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It’s not me, it’s you. Well, it might be you. There’s a chance you’re doing everything perfectly when it comes to SEO for your business website/blog, but it’s more likely that you could use some, shall we say, tweaking. A bowtie straightened. A stray curl smoothed back. Some phrases added. A submission here and there.
What mistakes might you be making when it comes to SEO for business? Don’t brush this off. You can still see your search engine results drop overnight if you do something wrong, potentially by dozens of pages.
Let’s start with the obvious:
Are You Keeping Up With Algorithms?
Are you researching current SEO for business algorithms and best practices? If you are relying on tips from the past, you are in trouble. Even though they worked back then, they don’t work now. Search engines, namely Google, are a maddening, ever changing and evolving thing. Picture one of those lamps that morph into every color of the rainbow in a never-ending loop. That’s what you’re dealing with. Stay on top of it and make sure the rules you’re following are the latest.
Purchasing SEO for Business Services
Oh, you guys. This is bad. Baaaaad, baaaad, baaaad. You really must absolutely not ever fall for the lies that SEO for business services promise. You will NOT end up on the page 1. This is because if you’re creating unnatural backlinks you’re in trouble. You might even get penalized if you create too many pages too quickly because Google will see this as computer-generated versus providing users value. Creating great share-worthy content needs to be at the front of everything you do.
Crappy Guest Content
We’re champions of having guests post content on your blog. Really. The benefits are enormous—there’s crossover to other blogs, you get unique content, and you boost your expert and trust value. Make sure you’re judicious, though. If you’re accepting anything from anybody simply because you’re too busy to keep up wtih producing new posts, you’ll do more damage than good. Instead of just taking any concept that someone wants to provide you with, make sure it adheres to a set of quality standards that you can use for promoting the best SEO practices possible.
Are You Submitting Your Website to Search Engines?
How dare you.
Once your new blog is live, the first thing you should do is to submit your site to search engines. This should be done right away as this will help your site get indexed faster.
You can do this through Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools. Don’t be alarmed–there are things you must do for submission, but it’s not painful. This will help keep you rising toward the top, rather than sinking to the bottom.
Website Set to ‘noindex’
Having your website set to “noindex” will completely discourage search engines from showing your website. The effect of this would be like your car not starting because you don’t have the keys in.
Check Your Links
Are your links broken? This reduces faith in your website visitors. If your links are broken, you aren’t seen as a trustworthy expert. It looks naive and sloppy. (One broken link of course won’t cause this less than stellar perception, but as they add up, they hurt you.) Do yourself a favor and utilize Broken Link Check to monitor it for you.
Have You Forgotten Who You’re Writing For?
After conducting your keyword research, you may want to inject your chosen keywords and phrases throughout your site as often as possible, but doing so will actively bring down the quality of your content (and your domain authority with it)…Google’s semantic search capacity has made keywords much less relevant to a businesses’ SEO success than in the past. Keep your focus on your user, and write directly to him or her. Your energy and writing will flourish.
How About Social Media?
Suuuuurely, you’ve heard by now that social media allows you to amplify your brand’s voice, extending your presence on the Web by ensuring more people are exposed to your best content. It also allows you to monitor what people are talking about in your area of expertise and join the conversation at a moment’s notice, increasing your credibility.
But don’t take our word for it–the latest statistic says that 78 percent of U.S. Americans had a social media profile, representing a five percent growth compared to the previous year. According to estimates, the number of worldwide social media users reached 1.96 billion and is expected to grwo to some 2.5 billion by 2018.
