SEO Mistakes

Beginners do mistakes – the deadly mistakes – affecting ones lives to learn how SEO works.

Look – you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Listen, and follow the instructions in this article.

If you pay attention, I can guarantee you, you can achieve results, save your money, and avoid frustration.

Let’s get started.

SEO Mistakes

Niche selection

Indeed, the most important step in SEO is Niche selection.

Here is what happens.

If you have no specific niche, chances of successful content become slim on search pages.

The point is, Google prefers niche sites for authority, experts’ opinion, and helpful advice for readers.

Secondly – creating content on a subject you don’t know well, is the bullet proof formula to create irrelevant, incorrect, and not helpful content.

Process of Keyword Research

Keyword research helps you find relevant content subjects.

Second, it helps you figure out, what topics people are searching for on Google.

If you don’t have data in hand – such as relevant ideas, search volume, traffic potential of keywords, competition analysis, and content angles, how can you expect, your site’s content strategy will achieve positive results?

Pay attention.

Search Intent

On search pages, search intent helps experts correctly figure out users’ intentions. To convert well, it helps you create correct content angles.

There is another aspect of search intent.

Listen, if you don’t correctly satisfy users’ intent on search pages, Google doesn’t prefer ranking your page.

In simple words, search intent helps you correctly address readers’ problems, provide solutions, and create relevant content – no doubt.

Spending money on SEO Tools

Stop sending money on SEO candidates, especially if you’re a beginner in SEO.

Here is what beginners think about Tools.

Tools can help us achieve rankings. Wrong.

Instead, learn how to find relevant content ideas manually, assess keywords’ competition level on search pages, and create SEO optimized content to rank. Simple.

Remember – SEO is not hard, it is critical to understand.

Over optimizing Content

Over optimization kills search intent, natural tone, and readers’ expectations.

Sometimes, we call it Keyword Stuffing – a shady practice used to let search engines understand: “our piece of content is more relevant”. The process involves spreading out random, related content in content, more than enough – unnaturally.

The point of impact is, over optimizing content hurts your site’s SEO, instead of improving rankings. Search engines can flag your site for Spam, remember.

Building Backlinks blindly

Look – you need to understand the fact.

Backlinks can help us improve rankings, no doubt. However, building quality backlinks can help us, remember.

In this case, if you blindly build backlinks, it can harm your site’s rankings.

In this regard, assessing if a backlink from a site weighs importance, is a different process.

Practicing SEO on Live website

Don’t practice SEO on live website, especially if you’re a beginner.

To practice, you need to create a staging website first – a site used to perform A/B Testing, practice SEO, and monitor campaigns for learning purposes.

There is no difference in SEO stats on different platforms. The stats you experience for a live site, the same routine you can see on a staging website. You can feel the story.

Inconsistency

Remember – consistency in SEO helps achieve organic results.

Especially – if you’ve started a new site, focusing on SEO for the coming months, is the only option.

If you don’t focus on SEO, chances of failing your site becomes high.

The first months refer to Google Sandbox duration – the time search engines take to see if a new site is trustworthy, usually six months.

During a Sandbox duration, you have to make sure, you put out quality content, signaling search engines, your site is more relevant, seriously managed, and able to rank on search pages.

Rewriting Content

Remember, if you rewrite a piece of content, search engines can smell the content as “new”.

In this case, until search engines crawl the content again, you can lose page’s rankings.

Instead, you can make changes slightly, slowly, and gradually to let search engines of updating routines.

Also, make sure to submit the page to GSC. It helps you let Google notice changes.

On the other hand, if rewriting a page is the only option left, you should prepare yourself for Google’s bot schedule to discover, crawl, index, and rank your new page.

Automation for SEO

Avoid SEO automation.

Yes – it affects how SEO stats rolls out naturally.

However, if you’re carrying out technical routines, such as site audit, you can consider automation.

Specifically, don’t prefer automation for content creation or publishing routines. It can trigger spam filters against your site.

Automation is only acceptable, if you’re bulk optimizing images, such as image compression or resizing.

Your Money Your Life niches (YMYL)

Google – for some niches, only accept and trust authorized content. Such niches are called YMYL niches, such as Health and Finance.

If you’re a blogger, make sure to stay away from YMYL niches.

Even, if you are well aware of consequences, you can find rankings harder in YMYL niches.

For example, instead of an individual writer – search engines use to trust writers for health content. Yes, it makes sense.

Content diversity

Don’t sound selfish in content creation.

Beginners, only publish content on specific content types, angles, or purpose. No way.

For example, to increase conversions – if you’re focusing on commercial keywords only, you’re doing a serious mistake.

