7 SEO Mistakes Your Blog Might Still be Making in 2019 that we Want to See Go Bye-Bye!
A lot goes into crafting a creative, effective content marketing strategy. For example, Google’s algorithm strategy is based around the trust and authority of the host domain, link popularity of a page, anchor text of external links to the page, on-page keyword usage, site speed and mobile responsiveness, and more. It’s easy to get carried away with everything that goes into it. Sometimes, the best approach is one that’s back-to-basics. Here are 7 SEO mistakes your blog is probably making or has made in the past and how to fix them.
Paid links
Accepting paid links on your site is a bad idea. Search engines see it as a strategy to artificially increase SEO rank and they won’t hesitate to penalize your site based off that. Avoid shortcuts. Use SEO blog marketing strategies you know aren’t putting your site at risk.
Non-user friendly copy
The content you put on-site should be light, without excessive jargon, and attention-worthy. Use transition words, insert images and videos when appropriate, and let no more than 400 words go by before you hit your user with another visual. Use headlines and subheadings to help break up longer texts. Make it easy to read.
Bad internal linking structure
Internal linking is oftentimes done improperly or inconsistently. Ideally, you want 3-5 internal links per blog. You may want to conduct an audit to see what links you have and which have the authority. Be sure to create a sitemap as well, to ensure no page is being forgotten about as a site’s being indexed and crawled.
Non-optimized keyword structure
Site content should be linked by topic and keyword. This will help the user navigate more easily and effectively. Then, in the body of your content, use long-tail keywords, question-based keywords, and write to the questions you know your audience will want to hear. Easy to understand headlines including ‘how-tos’ and ‘tips’ articles can easily makes use of keywords to optimize your text.
Plagiarism
When you copy and paste another person’s content, you’re claiming it as your own and that’s a copyright violation. It’s also not going to win you any SEO points. If you use a little of someone else’s words, always cite the source. Also, be aware any use of another person’s content may negatively impact your SEO rank and get you flagged for duplicate content. If there was ever a rule never to be broken in SEO marketing, this is it.
Bad content promotion
One of the most common SEO mistakes is not promoting one’s content properly. Just because content’s written well doesn’t mean it’s going to become the next viral blog. To succeed, you have got to let people know you and your content exists. Easily, social media sharing and backlinks are two of the best ways to do this.
Non-optimized videos and images
Search engines don’t know how to classify videos and images without you telling them what it is. Optimize alt-text with page keywords, ensure files are properly formatted, and with videos, use a video sitemap so that they can be found on search engines.
Some mistakes are worse than others but what’s for sure is that your SEO strategy’s not going to get you anywhere if you don’t have the basics done up. Content marketing, SEO, and social media work hand-in-hand, each having a pivotal influence on the others’ success. Avoid the mistakes mentioned and you’ll be on the pathway to high search engine ranking. Join us for more details!
