a legit human. A human that was on your website, interacting with your content. It doesn’t matter if that’s 10 people or 100,000 people.
It’s quality over quantity…..which I don’t think is stressed enough in the online business and blogging world. So regardless of the numbers, focus on the ACTIVITIES and how people are using your website….because that’s where the information is!
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Conclusion: SEO DON’Ts For Bloggers
We all know that improving your SEO is important in the web world, but what’s equally as important is steering clear of these all too common SEO mistakes. Avoiding these suckers like the plague will not only allow you to bump up your SEO rankings, but will also help you increase your website traffic AND make your website rock solid for the people that matter most, your target audience.
Have you made any of the mistakes above? How did you fix them?! Let me know in the comments!
Mariah is a website strategist over at Mariah Magazine Web Design + Strategy Studio. She works with online Business Owners to help them get more website traffic and improve their SEO by creating a website strategy that’s unique to their business goals and ideal audience.
Connect with her over on Instagram or check out her step by step YouTube videos. And if you’re looking for an Ultimate Blog Post SEO Checklist, be sure to download a free copy here!
OTHER BLOG POSTS YOU’LL ENJOY:
- How To Optimise A Blog Post For SEO
- 3 Strategies To Grow Your Blog & Blog Traffic
- 65+ Ways To Promote Your Blog Posts
Thanks for sharing this content. It is useful for me and I fixed some of my mistakes.