The digital marketing terrain has changed dramatically over the last two decades. In fact, it has evolved to the point that if your blog does not comply with Google’s continuously changing algorithm, it may not only rank poorly (despite having great content) but get blacklisted by Google, sometimes on a permanent basis.
So one day, you’re getting a steady stream of traffic and clicks, the next day – poof – all your hard work and marketing efforts, gone from Google’s search engine result pages.
Here are five common SEO mistakes your blog is making and how to rectify them:
Keyword Structure that’s Not Optimised Properly
Despite the availability of machine learning technology and semantic search, it really pays to do your keyword research.
A good internal content marketing strategy thematically links on-site content with relevant business objectives through the use of keywords and topics. Therefore, without proper keyword research, you won’t really know who your target audience is.
In short, optimise tags, headers and content body with targeted keywords and phrases. Use long-tail phrases that are informational for on-site blogs.
Images and Videos that are Poorly Optimised
Is your blogger spending enough time and effort on video and image optimisation? Image sizes and file formats that are not optimised properly are considered a common load mistake that can significantly cause SEO performance to wither.
Optimise your “alt text” in a way that it’s positioned to rank in an image search through targeted keywords. This is important because the alt text will let search engines know what the content is about, in case it fails to display in a user’s browser.
When it comes to proper video file optimisation, host all files in a single folder – create a video site map so that search engines can easily index all those videos. Meta descriptions for all video pages should be optimised with targeted keywords for easy indexation.
On-page Copy that’s Abysmal
Ever heard of: “it’s far more important to craft content for users rather than search engines”? Bloggers tend to forget this golden rule at times.
Time to take a step back and see what your blog posts aim to establish; e.g. how do you perceive it as a reader? Do the blog titles give a fair indication of what the content is about? How well does the introductory paragraph flow? Are you inserting appropriate images after every 350-400 words, if each blog is significantly long?
Edit with a vengeance and make sure that your copy looks concise and clean, with the relevant tags, headers, subheadings and keywords.
Internal Links that are Simply Inconsistent
Surprising to know is the fact that internal linking issues are a frequent occurrence even at SEO agencies. This is a basic SEO optimisation tactic that many bloggers and digital marketers either overlook completely or don’t give it the attention it deserves.
Good internal linking establishes paths, allowing users to easily navigate your site; defines how the site structure works and displays your most important pages to search engines; indexes linked-to-web pages in anchor text through keywords that have been hyperlinked over that text; opens up deep-linked web pages and boosts crawl rate; and, saturates authority throughout the site.
Even your backlinking can be amplified through smart internal linking.
Sites that Invest in Paid Links
Paid links are a form of advertising, right? Well, think long and hard – all search engines see paid links the same way – a method of superficially boosting SEO rankings.
You’ll get penalised for it so use white hat tactics instead to boost SEO rankings.
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