4 Keyword Mistakes to Avoid for Good SEO

Keywords are an effective (and free!) way to boost your online presence, but it is possible to make mistakes when using them. For instance, keywords that are too long or irrelevant can reduce your online visibility, making it harder for you to connect with new customers.

This can make keywords seem overwhelming, but in reality this isn’t the case. You just need to know which keyword errors to avoid.

Here are four keyword mistakes to avoid for good SEO.

Not Doing Keyword Research

Some business owners avoid doing keyword research as it can be too time-consuming, but this is a big mistake. This is because it is fairly difficult to accurately predict the exact keywords your customer is using, and if you get the keyword even slightly wrong, your target audience will never find you.

So ask yourself these questions: 

• What terms do your target audience search for? 
• What words do they prefer to use? 
• Which terms are popular, and which are not? 
• Do they use formal or informal language?

Once you have answered these questions, you should be able to come up with a long list of relevant keywords to use on your website.

Using Overly Popular Keywords

It can be tempting to use the most popular keywords in your niche, such as “fitness” if you have fitness website, but there are already hundreds of thousands of websites using these keywords and if your website is relatively new, most of these sites will show up on the Google results page before yours.

So try to use more personalized, long tail keywords that are easier to rank highly with. For instance, if you have a fitness website you could use the keyword “workouts for seniors”. And don’t worry if you don’t have the time to do this yourself. It is also possible to hire an SEO professional to create a list of keywords for you.

Not Evaluating Keywords

It is also important to evaluate the keywords you are using, as this will let you know if they are working or not. You can do this by Googling the keyword to check your ranking. But be aware that your results may be biased due to personalized search. You can solve this issue by deleting your internet history before doing a new Google search.

Does this sound too complicated to do yourself? No problem! You can hire an SEO expert to do it for you. 

Only Using Plural Keywords

Finally, you should always find out what the singular or plural form of your chosen keyword is. While Google is mostly able to recognize both the singular and plural forms of most words, the search results page is often slightly different due to user search trends. So if you are selling running shoes, ask yourself: do your users search for ‘running shoe’, or do they search for ‘running shoes’? Which term is more popular, or are both equally popular? Which term will benefit you the most? These are questions you should consider before implementing your SEO strategy.