The Top Mistakes People Make With Their SEO

A successful search engine optimization (SEO) campaign has numerous components. There is no silver bullet to ranking well online. However, good SEO professionals know the best practices to put your business in a position to succeed. They also know what can cause your rankings to crumble. Let’s dive into the biggest mistakes you can make with your SEO and how to avoid them.

1.  Ignoring your Google My Business – The first critical SEO error is not claiming or properly managing your Google My Business (GMB) listings. With Google continuing to place importance on “near me” searches, the biggest opportunity for businesses to rank well is to claim their location, provide all info and answer questions that come in. If you work with an SEO Specialist, they can edit your GMB and make sure your listing is correct and up to date with the info, hours, descriptions, and reviews.
2. Not adding unique custom content – Providing quality unique content is a large ranking factor for your website. Websites that provide quality content consistently rank higher in search engine results. The unique content shows visitors how your practice is different from other local practices that offer the same service. Does the office down the street also do Invisalign? Then you’re going to want to tell your patients why you are different and why they should choose you. The ranks that are earned with quality content also show you’re an authority on the subject and show your website visitors that you are familiar with the latest trends.
3. Thinking SEO is a one-time task – Some people treat SEO as a service that they work on right when they open their business, then leave it alone after that. Many have the impression that with the right amount of technical optimizations, their websites can achieve perpetual SEO rankings quickly, and then they are done with the process. This simply isn’t true. Businesses should continually expand the strategies of their websites to accommodate relevant content about their services, while also working with SEO Specialists to create different projects to keep the business trending upward with ranking results.
4. Only Focusing on on-site SEO – Many businesses still believe that all of the SEO process is done on-site. This will set you back from the start. Optimizing your website is a major component to ranking but you cannot forget about off-site strategies. This includes things like your Google My Business optimizations, ensuring your business information is correct across platforms, and link building, among others. All of these pieces come together to create a successful SEO campaign. The days of solely relying on your website are behind us.

Hopefully with this knowledge of common SEO mistakes, you can help improve your online rankings and make sure your local business is on trend when customers are searching for you online. If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to reach out to our SEO specialists!

—Aliah Rasmussen, SEO Specialist, Sesame Communications