Don’t Make these Mistakes with Your SEO

Search engine optimization is crucial if you want to get any organic traffic from Google.  Google is constantly upgrading their algorithm and effective SEO needs to stay current with what Google expects.  Content needs to be on point along with all of the technical aspects, working with an SEO agency that knows how Google works can do tremendous things for your business.  If you are doing your own then don’t make these mistakes with your SEO.

Meta Descriptions & Tags

Writing a good meta description and title tags is an art.  You want to let Google know just what your content is about along with your readers.  Title tags let your visitors quickly browse your site and find out what the content is about and which parts they want to read.  Meta descriptions tell Google what the content is about and sometimes they show up in the search results page.  Here is how to properly write tags and descriptions.

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is always a big no-no.  Plagiarism is never a good thing but Google really frowns on duplicate content too and they can not only tank your rankings your site can be removed from the index altogether.  On top of all that you can get sued.  There are plenty of sites where you can affordably hire a ghost writer to help you with content.

Too Long to Load

This is the era of mobile browsing and you need to make sure that your site will load quickly especially on a mobile device.  If your site takes too long to load you will lose your traffic.  Have your webmaster tweak your site until the load times are satisfactory. You can check your site on GTMetrix or on Google Page Speed test.  Both sites will also tell you what you need to do to speed things up.

Check for Broken Links

If you run a blog and you routinely link out to other sites you need to make sure those links are still functioning.  You can run checks on your site with tools like Screaming Frog, Cora or a browser extension.  Find those broken links and remove them or direct them to a different site that is active with good content.  This is an easy fix and should be done routinely.

Even the most skilled SEO professional can make mistakes from time to time.  These are some of the more common mistakes that happen, all of them are super easy to fix so make sure you aren’t making these mistakes.

5 Ranking Factors that You Need to Pay Attention To

There are more than 200 factors that affect where your site falls on the search results page.  However there are a couple of factors that weigh heavily on your position and that you need to make sure are perfect.  When creating content for your site you need to consider how users view your site along with the content of your articles.  Here are 5 ranking factors that you need to pay attention to and how to make sure they are working for you.

Keywords in Your Titles

Using Google and doing online searches has evolved few people type in just one word but rather they search a phrase.  You can use that phrase or part of it as your title.  You still have to make sure the phrase makes sense and it is grammatically correct.  This ensures that Google and other search engines see your content as relevant and what the user wants to see.

Word Count

Typically longer content is better for SEO but that doesn’t mean your content should be repetitive or filled with nonsense.  You should establish in the very first paragraph what the content is about.  Go into detail about the topic and answer any and all questions that a reader might have.  Long content should also be broken up into smaller chunks where it can be easily scanned.  Break your content up using pictures, video, headings, and lists.  Your keywords should be included in the content but not overdone.

Link to Other Content

If you have a blog on your site then you should take advantage of internal linking to other content within your site.  If your current posts mentions a subject that you have written about previously then link to it.  It helps Google to crawl your site and helps with the user experience.

Use Heat Maps

Heat maps are tools that allow you to understand what visitors do once they hit your site.  The more time that someone spends on your site the better, so you want to understand the behavior of your visitors.  This helps you to make improvements to lower your bounce rate.  Bounce rate is how fast someone leaves your site after landing on it.   High bounce rates are a bad thing, that means once someone lands on your site they are out the door pretty quickly.  You are not delivering to their expectation.

Load Time

How fast your site loads is a huge ranking factor and it’s one that you need to pay attention to.  Slow sites ruin the user experience and Google will bump you further down in the rankings in favor of sites that load faster.  You can easily test your site speed and get your webmaster to fix what needs to be fixed in order to get your speed up.  Even a second can drastically change your conversion rates.