Common mistakes to avoid in SEO
It’s not uncommon to find that the strategies used when aiming to improve upon your search engine optimisation may actually be causing more harm to your website than good.
Some of the SEO tips and tricks found online can prove to be valuable resources, but trusting all of the information upon this topic, especially out of date content, could potentially devastate your SEO. Why not check out this article about what SEO may look like in 2019 for a more long term outlook.
Below, we’ve listed some of the most common mistakes made within SEO and what you can do to avoid your webpage authority plummeting.
Lacking quality backlinks
One of the most common SEO management tips to date is the building of quality and trust-worthy links to external, high authority sites. The creation of quality backlinks plays a vital role in various aspects of Search Engine Optimisation, particularly off-page optimisation, as there are many techniques involved within link building that help to gain backlinks to your site. If you’re aiming to rank well in the search engine results, it’s important that any and all of these links are of high quality, and relevant to the work of your business.
However, it’s not rare for companies, especially those on a smaller scale, to buy links from other sites. While this may appear relatively harmless, and a quicker way to gain external links in a shorter timeframe, this is a strategy that may end up getting your site banned from appearing in the search engines. The buying, or selling, of links can, in the majority of cases, be considered spam and should thus be avoided at all costs.
Linking to sites known for their bad reputation, such as duplicate content sites, should also be avoided. Regardless of whether these sites are relevant to the work of your own company, associating with websites of poor quality will subsequently bring down the authority of your own page, meaning it becomes less likely to be shown in the search results.
Misuse of outbound links
The use of outbound links is something often seen to be avoided, being the reasoning behind why so many marketers now consider guest posting to be an outdated and irrelevant technique; this is one of many misconceptions within SEO. While it’s true that filling your navigation with links to external sites besides your social media platforms could be seen by search engines to be spam, the natural linking of an information resource can cause no damage to your SEO and will assist with the advance of your domain’s authority and trust.
If looking to include outbound links on your site, the placement of such can be considered to play a vital role. Such links, most usually found within blog posts, should occur naturally within posts as opposed to all at once or just as the end of the piece; this is considered to be bad practice.
Links could be to other posts offering similar and relevant information, infographics, research papers, and various other resources. If readers want to learn more on a specific part of your content piece, they are able to refer to these outbound links in order to do so.
Avoid linking to the homepages of other site, sites of shallow content, and spam sites, as these low-quality links have potential to cause harm to your page.
In the event that either of these mistakes occurs during your SEO processes, the authority and trust associated with your site could drastically decrease; your webpage possibly being penalised by Google as a result. A Google Penalty can be defined as a negative impact upon a website’s search result rankings based upon the terms of Google Algorithms or use of black-hat SEO techniques; these are disapproved practices within search engine optimisation.
If you find that your domain has fallen victim to a Google Penalty, this may be an indication that the SEO techniques being used by your business require some improvement; it might be time for you to invest in assistance from the SEO experts. Many Digital Marketing Agencies of high quality will be able to offer Google Penalty recovery services to you and your business, carrying out various services such as site audits as to analyse the entirety of your website and ensure it meets the guidelines set by Google. They will also be able to evaluate any of your pre-existing backlinks, and compile a disavow file of any poor quality links to be submitted to the search engines; this will cut the association these links from your profile.
To conclude, SEO is a great technique for improving your rankings in the search results, however, it’s important that search engine optimisation is managed correctly and it’s ensured the above mistakes are avoided!
