Rookie SEO mistakes

2. Being Too ‘Link Happy’

Overenthusiastic rookies also make the mistake of building any and all links they possibly can, without regard for quality. Remember: More is not always better. While it’s true that having more inbound links correlates with higher rankings and domain authority, the quality and diversity of your linking sources are also important. A handful of links from great websites are worth more than thousands of links from low-quality spam directories.

4. Forgetting to Optimize New Pages

You may need to add new pages on a regular basis, such as when you introduce new products and services. Don’t get lazy and forget to optimize those additions! Write a strong and unique title and meta description for it. Make sure that the page is functioning and loading properly. Include that page in your sitemap. And finally, build internal links pointing to it.

6. Writing for Google

Newbie tent to get caught up in pleasing search engine spiders that they forget all about the humans who will be visiting the website. Tags, keywords, and contextual phrasing are all extremely important if you want Google to understand your website, but never prioritize them to the point of sacrificing the meaning and relevance of your content. Writing purely to please search engines is never a good idea. Doing this won’t help you attract likes, shares and links.

8. Failing to Update

SEO rookies tend to spend months creating user-friendly and optimized websites-and then forget all about updating it. This is a mistake that can cause your rankings to suffer. SEO is an ongoing campaign that involves making sure that the site is updated and active. It’s not enough to publish a handful of blog posts—you need to schedule regular posting and stick to it. Search engines won’t notice your site if you don’t constantly update your content.

2. Failing to Measure Results

The only way to assess if your SEO campaign is working is to measure results and analyze performance. Numbers are also essential in making strategic decisions and shaping direction. Be sure to take snapshots throughout the campaign so you can use them to interpret results in the future applications.

Implementing an SEO strategy can be likened to losing weight. You have to weigh yourself and take note of that number, and then build a strategy to shed the extra pounds you want to lose. You of course continue to regularly weigh yourself to ensure that you are on the right path, and that the strategy is working. If you aren’t losing weight, you re-strategize.

The same is true for SEO. It’s important that you determine your starting point and keep track of the campaign’s progress along the way. Without solid metrics, how will you find out if your SEO strategies are indeed giving you the results you want? Sure, your ranking might improve, but if there is no way to pinpoint exactly what improved and identify what caused those improvements, you won’t have a clear direction going forward.

Without metrics, you will also find it harder to understand what is causing poor performance—and what you need to do to address them head-on. You might end up trying the same strategy over and over because you don’t know that it’s not working. When you measure your progress or lack thereof, you can more quickly decide if it’s time to abandon a tactic and try something else. This will help you save time and money.

4. Wasting Time on Social Media

On the other end of the stick are SEO practitioners who spend too much time on social media platforms—even those that do not give them decent ROI. This can drain resources and may be a source of frustration. You see, different social media platforms cater to different audiences. Some are used mostly by teens, while others—most notably Facebook and Pinterest—are used by people in their mid-20’s and older. Which demographic do you want to connect with? Identify your market and concentrate on platforms that cater to that group. This is the best way to maximise your ROI.