These critical mistakes could compromise your SEO campaign.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a powerful strategy, and one that’s dependent on thousands of variables. In most cases, business leaders and marketers make slow, iterative changes, tweaking one variable at a time to gradually improve their search engine rankings and overall visibility on the web. But it’s also possible to make unfavorable changes—ones that decrease your site’s ability to rank.
Most of the time, these negative consequences are practically harmless, especially if you notice them and make up for them quickly. But there are some bigger, more critical mistakes that could completely derail your campaign if you aren’t careful.
These are the biggest ones to avoid:
- Spamming links. Links have the power to increase your domain authority and page authority, which can help your site pages rank higher. However, spamming these links indiscriminately can end up working against you. If your links are found to be manipulative or unnatural, it could earn you a harsh penalty.
- Stuffing keywords. Keywords can help you rank for specific keywords and phrases, but again, you have to be careful here. If you’re caught stuffing unnatural keyword phrases into your content regularly, or if you try to sneak them into the background of your website, it can earn you a penalty.
- Outsourcing your content to non-native speakers. It’s inexpensive to hire overseas workers to write content on your site’s behalf, but this content usually ends up shoddily written—and it’s obvious to search engines. Instead, invest in the best, native-speaking content writers you can afford.
- Engaging in a link scheme. Link exchanges, link circles, and dozens of other link schemes all exist, and all of them can earn you a penalty. Avoid them like the plague.
- Working with a suspiciously cheap agency. In SEO, you get what you pay for. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
If you’re interested in learning more about SEO, or if you’re ready to start or improve a campaign of your own, contact Quez Media today for a free consultation!