Common SEO Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

I came across this great video that was created by Maile Ohye, a tech lead at Google, who explains the five most common SEO mistakes she has observed and how to overcome them. After reviewing it I thought it would be something valuable for our readers to view.

My $.02’s on the topic

The important thing to remember is don’t try to trick or game the search engines. Focus on creating a great user experience, producing high quality content and incorporating the best SEO practices into your website. Instead of thinking about how your website or business can be perceived by Google to be high quality…actually be high quality and focus on meeting the needs of your customers. It is important to ensure that you have your on-page website elements optimized and are continually improving your website.

Some On-page SEO elements include:

• Unique & relevant Title tags on each web page (ensure that each of your pages has a unique title.  Too often I see company website’s with “Company Name” as the url on every page)
• Well crafted and digestible urls (instead of “www.yourwebsite.com/p?=123”..why not: “www.yourwebsite.com/target-keyword”)
• Unique meta descriptions (this is the summary under the page listing in the search engine)
• Make your you have a strong website navigation & information architecture
• w3c compliant code (No deprecated html, table based design, etc.)
• Ensure you’re tracking your performance (have Google Analytics installed and set up goals within the analytics platform)
• Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools to identify crawl errors, determine incoming links, and search engine impressions / click thrus / related queries
• Conduct keyword research and include relevant keywords in your content
• Use Google Website Optimizer to test headlines, images, calls-to-action and other valuable attributes to increase your website’s conversion rate
• Ensure you are able to add content easily and effectively…This can be done through a content management system
• Keep your website updated with fresh “high quality” content

Build Natural Links

In addition to providing great resources and content on your own website, engage your customers at other online locations they frequent.  Also consider creating content such as blog posts, quality images, videos and tools that can be shared on high authority websites or blogs within your industry.  In addition to sharing high quality content on these online destinations consider joining the conversation.  Share insightful comments and link to helpful resources & web pages, including your own to increase your visibility and links. Another powerful way to increase your links and awareness is by crafting and distributing optimized press releases.

Final Thoughts

We realize how challenging it can be to focus on creating quality content and ensuring that your content gets out to the right places to increase your natural links, SEO rankings and website traffic. If you’d like to talk to one of our SEO specialists know that we’re always here to help! We are currently offering a free SEO consultation and would be happy to speak with you!

David Brim