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| SEO MISTAKES |
There are a few things to consider when it comes to search engine optimization. Mistakes often occur that endanger your ranking on Google.
In this post, you will learn the SEO mistakes that you can easily avoid yourself.
I'll start with what comes to my mind most often but may not be as unambiguous as the other points below.
CONSTANTLY REVISE CONTENT
The rumor that the website should be updated from time to time by adjusting a few small things here and there because Google “likes it” persists.
It's one of the biggest SEO mistakes. It practically always comes up in my training sessions and courses, and unfortunately, it does more harm than good.
The Google bot will indeed come by more often if Google determines that new content is published frequently. This applies to new blog posts or new pages that have been created.
Do you publish e.g. B? So far, a new blog post once a month and increase the frequency to once a week, then Google will come by more often in the future. As a result, your new content ends up in the index faster and can be found earlier.
However, if you arbitrarily adjust your texts on your start page or existing pages from time to time, or revise them without a strategic SEO concept, then Google will find something different each time. This can cause the ranking to fluctuate extremely. Or that your website just never comes forward.
It is enough if you have once written and published a well-optimized SEO text for your pages. This should only be adjusted if it is out of date.
CREATE DUPLICATE CONTENT
This SEO mistake often happens accidentally and unknowingly.
You may have heard of duplicate content before. These are texts, usually whole sentences, paragraphs, or complete page texts that Google finds on several pages of your website.
The problem is that the same text on different pages confuses the search engine. Google needs to choose a page to show up in search results.
If the bot finds the same content several times, Google has a hard time making a decision - and in case of doubt, it prefers the site of a competitor.
Always write exclusive content on all your pages and don't copy anything, then this can't happen to you.
NOTE: If you use the same customer testimonials on multiple sites, this is not a problem. Because these texts are not SEO-relevant (your customer testimonial texts play no role in search queries).
DUPLICATE CONTENT CAN ALSO ARISE IN THIS WAY
1. If your website is accessible via HTTP and HTTPS, or with www and also without www, then you might get a duplicate content problem. Because for Google, these are different websites. You can easily check it like this: enter your website in Google once with HTTP and once with HTTPS in your browser line.
For example, after entering http://facebook.com, the browser automatically switches to https://facebook.com. You can also check whether your website only runs with www. Only one version should be accessible in the browser, and the other will automatically redirect.
2. If content exists on multiple websites: Let's say you offer courses. These will be advertised on your website, but maybe also with identical texts on the website of a partner, your speaker, or on a website that promotes your courses for you. Here, too, the problem arises when Google finds the same content on different pages.
As a rule, Google then decides on one of the many pages. If it is important to you that you are preferred by Google as a course provider, this is only possible by using Canonical URLs.
OFFER PDF DOWNLOADS
What you might not know: PDF documents that you offer directly via a download link on your website are given their URL on your website and therefore count as another page on your website for the search engine.
The text in PDF documents is used by Google in the same way as text on your other pages, and can therefore also be displayed in search results.
This results in two SEO mistakes:
PDF documents can cause duplicate content. This could e.g. This may be the case, for example, if you want to register for a course using a PDF document that you make available for download on the relevant page with the course description. If the PDF contains the same content as your course description page, you unknowingly have a duplicate content problem
PDF documents can rank better than your actual content. This can happen when you offer a PDF document with more in-depth or more detailed content as a download for printing and reading. I can understand the thought, but unfortunately, it can lead to the PDFs with the detailed content being found better than your actual pages.
Not really a problem, is it? But what if your website mostly gets visitors from tablets or smartphones? A PDF download with a smartphone is very unlikely. It's also possible that Google doesn't show your PDFs at all on mobile devices because the reading experience of a PDF on a smartphone is simply abysmal.
SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS FOR PDFS ON WEBSITES
- Do not use PDFs 🙂 Easily integrate registration forms on your website. This is more user-friendly, saves you the problems mentioned above, and will probably even get you more registrations.
- If you want readers to print your content, you can also simply point to the print function in the browser (or use your trusted programmer to integrate a print function button on your pages).
- Forbid search engines to index the PDFs on your website.
- Instead of PDFs, offer blog posts with more in-depth information, or only offer the PDF for download against submission of the email address. You can solve this automatically with a newsletter provider such as B. MailChimp or ActiveCampaign. This is how you build up your email distribution list, you can reach the people concerned again by email afterward and you are more likely to win customers.
USING THE KEYWORD TOO OFTEN
You may already be familiar with this SEO mistake. Nevertheless, he keeps coming back to me. When a keyword is repeated too many times in text on a page, it's called keyword stuffing.
The Google algorithm can react sensitively to such texts. The result: Google suspects manipulation and sends your site to the lower ranks.
Example:
Holiday care is fun for children and relieves the parents. In our holiday care, all participants are fed all day, please do not give your children any meal allowance for the days in the holiday care.
