4 common SEO mistakes businesses make with their websites

January 30, 2020

First, check out this funny SEO song:

Many business owners believe that once a site is up and running the work is complete, but that’s completely wrong; it’s only just begun. Of course, we’re not taking away from the fact that creating a website for your business is a huge achievement to be proud of, but a website left unattended, like a garden, will become unruly. Your website needs constant maintenance in order to perform and there are several crucial errors website owners make time and time again.

1. Use Header Tags for Google and Users

The proper use of header tags is a common mistake, but it’s one of the simplest SEO fixes to make. Google uses header tags to determine the topic of content and when used properly they can guide a user through your content. The main topic of the page should be the h1 and further information should be signposted with headers too. This will make the page easier to navigate for visitors and for search engines to crawl. Setting up web pages for search can be complicated and in order to do it right, it’s best to work with experts who understand the industry.

2. Does your website have a blog page?

One of the cardinal mistakes many website owners make is not creating content. In SEO content is king and a blog is great framework to share interesting content for your visitors. Start a blog page on your site and post regularly about interesting events, ideas, and products in your industry. There are numerous ranking factors but, in recent years, Google has placed a greater emphasis on EAT (Expertise Authority and Trust) when evaluating sites. Sharing high-quality content with your users is a great way to check this Google requirement off and climb the SERPs. Pro tip: Use your blog page to build internal links to your content pages.

3. Have you signed up for Google Search Console?

Shockingly for many website owners, the answer is no, and that’s a big mistake. The benefits of Google search console are numerous and what’s more, it’s completely free! Google search console offers you a wealth of data on how your site is performing in search results allowing you to make informed decisions on your website. Whether you’re looking to do some keyword research and find out more about what your customers are looking to learn or discover what pages on your site are underperforming, Search Console is the tool to do this.

4. Work on building links to your site from industry-relevant blogs

In order to achieve consistent high ranks in the results pages of Google and other search engines, your site will need to have links from other websites. Links from other websites act like votes of confidence towards yours and if you’ve got high authority sites linking out to your content, search engines will reward this with rankings. This isn’t the only ranking factor. There are many other elements to your site that need to be set up correctly in order to achieve results, but links are an important piece of the puzzle.