Search engines can even, disappear your site from search pages. It may fall under spam.

Instead, here is what you should do.

Look, publish a mixture of content for users. You should validate ideas first – the process of keyword research can help you.

Next – try focusing on publishing informational, as well as commercial content for monetization purposes. There is no other option.

Remember, focusing on a specific content subject can flag you for spam.

Failure to monitor SEO performance

Once you’ve published a piece of content, your job has just started.

Look, monitoring SEO performance helps you figure out, what’s possible.

In this case, Google Search Console is your friend. There is no need to use fancy SEO candidates, such as Ahrefs.

Remember, if you overlook SEO monitoring, even – if you have created quality content, search engines can flag your content for outdated information, page speed, or technical issues. Take it seriously.

Wrong Content Optimization

In most cases, people think – content optimization is the process of spreading out related phrases on page.

You need to understand what happens.

Spreading out random, relevant phrases doesn’t work, if you don’t follow a strategic approach.

Look, you have to pick first, what phrases help your page rank in the Google’s top 3 positions.

Using Filter options in Google Search Console, once you have a list of phrases – you’re ready to update your content.

On the other hand, if you don’t use the Filters, you’re instead – increasing irrelevancy of the page. You’re spreading out phrases, affecting your page instead. The keywords you are embedding may rank your page on second, or third page on search pages.

Pay attention.

Technical SEO

You can’t deny technical SEO.

It helps you make sure, search engines can discover, crawl, index, and rank your site’s assets.

Search engines can drop sites, if a site has errors, indexability issues, or has infrastructural issues.

Makes sure, while publishing content on a regular basis – fixing technical issues has equal importance.

To get started, pay attention to stats in Google Search Console.

Pay attention to Google Search Console

Once a page stabilizes on search pages, Google Search Console starts showing performance data.

Look, there is no need to use other Tools. GSC, in this case – can help.

Have an eye on the keywords’ rankings, impressions, CTR, and user experience metrics and of course, make changes accordingly.

Especially, once a page ages 2 months, you need to have a look at stats in GSC data.

Robots.TXT File

In SEO, the robots.TXT file helps site owners control, the crawling, allowing, or denying stats of site’s assets for search engines.

One of the mistakes is, beginners use to overlook Robots.TXT existence. It can help you play around pages on search pages.

Conversely, if you don’t know how to use the file – you can affect how Google crawls and index your site’s pages.

Be careful and learn how to use the Robots.TXT file, correctly.

Low quality vs Helpful content

To drive organic traffic, you don’t need to spam low quality content on search pages.

Basically, you may think – “publishing more content on low competitive keywords can help drive quick rankings”, instead, you can harm your site’s reputation.

The point is, you should publish helpful content, high quality, detailed resources – helping readers find solutions to their problems. In this case, even if you publish a single piece of content per week, it would be good.

The point is, low quality content at scale is dangerous, Google can flag your site for spam. Conversely, publishing helpful content is a slow process, yet helps you gain reputation in the long run.

Don’t fall for the trap – remember.

Internal Linking strategy

Internal links help a site’s owner improve crawlability.

Having no Internal links between site’s pages, affects how search engines jump from page to page and discover new content.

To get started, use Google’s SITE operator to find similar content on your site. You can link together relevant pages. However, make sure, the context paragraph describes correctly, the purpose of linking to another page.

Page Speed

Experts believe – page speed is a ranking factor.

If you’re not optimizing pages for speed, search engines can drop your pages.

Remember – even, if you’re using a premium theme, you need to see if page speed makes sense.

Look, if your site is not loading within 3 seconds, majority of users bounce back to search results. This is what, increase your bounce rate.

And, extension in bounce rate means, search engines will be dropping your pages from search pages. There is no rocket science.

Second – cheap web hosting helps you start quickly. However, if your site has started driving organic traffic, you should have migrated your site to a robust hosting plan. Remember, web hosting plays a vital role in page speed.

Word count psychology

Personally speaking, I have been freelance writing for more than 13 years now.

I can speak with confidence, hitting a specific word count for SEO content, is similar to killing organic traffic, search intent, and user expectations. There is no second option.

So, what should you do, instead?

Look, forget about word count psychology when writing SEO content. You must care about readers’ search intent, expectations, and problems. This is what we should call writing SEO content.

If your content satisfies users’ intent on search pages, search engines will be ranking for better user experience, no doubt.

You can rank without backlinks, if you focus on providing solutions to users’ problems.

Page Responsiveness

Simply put, search engines can drop from ranking, if a site has responsiveness issues.

In simple words, if a site’s pages fail to load correctly on various screens, such as Desktop, Tablets, or Android phones – search engines can affect the site’s rankings. There is no other option.

