Are You Breaking These 6 SEO Cardinal Sins?

We all know what an important role SEO plays in regards to rankings and traffic. All businesses want to be number 1 on Google, top of the tree. But the truth is that only 1 website can hold that number one position. That being said, it is possible to knock the leader off their perch. SEO is something that has been around for years and it’s never truly going to disappear. In this article, I will be discussing 6 cardinal sins that you need to be avoiding to give your website any chance of ranking organically within the different Search Engines. If at all you have any questions throughout this article please feel free to get in touch.

Let’s begins with the first cardinal sin you need to avoid…

1. Buying Cheap Bulk Backlinks (Of Any Kind)

The first SEO sin you need to make sure you’re avoiding at all costs is buying any kind of link back to your website. Not only is it bad overall to buy any kind of backlink to your website but the long-term impact it can have on your website can be absolutely astonishing. Any website that offers a backlink back to your website for a price is often, if not always very dodgy and Google can see exactly what is going on. As soon as Google gets a whiff that you’ve paid actual real money to try and manipulate their search listings your website is at risk of being penalised. When I say penalised I don’t just mean a tiny slap on the wrist, Google will hold your website in a list with other penalised websites and it can take months, if not years to ever get fully off the list and clean.

You have to prove to Google that you’ve begun cleaning your backlink profile and if they don’t feel you’ve done enough your website will remain with a black mark next to it. I’ve even heard stories where businesses have had to buy completely new domains and build completely new websites just to gain back rankings. This is the worst case scenario but be aware, this does happen!

2. Duplicate SEO Tags

SEO tags tell Google and other Search Engines what your webpage is about, and the more unique and detailed you can make these the better. Having duplicate SEO tags can hugely impact your organic rankings and you need to avoid this at all costs. If you don’t have unique SEO tags you’re not giving the Search Engines any extra information about your webpage. If it’s all duplicate it just looks lazy and unorganised to the different Search Engines, and that you’re not interested in providing them with any extra information.

The SEO tags that you need to put your main focus on in regards to making unique and detailed are Title Tags and Meta Description Tags. Both need to be formatted in different ways and both have different character limits. Learn even more about Meta Descriptions with this fantastic article - How To Write A Great Meta Description To Improve Organic Click-Throughs!

3. Shabby Content

Having top quality content on your website is one of the biggest things you can do to helping organic rankings. Many Search Engines now are clever enough to be able to crawl your website and see for themselves just how good your content is. Your content needs to be 100% specific to the webpage it’s on. Having poor shabby content will not only harm your organic rankings but it will also turn off any potential customer from contacting you. If you’re not bothered about the content on your own website then what sort of impression does that give to any new visitor? Set off on the right foot with potential customers and give them the content and information they’re after.

The more detailed and exciting content you can produce the better. Never just settle for good and average content. Always try new formats of content and see what works best for your website and business. Produce eBooks, checklists, charts, statistics, guides, infographics, presentations, videos, podcasts… anything that visitors can actually download and use! This will be your goldmine for gaining and keeping customers.

4. Buying Fake Social Media Followers

As mentioned in my first point, you need to avoid buying anything which is not natural or can be seen as manipulating search results. Buying fake social media followers is not a new trend but many businesses fall into the trap of buying followers to make their profiles look better. Not only are you buying fake followers which will look unnatural but all of those followers won’t actually be real potential customers. What’s the point of having hundreds and hundreds of followers if none of them are even remotely interested in your business? When using social media for your business you need to make sure you’re posting to people who actually take interest in your business. These are much more likely to take action on your posts and become potential customers.

Buying fake followers will only ever end badly and you should 100% stay away from doing this at all costs. Never get caught up in trends on how to unfairly gain an advantage over other websites as this will only ever end badly for your business.

5. Non-Mobile Responsive Site

Having a mobile responsive website is one the more beneficial things you can do for your website. The online world is moving mobile and Search Engines have caught onto this. It’s not new news that you need to get mobile but if your website is still not mobile response you need to take action on this ASAP! Not only do Search Engines use this as one of its many ranking factors but it also impacts user experience.

Imagine a potential customer visiting your website on a mobile device only to find it’s not responsive whatsoever, they’d get pretty bored right? You want to give all potential customers the best experience possible when visiting your website and this is why being mobile is so important!

6. Keyword Stuffing

It’s crucial that your webpages across your site target the right specific keyword that you want that page to rank for organically. One massive point you need to avoid is keyword stuffing. By this, I mean unnaturally adding your keyword throughout the content on a specific page. There was once a time where this worked wonders for organic rankings, but Search Engines soon caught on to what was happening. If you mention a keyword too many times within your piece of content not only is it unnatural and forceful, but your websites organic rankings will be hit. You want to avoid continuing to use the exact keyword throughout your content and focus your attention on the overall quality of the content on the page.

Keep It Clean & Natural

When carrying out SEO on your website you always need to keep it clean and natural. Never ever try to manipulate Google or the other Search Engines as this will only ever end badly for your website and your business. Always take pride in the work you do when editing and updating your website. If at all you have any questions regarding SEO or you need any assistance with your current SEO efforts, simply get in touch with us today!