Top 6 Mistakes to Avoid in Your SEO Strategy
A website is a virtual representation of your business.
Many business owners spend thousands of dollars hiring experts to build their site. However, once the website is completed and launched, their involvement with their online business stops there.
There are millions of websites in every niche, each offering a unique value proposition. SEO provides a means for your business to separate itself from the crowd and stand out to both prospects and search engine bots.
Receiving a top 10 ranking in search is impossible without an effective and efficient SEO strategy. It takes time to achieve traction from your optimization efforts.
If you aren’t persistent with your efforts, or if you choose the wrong strategy, you’ll experience sub-standard results that waste your valuable time.
Here are 6 common mistakes to avoid when creating your SEO strategy. Read through them and make the necessary adjustments you need to improve your site’s optimization.
1. Untargeted Campaigns
Effective online marketing campaigns target a niche audience.
Taking a “shotgun approach” to your marketing will result in attracting prospects that aren’t interested in what you’re selling.
Define your audience by imagining your ideal customer.
What age are they? What education do they have, where do they live, what’s their annual income?
The more criteria you set enables you to segment your market further and create a marketing campaign targeted at that specific group.
Related: How to Start a Profitable Blog: A Step-by-Step Guide for Serious Bloggers Only
2. Weak On-Site SEO Optimization

Many online businesses place too much emphasis on off-site SEO while ignoring the challenges of on-site SEO.
Optimize every page you create for your site with meta descriptions and tags. These snippets appear in search engines under the main search result and let your prospective viewers know what to expect before they click your link.
Make sure you’re using the correct content headings and meta-keywords that help the search bots identify your content and present it at the top of search results.
Related: How Much Does It Cost to Build a Website?
3. Poor Quality Content
It doesn’t matter how much SEO you do, if your content is weak and drab, then your site will fail.
Create compelling content that people will want to read and view. Excellent content includes blog posts, checklists, video tutorials, calculators, and interactive quizzes.
Before you publish any post, load a plugin to your site to assist your on-site SEO. Your plugin will require you to create meta descriptions and tags, as well as categorize your content.
These functions help the search bots find your content and list it in the search results.
4. Using the Wrong Keywords and Hyperlinks
If you’re wondering how to get more traffic to your blog, SEO holds the answer.
Keywords are a critical component of SEO, and it’s a fatal mistake to target the wrong keywords.
Ensure that you spend time exploring the Google Keyword Planner in Google AdWords. This free tool will help you identify the top keywords in your niche and which keywords offer the best search results.
5. Neglecting Mobile Optimization
Google places more emphasis on mobile optimization, and it’s a huge factor in ranking your site. If your site is not mobile compatible, you’re missing a vital part of your on-site SEO.
Mobile users account for 50% of search volume, so your website must be mobile compatible, or you’re missing out on opportunities.
6. Slow Loading Times and Site Errors
Misleading, harmful, or broken links on your site will hurt your search ranking.
Run an SEO software tool on your site once a month to discover any broken links and fix them. The Google algorithm also punishes websites with slow loading times. A slow website also detracts from the user experience, increasing bounce rates.