You have to make sure, you’re using a responsive theme. On the other hand, if you know how to use a page builder – use one to create custom templates.

Above all – a responsive page, prepared to attract relevant audience – helps to improve users’ experience. In return, you can see people converting from readers into paying subscribers, of course.

Duplicate Content

What’s the point of having duplicate content on a site?

Remember – you may unconsciously host duplicate content, remember.

For example, in WordPress – if creating categories is undeniable, setting a post under multiple categories creates duplication.

So – if you’re dealing with categories and tags, you should have understood relevant complications.

On a site, duplication refers to existence of a piece of content on multiple places. Yes, it can cause duplication problems.

Duplication in SEO, actually cause bad reputation. Of course, there is no point in having one piece of content on multiple places. Search engines don’t like duplication.

Outsourcing SEO

My friend – you need to understand a fact.

Outsourcing SEO doesn’t work, if you’re not a full stack SEO experts.

From start to finish, running an SEO campaign requires careful attention, SEO rules, and monitoring performance.

Well, the point is, people don’t work correctly, even if you pay well.

So, if outsourcing SEO is the only choice left for you, make sure, you’re monitoring everything.

Monitoring includes validating what others are doing, issuing proper instructions, and ultimately, making sure processes are correct.

In fact, there is no once for all situation. You can’t set yourself free, after you’ve paid well outsourcing SEO projects.

Black Hat SEO

As its name suggests, illegal routines in SEO increases your domain’s bad reputation.

To manipulate search engines’ algorithms for quick results, everything you do falls under “Black Hat SEO”.

Don’t fall for the trap. SEO is a long term game, remember.

Illegal activities including buying links, publishing content at a high frequency, and spreading keywords across a page’s content, randomly.

Illegal activities can sometimes, help you drive quick results. Indeed, the conversions fade away quickly, and you’re left behind bars.

Competition Analysis

Before you’ve created content, you should have performed competition analysis for keywords.

The process ensures and forecasts, if you can rank for a specific keyword.

As its name suggests, the process involves assessing a keyword’s competition level on search pages, especially in the Google’s first 3-5 positions.

So, remember – having content published without competition analysis is a big no for beginners.

In simple words, if you can rank for a keyword on search pages, you can’t drive organic traffic. If you have no traffic, you can’t convert users. This doesn’t help you make money, simply.

Search Volume

In SEO, search volume shows a keyword’s traffic potential. In simple words, search volume helps you forecast, if your site can drive traffic, if you publish content on s specific keyword.

Look, there is a problem.

The more you target low competitive keywords – having less search volume, the more you will be driving less traffic. However, keep in mind – high search volume keywords have greater competition on search pages.

Here – the point of impact is having no proper strategy for keywords’ search volume. It is a mistake, remember.

For example, you should have chosen keywords, satisfying the following criteria.

• You should publish content on low competitive keywords, as well as target seed keywords, detailed content, helping you drive traffic with related phrases.
• Second – you should carefully choose promising keywords. For example, if a keyword has a few hundred search volume, and has a chance of rankings, you should create content. On the other hand, if a keyword is low competitive and has no search volume, you should think about skipping the keyword.

In this case, having a balance between search volume ad rank-ability defines, success rate. The opposite case is terrible, keep in mind.

Tools data

In SEO, relying too much on Tools’ data is dangerous.

For example, I have experienced this a countless time. A keyword appears low competitive in Tools’ data is impossible to rank.

Similarly, a keyword seems low competitive manually, is a perfect choice, while Tools’ flag the same keywords impossible to rank on search pages.

So – while choosing relevant content ideas for SEO, relying too much on SEO Tools’ data can distract you from reality.

The point is, you should have manual knowledge of competition analysis. It helps you actually assess a keyword status on search pages. In this case, tools can’t help you assess search intent, competition analysis perfectly, or advice you on how you should compile outlines.

On Page SEO

On page SEO helps users increase a page’s relevancy.

If a page doesn’t satisfy users’ intent on search pages, search engines can ignore your page. Similarly, if a page has no basic on page SEO, search engines can consider other pages.

In most cases, beginners do mistakes while on page SEO can help them rank a page.

Second, relying too much on plugins’ suggestions is also terrible. Don’t fall for the trap.

What you need to do is, learn how manual On page SEO works. You should be able to proceed with manual routines, bullet proof strategy to rank.

Image SEO

Image SEO helps you increase image’s performance, as well as keeps branding secure.

Basically, if your images have no ALT tags, readers can find reading images hard, if an image doesn’t show properly.

Second, if creating branded images is what you prefer, protecting with a watermark can help you increase brand awareness.

