Did you know that 40% of people will abandon a website if it loads too slowly? While many people know the bare basics of SEO, there?s a lot you might be missing out on when it comes to generating leads for your business online if you?re not careful.
If you?ve ever had a chance to chat with people who make a living from SEO, you?ve realized that there?s a lot of common mistakes people make — mistakes that can ultimately harm their website and its ability to thrive. Here are four things SEO experts recommend not doing, if you want to have a successful search engine optimization experience.
1. DON?T: Go for the Most Generic Keywords
If you sell shoes, it might make sense to you to aim for the keyword ?new shoes.? However, this is an incredibly generic keyword — you?ll be competing against thousands of companies to get it on the first page of Google results. And once you do? Half the people who click to come to your site will realize it doesn?t have what they want, rendering your investment useless. SEO consultants recommend having targeted, longtailed keywords that actually address your intended audience. Examples here would include terms like ?cheap black new shoes? or ?short heeled shoes for workplace.?
2. DON?T: Have a Flimsy Website
As the intro indicated, having things like a slow website, a difficult to navigate website, or an outdated website are all things you?re going to want to avoid. Otherwise, you?ll end up paying all this money for SEO services to get leads to your website — only to have them click then leave because nothing about your website makes them trust it. One study found that 75% of users admit to judging a business?s credibility by their website design alone. In other words, once it comes time to hire web design experts — don?t just hire your cousin to do the job.
3. DON?T: Pay for the Cheapest SEO Available
Unless it?s somehow also of premium quality, that is. Investing in SEO can often make small businesses feel nervous since it?s a marketing field they have little experience in, and it might seem like a good idea to go for the cheapest services available. This can actually come back to bite you, though, SEO experts advise. Google is constantly making updates to its search algorithm to weed out shady players — which is often what these cheap companies are (they have non-native speakers create content, and rely on link spam to raise rankings). If Google marks the links you bought as questionable, you could actually lose ranking power.
Have you talked to any SEO experts lately? What have they advised?
