Avoid These Poor SEO Hacks to Save Your Site

Search engine optimization is a term even outsiders of the marketing world are familiar with at this point. By now, most people and companies know what it means, but not necessarily how to use it to their advantage. Unfortunately, poor SEO practices could be hurting your site’s ranking on search engines. Avoid making these common mistakes on your journey to SEO success.

Overuse of keywords

Also known as keyword stuffing, repetition of the same keywords to bump up your SEO is a harmful practice. These days, Google holds user experience as a high priority, and your site ranking may be punished for such practices. Keyword stuffing is exactly as it sounds, it’s the practice of including multiple keywords and repeating them excessively in your content. Keep your keywords concentrated to no more than three. In a good SEO approach, keywords appear naturally and spaced-out in the text.

Irrelevance

It’s understandable a company wants to direct as much traffic as possible to its site, but using irrelevant keywords is no way to do it. Attempting to fool users with keywords to come to your site won’t get them to stay there, thus increasing your bounce rate. Obviously, users search keywords to find something to fulfill a need, therefore they don’t want to be misled to irrelevant content. Not only does this harm the user’s experience, but it also doesn’t help your cause. Instead, strong, relevant keywords attract the exact consumers you company wishes for.

Duplicate Content

There’s nothing authentic about duplicated content. If your content appears the same under two different web addresses, or URLs, that’s duplicate content. Doing so interferes with how Google ranks your site. Google looks to slim down the amount of repetitive content displayed to users. Not only does a second URL get buried on the crowded web, but it’s likely your main site will as well.

An Overabundance of Ads

It’s acceptable to have an ad here or there, but don’t get too crazy. It’s never a good SEO practice to have too many ads appear before the content. Google’s page layout algorithm eventually detects excessive use of ads and punishes websites for it. A good rule of thumb is to never allow enough ads that the user must first scroll to reach content. Besides, solid content helps your site more than paid ads ever will.

It’s vital companies remain integral in their SEO practices. After all, the content you publish reflects your brand’s reputation. It’s critical that companies build trust when a user visits their site. Be empathetic and consider the user’s experience. Websites full of obvious keywords for optimal SEO is unattractive to users desiring an honest company. When used correctly, SEO transforms online presence and attracts traffic.

If your website needs help with best SEO practices, contact Kraus Marketing for guidance from our seasoned professionals.