Common Search Engine Optimisation Blunders

As a search engine optimisation provider in Australia, we’ve seen it all. There are two types of mistakes people make that can and likely will damage a website’s chances of ever ranking in a search engine like Google; the mistakes people make when they employ the wrong marketing and optimisation techniques and the mistakes people make when they do nothing at all.

At The SEO Company, we often perform deep analyses of clients’ sites to identify all of the places in which their previous search engine optimisation efforts, once thought to be good tactics but since made redundant or even damaging by search engine algorithm changes, are harming a site’s chances of ranking well for a specific set of keyword terms. The analyses, including Technical Audits and On-Page Reports, can also show us where a site is lacking in terms of optimisation and search engine marketing, which allows us to design and develop a highly relevant strategy for their new search engine optimisation campaign.

While choosing to have us perform a Technical Audit or On-Page Report is always money well spent, today I’m going to share a few of the most common mistakes we see in websites:

Inadequate Off-Page Optimisation

Whether you hired another company to handle your site’s search engine optimisation campaign, or you’re doing your best to handle your site’s search engine marketing needs, what many websites lack is high-quality backlinks. Even a website that has impeccable on-page SEO will still flounder in the search engine rankings because they lack the right number of  quality backlinks. This is definitely one of the many areas in which it pays to work with a reputable search engine marketing team, because Google algorithm updates have made the old practices of building backlinks from just about anywhere to your site a punishable offense.

Using the Wrong Keyword Terms is the Antithesis of Optimisation

Shoddy keyword research performed by people who aren’t 100% in-tune with what works for search engine optimisation today will always work against you. Targeting keyword terms that don’t have buyer’s intent or receive zero traffic is a waste of time. Ideally, your marketing strategy includes optimising your site for 120 highly relevant, high buyer’s intent keyword terms.

A Site Design that’s Not Compatible with Any Search Engine Bot

When there’s little text or Flash is used, it’s difficult for a search engine bot to crawl a site, which is part of the process through which your rankings are determined. What’s more is that if there’s little text on a page, optimisation will be much more difficult or nearly impossible. When we analyse sites for their on-page SEO value, we often recommend that site owners beef up the word counts on their pages, using a very specific ratio of keyword terms as well.

Some Content Management Systems are Not Search Engine Optimisation Friendly

There are many, many reasons to choose a team that includes web developers and SEO gurus to build your new website, one of which is so that you can get your site off on the right foot with the search engines by choosing a search engine-friendly content management system or CMS. Not every CMS will allow you to make quick and easy updates to content (search engines love fresh, optimised content), nor will they allow you to employ your keyword optimisation tactics to the title tags, URLs, meta data and text links.

This really is just a small glimpse in terms of the search engine optimisation errors that are commonly made. Choose the most efficient and effective way to move your site up the search engine rankings. Elect to have us perform a technical audit and on-page analysis of your website and let’s get your site properly positioned for a successful search engine optimisation campaign. Call us at 1300 88 55 57 to learn more.