Good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is essential for modern businesses. Effective SEO can deliver truly astonishing, excellent commercial results, and very efficient market exposure for any business.
That said – Getting your SEO right is also essential. There are possible problems and elementary mistakes that can sabotage your SEO. We are going to take a look at the critical dos and don’ts of SEO for you.
SEO Dos
The most critical Dos are:
- Keywords: Best practice is to use “long-tail keywords”. These are keyword phrases, which accurately target specific high priority search needs. Long-tail keywords will improve search engine results (SER) and your search rankings.
- Always study your keywords metrics: Keywords metrics are studies of the efficiency of keywords in any given search context. These metrics are accurate measures of the effectiveness of specific keywords to be included in your online materials. If you’re not familiar with keywords metrics, you should consult a professional agency.
- Links: Link building is a fundamental part of search engine optimization in many ways. Relevant links help to create a picture of your content and its relevance to searches. (Be prepared to take a little time to understand this process because it is crucial.)
- Site mapping: Site maps are a list of site pages, and very useful for search engines. They use a range of indexing processes to find relevant information. Site maps are typically created during the website design process, but some websites may have obsolete or inadequate site mapping.
- Mobile optimization: Mobile media, like tablets, phones, and other mobile devices, are a truly integral part of the basic functionality of any website. This can affect SEO, in that non-optimized websites may perform poorly in comparison with optimized websites.
- Local SEO optimization: Local SEO means defining your locality and identifying your business within the local market. This makes your physical business easier to find for website users and attracts local customers. (Local business website lists also provide valuable services to improve SEO rankings.)
SEO Don’ts
The SEO Don’ts need to be well understood. These issues can cause significant problems and are genuinely counter-productive in terms of search rankings and business outcomes.
These are the important Don’ts:
- Keyword stuffing: This is an old-fashioned form of keyword spam, which is penalized by Google. Too many and unnecessary keywords can reduce your search ranking.
- The wrong links: Irrelevant or low ranking links can be an own goal in SEO terms. These links effectively confuse your search information, and the low ranking links reduce search relevance. The best practice is to use a link strategy that includes links of rankings of 30 or more.
- External links: Some external links are helpful, but not all. Some external links may look like a mix of keyword spam and directory information to search engines, which then devalue the websites. Either way, too many external links do not in any way help your SEO. Stick to the essential external links only.
- Mixing up basic information: Some websites include different phone numbers, email addresses, and other mostly useless information. This mix of information does not help website users. As you can imagine, this situation is also a particularly avoidable problem.
- Content: Repetitive content has much the same effect as keyword stuffing. It looks terrible, and on the website, it is invariably counter-productive. The other and truly destructive factor to be considered is that this type of content cannot possibly deliver any real value to your site users. Edit your content for style, which will improve your SEO results.
We hope you’ve found our SEO Dos and Don’ts blog informative and useful. If you’d like to find out more about our services, please feel free to contact us.