It also helps you secure rankings on search pages, such as results pages of Google Image Search.

Tools for quick Indexing

Stop.

Don’t use quick indexing tools.

You can practice legal procedures to boost indexability, instead of using various services for indexing.

It falls under spam. It affects how Google prefers to index your new content pages.

Dare to break SEO rules

Sometimes, breaking SEO rules can help.

For example, instead of checking your copy with plagiarism checkers, manually remove grammatical errors.

In this case, personally speaking – I’ve seen services removing errors from copy, while at the same time, the system flags content for text automation patterns. It doesn’t make sense.

Second, if you’re not natural, you can affect readers’ expectations, search intent, and conceptual flow of the copy.

On the other hand, services to help you remove errors automatically – are used to override conceptual flow.

Google Updates

Doing SEO is a long term game, remember.

Don’t ignore Google updates, optimizing your site for latest core algorithms, and monitoring SEO status, on a regular basis.

There is no shortcut, my friend.

Even, if your site’s pages are ranking, you should care about Google core updates.

Once Google rolls out an update, legitimate sites are assessed for changes, as well.

In this duration, you can lose search rankings, organic traffic, and conversions – of course.

Here is what you should keep in mind.

• Have an eye on Google update frequency. Make sure, you are well aware of the updates, way before the release dates.
• Try different monetization strategies. It helps you avoid affection on conversions, if a Google update takes longer to assess your site. Simple.

Content Freshness

A content’s freshness ensures, a piece of content makes sense for users, even if getting old.

If you’re doing research, make sure to find evergreen content ideas in your niche.

The process, actually starts from selecting a niche. In this case, the more you know your blogging niche, the more you can better understand users’ problems. It helps you come up with evergreen content subjects – no doubt.

Second, make sure to update existing posts regularly. If, for example – you come up with something helpful to readers, you should update relevant content, accordingly.

Don’t add fluff to increase a post’s word count. This doesn’t work.

The point is, update a piece of content with proven, actionable stats you’ve gone through personally. Share your experience, stats, or strategies – helping readers really improve their lives.

Monitor your site Backlink profile

In simple words, a site’s backlink profile shows, how healthy the site’s backlinks are for rankings.

In this manner, the more a site’s backlinks are coming from high authority sites, the more the site’s backlink profile is healthy.

The point of impact is to choose healthy sites. Look, here is the deal.

If you’re blindly building backlinks, you’re doing a mistake.

The links you build can harm your site, instead of hoping to expect ranking improvements. It doesn’t work this way – my friend.

Website Security

There is a mistake in SEO.

If a site is infected with malware, let’s say – search engines quickly drops rankings on search pages.

So, here is what you should do?

Don’t overlook site security. At least, you should have installed a plugin in WordPress.

In SEO, publishing content is not enough. Protecting the content can help you last longer, convert well, and increase revenue.

In this case, you don’t need to hire professionals for security. You should learn how basic security precautions can help you protect online assets. Perfect.

Permalinks

Permalinks in WordPress, shows a page’s permanent link in database.

Here, you need to pay attention.

Don’t change permalink structure if you’re running an established website. Instead, you should have set a structure, once you start a new site from scratch.

Look, changing permalink structure can create redirect issues in established sites.

If it happens, you can lose search rankings.

Even, if you need to change permalink structure – you should complete the process on a staging site first.

WordPress Plugins for SEO

Installing WordPress plugins is not a bad idea. However, installing a plugin for every task, is indeed – dangerous.

More plugins means, high chances of having site issues, plugin conflicts, and problems. It also affects page speed stats.

Here, you should consider one thing.

If you can do something manually, although it requires time and efforts, do so with confidence. It helps you keep your site smooth, healthy, and error free. This in return, helps you attract search engines’ crawlers.

User Experience

User experience refers to how users interact with your site.

In simple words, user experience shows satisfaction level of users on your site.

Even, if you’re doing everything to make sure, your site will be driving organic traffic, if you’re not aware of measuring user experience – your site’s conversion rate can kill expectations.

To get started, assess bounce rate in Google Analytics stats.

Bounce rate, in simple words – shows the percentage of users leaving your page, after landing on pages from a search page.

ICP Content

ICP stands for Ideal Customer Profile.

As its name shows, if your content doesn’t match ICP, conversions are affected.

While researching content ideas, failing to address ICP correctly, can affect overall strategy. You’ll not be driving relevant traffic, affecting how many users are converting on site.

Conclusion

Remember – the game of SEO has just started.

Learning how SEO works, practicing the right procedures, wait for results, and keep monitoring performance, is the real way of how professionals do SEO, seriously.

And, if you can learn how to avoid deadly mistakes – you’re in good hands.