Five Common SEO Pitfalls to Avoid

Published on April 8, 2021

Though it’s gone through its fair share of changes in recent years, SEO – the art of boosting organic traffic by improving search engine ranking – is here to stay.

Though blackhat tactics like keyword stuffing are (thankfully) a relic of the past, the art behind SEO is still vital and remains a key part of any business’ successful content marketing strategy. But are you doing enough to maximize your SEO for Google’s most recent updates? Are you making sure every facet of your marketing campaign is engaged and running at full speed?

Want to get the most out of your SEO? Then it’s time to rethink your strategy. Here are five common SEO mistakes to watch out for:

1.) Not Producing Content

Creating engaging, shareable blog and multimedia content is the cornerstone of what we do here at Geek, and for good reason. When it comes to SEO, content is still king. A regularly-updated site with unique, compelling content performs better with both Google’s bots and human users. If you’re ready to get searchers to click through to your site – and improve your conversion rates – it’s time to start producing high quality content.

2.) Ignoring Mobile Optimization

We’ve written before about why smaller screens are a big deal. Your audience is spending more of their time than ever on smartphones or tablets, and Google knows this. That’s why the search engine now favors mobile-friendly sites. This is huge, since about 90% of small business websites are not optimized for mobile. Get a huge leg up over your competition – and a huge boost in your search rankings – by ensuring your site has a fluid, responsive mobile interface.

3.) Not Registering Your Site

In a sort of “Dewey Defeats Truman” for the online age, there was a period where many marketers scoffed that Google+ was dying and started neglecting the service. The joke’s on them: Google+ is still alive and remains an important factor for SEO. It only makes sense to register your business. The platform requires very little to set up and maintain, and it can pay huge dividends for your search rankings. And don’t just stop with Google. Set up your site with Yahoo and Bing to give your audience extra resources for finding your information – along with an extra boost in page rankings across platforms.

4.) Neglecting Your Audience Reviews

Real world “word of mouth” is still one of the most effective methods for spreading the buzz about your business, and reputation management is its online equivalent. With that in mind, it’s important to cultivate reviews for your product or service by encouraging satisfied customers to rate you on Google and Yelp. Not only does having a solid base of glowing testimonials reflect well on you, but it can account for as much as 8-9% of your SEO search ranking and increase your visibility on applications like Google Maps and Apple Maps.

5.) Relying Solely on SEO for Digital Marketing

SEO is an important and useful tool for your digital marketing campaign, but it’s just one piece of a much larger puzzle that should also include social media, email marketing, and maybe even SEM with tools like AdWords.

With all of these complicated and time-consuming balls in the air, how can you expect to keep track of it all?

That’s where we come in. Whether you’re looking for help diving into the rapidly changing world of content marketing, or you just want to refine your strategy for 2016, Geek is here to help! Drop us a line to start building your comprehensive content marketing strategy today.