The keyword "holiday care" is repeated three times in two sentences. That's way too often.
Better is:
Holiday care is fun for children and relieves the parents. With us, all
participants are fed all day, please do not give your children any food allowance.
NOTE: There is no specific number of times a keyword should be used in a text. Instead of the number, it is the relevance that counts, ie where the keyword appears (heading = high relevance, the last paragraph on the page = low relevance). Tools often measure count or keyword density. This is outdated. Don't let this confuse you.
USE INAPPROPRIATE TERMS
We're so stuck on our topic that we don't think about whether our potential customers might be using a completely different language and searching with different search terms on Google.
This can result in you optimizing your website for keywords that are completely irrelevant to your target audience.
example :
Let's say you offer nutritional advice but call it health advice to set yourself apart.
In principle, this is an understandable idea. But when people google for nutrition advice, your health advice can't be found.
TIP: That doesn't mean that you always have to obsessively follow the search engine. Maybe this decision is right for you and your business and you use other marketing strategies than SEO like e.g. e.g. social media. Or you set up a blog in which you provide information about topics of your counseling that people google. In this way, you concentrate on blog posts with your SEO optimization and are flexible and open to your offer pages.
SCATTER KEYWORDS RANDOMLY
Now and then I see websites where the same keywords are sprinkled all over the site over and over again. According to the motto: "Then Google must find the right thing somewhere". A fatal SEO mistake.
It's like not only storing your socks in the sock drawer in your bedroom closet, but also with your shirts, jackets, pants, and then a pair or two between your shoes.
If you then go looking for a very specific pair of socks, you won't find them anymore.
Treat your website like your closet. Stay neat and structured. Each keyword topic gets its page on your site.
This also makes it easier for Google to find the right content for search queries.
Example:
A coach offers business coaching, life coaching, and couples coaching. Each of these offers is a separate keyword topic area and should be dealt with in terms of content on a corresponding separate page on the website.
TRICK GOOGLE
From time to time the question arises as to whether you can simply fill white text on a white background with keywords.
I advise against such tricks. For one thing, Google can figure things out. In the worst case, your website will be completely removed from the Google index (keyword: Google penalty ).
But even if nothing should happen: what's in it for you?
Search engine-optimized content usually also brings added value for your website visitors, who are more likely to become customers if they find interesting and informative content.
Rather put the effort into really good and SEO-optimized content. In the long run, this will give you the most benefit in terms of customers and sales.
DO NOT OPTIMIZE THE SEARCH RESULT
Do you know what the search result of your websites looks like in Google search? And did you know that you can influence the content of the so-called "snippet"? Not only can you, but you also should.
The snippet consists of the respective page URL, the page title, and the page description. Here is an example of one of my search results:
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| SEO MISTAKES |
The most important element is an attractive and informative page title. That's the big, underlined blue font. This is where you place the most important information. This increases the chance that your search result will be clicked on.
Here you see a negative example. You can only see that it is a dental practice when you take a closer look. Because the page title only says HOME:
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| SEO MISTAKES |
TIP: You can easily see what the snippets of all your pages look like. Simply enter the following command in the search bar on Google site:yourwebsite.com and you will be shown all the search results for your website. (If nothing shows up, you may need to add www to your domain, i.e. site:www.yourwebsite.com)
SPEND TOO MUCH TIME ON NON-ESSENTIALS
Since search engine optimization is so complex and multi-layered, it is very easy to lose track. That, and the desire for a quick solution, often leads to dwelling on trifles or unimportant measures that don't help.
Here are some examples:
- Change domain name: Get a domain name that contains the keyword in the hope that it will quickly add value to the ranking. But switching to your new domain is very time-consuming (if you want to do it properly and without losing your ranking) and the keyword in the domain name can help, but it's only a small lever.
- Fill in meta keywords: Search engines used to be unable to understand texts and distinguish between content. At that time, the webmaster always stored heaps of keywords in the programming. These are the so-called meta keywords. Google has been ignoring this since 2009. You can save yourself this effort. It doesn't do any harm, but it doesn't do any good either.
- Collect/buy backlinks: This is also a relic from the beginning. Backlinks are links that lead to yours from other websites. At the beginning of the search engine Google, they were a significant signal for the authority of a website and they could decisively influence the ranking. They are still important today.
But while a few years ago you could still achieve something with backlinks from online catalogs and purchased link packages, today it is rather harmful (I tried it). The best backlinks are the ones you get because someone is linking to your website. After all, the content is so interesting and valuable. Good backlink building is a lot of work and is more at the end of the SEO development work than at the beginning.
CONCLUSION: AVOID THE MOST COMMON SEO MISTAKES
You see, there are a few pitfalls here and there with search engine optimization that you can now avoid.
Do you still have something on your mind that is unclear to you? Or can you tell of a mistake you made yourself? Then write me below in the comments.
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