SEO No! Common SEO Mistakes and How to Clean Them Up
Done correctly, implementing sound SEO strategies can spread brand awareness, improve search engine results, and drastically increase the quantity and quality of your inbound traffic — all of which lead to more conversions, more leads, and more revenue.
Unfortunately, most companies either aren’t familiar with SEO, don’t understand its importance, or blatantly ignore proven best practices — and it shows. In one sense, this is a real shame because a little SEO love can go a long way. On the other, it’s super awesome because it presents a golden opportunity for your organization to optimize your digital properties and get ahead of the competition.
Regardless of where you’re at in your digital marketing journey, it’s important to understand common SEO mistakes and how to correct them. So, today, we’re going to run through five of the most common SEO issues and offer simple advice on how to fix each problem.
1) Missing Meta Descriptions
Mistake: Sure, meta descriptions don’t directly influence search engine results page (SERP) rankings. However, search engine algorithms rely heavily on their interpretation of how visitors are experiencing a given page, which means you need to be writing for a human audience — not for an unknown mathematical equation.
If a user reads your meta description on a SERP, clicks through to the page, and is greeted with totally unexpected and irrelevant content, they’re likely going to bounce — which is a negative SEO metric that will damage your efforts over time.
Solution: You need to write concise and direct meta descriptions that accurately describe the content of each page. Try to keep the length of your copy at less than 160 characters to ensure your description fits on the SERP. At the same time, include enough information to describe the content sufficiently and compel your users to click through to the page.
For best results, be sure to include your focus keyword in the meta description in a way that feels relevant and organic. Google will bold these keywords on the SERP when they match your users’ queries to reinforce the fact that they are relevant searches, giving you an additional advantage over your competitors.
Lastly, never use the same meta description copy for multiple pages. Duplicate content and meta information confuse users and search engines alike, which could lead to poor user experiences and a steep decline in clicks, time on page, and conversions.