Common SEO practices that hinder rather than help
Regardless of how technologically savvy you are, anyone who manages a website will be aware of the importance of SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation. This is an incredibly effective way of bringing more customers to your website. By using the correct combination of keywords, descriptions and meta-titles, you can help search engine algorithms associate your website with searches made by users on their site. Closer matches to the searched terms will ensure that your website is higher up in the rankings, and thus people are far more likely to click on the link, taking them to your site.
As such, there are many tips and tricks for increasing SEO, however, not all of them can be trusted. Often, so of the most common practices hinder your optimisation rather than help it. Our experts at Epic New Media list the most common mistakes they have seen:
1. Overusing Keywords
Although keywords are key to helping the search engine find your page and match it to the searched terms, this does not mean you should try and insert keywords in every single sentence. Keyword stuffing, as it is commonly known, actually causes the algorithms to mark your page as spam, resulting in your SEO performance being reduced.
2. Never updating your page
As the internet is dynamic, your website must be too. Failing to update your pages, text, and keywords may result in your competitors overtaking you, and this is likely to impact on your sales. Don’t just assume that your current SEO strategy will work indefinitely, and continuously adapt your practices to your competition, performance, and internet trends to maximise your potential.
3. Publishing unoriginal content
Just as you can’t copy someone else’s SEO strategy and expect it to work perfectly for your website, you can’t copy someone else’s content and expect it to help your own SEO rankings, even if that content contains a lot of your keywords. Algorithms quickly pick up on plagiarised material and send it to the back of the rankings list, completely ruining any good SEO practices that you have.
SEO is difficult, and getting it right can be a challenge. So why not ask our specialist team at Epic New Media to help you out? Contact our experts today!