10 Deadly SEO Mistakes to Avoid in 2017

Nowadays everyone jumping into the online world with purpose of brand building and earning money is somewhat familiar with the term of Search Engine Optimization. They may not be familiar with technicalities and functionality of SEO, but they know this much that SEO is an integral part of digital marketing and this can not be avoided while owning a business online. On one hand, this awareness is welcoming, on another hand half baked knowledge of SEO is cause of concern because not everyone can do it rightly. Due to some misconceptions and myths, many tend to commit serious errors while doing SEO. Today we will list out 10 of those SEO related mistakes people often make and which they should avoid making if they want to enjoy benefits of SEO to the fullest.

1. Over emphasis on Keyword

Adding popular and relevant keywords is part of SEO, but the thing is people often go overboard with it. They need to understand that just by including  popular, low competition keywords multiple times in your content is not a guarantee of sure shot high rank in SERP. If someone is forcing multiple keywords into the content, then it starts looking mechanical and fake. Also, if you are stuffing too many keywords in a title or content, then it reduces the value of your primary keyword.

Use keyword research to find out highly relevant keywords and phrases to decide which topics should be covered on your site. Keywords are meant to be placed on strategic positions of a content. Also, try to use related terms of the chosen keyword in your content.

2. Thin Content

Thin or too short content is a common mistake people tend to commit. However there are instances where contents comprising of <500 words got a high ranking. But those are exceptions. Research shows that generally longer content is better for ranking. Contents carrying an average of 1500 words (Ex: This post on WordPress Maintenance) give a better idea about the subject and results in good user experience. Although the ultimate call about how long or short your content should be depends on the purpose of your content.

3. Links from unreliable sources

Linking your site to any random website without credibility is unlikely to bear fruits for you. For external links to contribute to SEO, try to get links from high ranking domains that belongs to same niche as yours. Don’t do silly mistakes like getting a food blogger to endorse your IT firm., unless it is a very tailored referral.

4. Plagiarized Content

Some people have this tendency to pick content from other websites and post as their own. All this is because they are too lazy to work hard on unique content creation. This is called plagiarism. If  detected by Google, such offenders are bound to get penalized. That penalty can either be stripping you from your present rank and lower it; or if it chooses to be strict, your website can be de-indexed as well. In that scenario, new users will find it hard to locate you online. You would surely like to avoid such situation.

5. Broken Links

It is entirely possible that you add some links to your content and entirely forget about it later. Those links may stop working at some point, having those non working links attached to your content will work to your disadvantage. Such links that are no longer leading to expected destination are called Broken Links. Search engine rankings and domain authority suffers if broken links are there in your site.

6. Duplicate Content

Apart from plagiarized content, having exactly similar type of content within own site is another mistake that hurt SEO. It is often seen in e-commerce site or some service pages that knowingly or unknowingly same content is being repeated in several places.Specially in large sites, this mistake is common. If you confuse web crawler by duplicate content, then ultimately it will demote your SERP position.

7. Taking SEO for Granted

There is a bunch of people who tend to believe SEO will not be needed, if you simply create unique and good content, this is not true. The fact is that content marketing and SEO together can work wonders. But one is not a substitute for the other. There will always be instances of exceptions taking place where some content got to rank without proper SEO, but that’s not the norm.

8. Over Emphasis on Social Media

The scale. Impact and influence of social media is well acknowledged. So is the value of social media marketing. But traditional SEO has its own importance. You can not afford to spent entire energy to gain popularity on social media. Social media can be a major part of your strategy to build your brand, but continuing link building and other SEO activities are also important.

9. Ignoring Link-Building

Creating content and thinking it will get linked by others without doing anything of your own is a wrong expectation. The process of link building needs effort. If you are lucky then in some cases you may get few links without making any effort on your part, but again those are exceptions. Otherwise it is always advisable to invest energy on guest blogging and reaching out potential sources which can give you high quality links.

10. Not Understanding the Priorities

Businesses, specially the new ones often get confused about whether to invest money on paid promotions and revenue generation in short term, or to focus on SEO, which will only give results in long term. At the end of the day, everything depends on the kind of business you are running and its purpose. But keep in mind that paid marketing may or may not get you desired result but SEO will always be beneficial for you. There is no scope for loss in SEO.

Above listed mistakes are seen to be the most common among online business owners. If one or several of them are being practiced by you, then this is the time to correct them. Let’s be clear about it, it is not everyone’s cup of tea to handle the technicalities of SEO; proper knowledge and experience is required to do it rightly, that’s why we recommend to take help of professional SEO Services for a smooth run ahead.