SEO has been in constant progression ever since the term was coined. It is not what it used to be 5 or 10 years ago. It has become A LOT more strict and you have to be on top of it to rank your website on Google properly.
A few years ago, all you had to do was to write something and to post it on your website or blog. Nowadays, things are different. You have to follow all the SEO rules.
But even if you do follow them, there are still some mistakes that you cannot allow yourself to make. Some crucial mistakes that you should avoid at all costs.
In this short article, I will share with you some of the mistakes you should stay as far as humanly possible from. You will learn how to NOT stab yourself in the back. Instead, after reading this short article, you will be able to write better than ever (in terms of ranking your content on Google).
After reading it, you will have learned my top 5 mistakes (the ones that I see most often) and if you were making any of them, you will have a simple and actionable way to fix them right away. So let’s begin.
1. Deluding Yourself That Your Amazing Content Will Rank On Google Without Any On-Page Optimization
Don’t take me wrong. Having great content is something awesome. However, if you are not doing your on-page optimization, then you have a close to zero chance of ranking it on Google.
And what’s the point of writing great content if no one will ever see it? Well, it’s kind of useless, isn’t it?
Now, you might think there is still chance to rank your content EVEN if you are not optimizing your on-page SEO. And you are right. But this is literally all LUCK.
So are you willing to base your great content’s future on luck or do you want to take the necessary action to make sure people see it?
If you answered “Yes, I want people to see my content.”, then your actionable tip #1 is:
Never Forget To Do Your On-Page SEO Optimization
2. Deluding Yourself That Your Amazing Content Will Get Links Without Having To Work For It
Again, that’s simply leaving your content’s future to LUCK instead of using your SKILLS for it.. not a good idea, right?
If you do rely on luck, you can actually expect 10% of your content to get some external links. But is that enough?
You are doing all that writing, day after day, hustling like a beast, doing 10X of what some other people do, and only 10% of your work can actually make it? (If you are pretty darn lucky that is…) Isn’t that too much effort for such insignificant results?
Well, it is. And if you are willing to spend the time to write such great content, then you might as well follow my actionable tip #2:
Never Forget To Do Your Link Building
3. Writing Content That Is Too Short
Is your content mostly short (less than 500 words)? I hope not. Because if so, then you are spending your time on writing content that actually has a tiny tiny chance of ranking on Google.
It is not impossible. BUT the chances are almost non-existent. If you are going to write any type of content, then you’d better value your time more and follow my actionable tip #3:
Write Longer Content
Okay, but what does this mean? How much is long enough?
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Well, usually the longer the better. Top position articles are almost always longer than those that are 10 positions behind them.
How much longer? 400 words on average (as you can see below).
As you see, the longer, the better. However, I want to give you something actionable, and not just “write longer content”. Your goal from now on should always be to write AT LEAST 1,200 words.
And yes, in some cases less would work better. And in other cases, A LOT more would be the way to go. But, as a general rule, 1,200 is a number you can look out for when writing your amazing content.
Bonus: if you are a data-driven person, then this article is most likely going to be interesting to you: How Important is Content Length.
4. Turning Your Back On Internal Links
You might think this one is not so important. And yes, it’s not the most important one. BUT you shouldn’t turn your back on it so fast.
This might as well be the easiest way to increase metrics on your site such as time-on-site and page-views.
And don’t just link to your homepage. Instead, link to some other great content you’ve got on your website, some “deep” pages.
So what’s our actionable tip #4? Here you have it:
Include At Least 2-3 Internal Links To Each Of The Masterpieces You Create
5. Using Links That Are Broken
Such links can hurt your website optimization tremendously. And having broken links is a mistake I see way too often. But before I tell you how to fix it, let me first tell you what a “broken link” means.
This term means your link drives people who click it to a non-existent page (or a wrong one). And what are the most common causes of broken links?
The ones I see most often are deleted or moved content, a change in URL structure, and incorrect re-directs.
But how to fix them? Should we manually check all of our links on our website on a daily basis?
Definitely NOT. Instead, you can use a tool like Screamingfrog’s Broken Link Checker (the image below) to find the links that might be harming your website optimization.
Check For Broken Links On A Weekly Basis
Advanced Tip To Beat Your Competition: You can use the tool above to check your competitors’ websites for broken links, too. This way, when you find some links that are not working as they are supposed to, you can simply contact the linking site and tell them to link you instead.
Conclusion
There are lots of mistakes anyone can make when it comes to optimizing your website performance (in terms of ranking on Google). And those were just 5 of them. There are many more you should beware about. Right from the basics of having a mobile friendly website to ensuring site speed.
However, those 5 are the ones I see MOST OFTEN. And if you are making just one of those mistakes, simply fixing it (with my actionable tip) can bring your website’s SEO optimization on a whole new level.
