Learn what the worst SEO mistakes are and how to avoid them

SEO, an acronym for the term search engine optimization, is a set of techniques and guidelines to be applied to your website so that it reaches the top places in internet search engines, such as: Google, Bing, yahoo and others. . It seems simple, but it changes every day, with its new rules and of course, techniques. Therefore, before talking about mistakes and how to avoid them, let's understand exactly what SEO is all about.

Website optimization is the set of strategies with the aim of enhancing and improving the positioning of a website within the search engine optimization, generating conversions, whether they are a lead, a purchase, a form submission, scheduling an appointment and others.

The success of a digital marketing strategy is directly linked to good positioning in search engines. Google's own data shows that more than 100 billion searches are performed monthly on Google alone.

But how to rank well on survey platforms? Do not freak out! In this article, you'll understand the keyword concept and find out what SEO is and how it works!

It is worth remembering that Google periodically releases several updates and new policies that allow all sites and blogs to be well positioned in its search engine. However, many professionals still insist on ignoring these updates and continue using old techniques that have been abolished a long time ago.

Almost like a network auditor, SEO emerged in 2003, launched by Google. This year, the tool took down 50% of the sites listed as low quality. Since then, Google has been improving this cleaning filter from time to time.

Since then, sites with lots of ads, over-optimization of content, replicated, copied or very similar content, security analysis, not friendly formats for all types of devices and low-quality content have been penalized. 

Google is always updating its algorithm, so it's important to always be aware of these changes. In 2021, for example, Google also announced that starting in March, sites that do not have mobile versions will be completely de-indexed. That's because currently there are more searches being done by cell phone than by computer. Hit wise data shows that 60% of searches are done from mobile devices, 

Discover now some practices that can negatively compromise the positioning of your site and that you should never commit!

Having a bad hosting service

Many companies, in order to save money, host their clients' websites on cheap, slow and unstable servers. Since Google takes page load times into account, you can kiss your hopes of ranking high in the search engine goodbye if your site is hosted on a bad server.

It can be said that currently, hosting services have the greatest commitment to ensure the fast loading of pages and, mainly, to keep a website always online, avoiding as much as possible that it is down. This is a very important point for the ranking proposed by Google. So, good content marketing is of no use with half-assed website hosting.

The good news is that today's market offers many quality services. Evaluate together with your digital marketing agency which offers the most suitable services for your business. There are hosting for all sizes, whether for an institutional website or e-commerce.

Practice Keyword Stuffing

Created in the early years of Google, this SEO technique consists of filling texts and meta tags with keywords to achieve more relevance on Google. See an example below:

In addition to making your texts confusing and tiring, this practice is easily identified by Google's algorithms, which punish those who still insist on this technique. Maintain a keyword density that is user-friendly and relevant to the topic at hand.

 


The change in Google's algorithm that allowed identifying this type of content happened back in 2012 and brought down about 31% of active sites. Even so, it is still possible to find some sites that use this technique. Avoid this mistake to ensure the best ranking of the site by hiring a good content producer who will be able to establish an ideal amount of keywords.

Do not market

Link Building is the name given to the SEO technique to get links from other websites, making yours more relevant. Google understands a link as a recommendation; therefore, the more people who post a link to your site, the more relevant it is deemed to be. He really believes in that a lot. Therefore, not creating this network of links is a huge mistake for your rankings, as it strengthens your authority in the face of search engines.

The more links on other credible sites your site receives, the more relevant it proves to be in your area of ​​expertise. It's a clever logic of popularity, isn't it? but the cool thing is that this technique should be applied internally on your website as well. The more links a user clicks on within your site, the better. Whenever you write content for your site, hyperlink to other content on your own site. He will spend more time browsing your content, impacting the relevance that your content will have on Google.

Not having original content

Copying content is a very serious mistake and is severely punished by search engines. One of the most important attributes for your SEO is having quality and unique content, regardless of your niche. Therefore, never copy content on the internet.

In addition to being penalized by SEO, plagiarism is a crime in United States, provided for in the law code, and you can be criminally prosecuted.

Even so, this is a very common practice on the internet and does not only involve copying texts and images, but covers several aspects, such as copying an idea or even the way the structure of the material is made.

Be creative, original and don't make this mistake because you can be doubly penalized.

Think exclusively about the content and ignore keywords

While some professionals fill their sites with keywords, there are those who do not care about this and are only concerned with the content. It is the balance that will guarantee a position in SEO.

Here's a tip: Want to be invisible to search engines? Just ignore the keywords. All search engines work using the keywords found on your site to identify your content and relate it to the terms entered by the user. If your site does not have good planning, it makes it difficult for search engines to correctly index your site, making it disappear from the results.

A keyword is a word that summarizes the main themes of a text. It identifies important ideas and themes to serve as a reference for research. Take care not to bring a keyword too many times in a single paragraph, but make sure it appears a few times throughout your text.  

Not marking important tags (or exaggerating the number of them)

The word tag in English means label. It is the label for your content. On the internet it also has this function of organizing an idea. They normally do not appear on the screen but serve to guide robots, which are search engines that mine web pages in an attempt to find the content most related to your search.

As in the case of keywords, there are many professionals who exaggerate or do not give due importance to Meta tags, especially two of the most important, meta keywords and meta description.

Exaggerating the amount of keywords for these tags and, on the other hand, not tagging them, can compromise your site, as search engines are based on keywords, but usually punish their excess. Balance!!

Therefore, add words related to the theme and always think about the terms that the user would use to find the content you provide. An exercise that helps a lot is to simulate a search for the subject you are writing about. When doing a search on Google you are faced with some results of so many millions found. Just look at the tiny number right at the beginning of the search.


The most interesting thing is that not always the first sites that appear are necessarily what you are looking for. In addition to sponsored content, which gains preference on the list, those that appear next are the sites that managed to be better perceived by SEO, within its rules. Or do you think Google doesn't know how to rank pages? In fact, it's the pages that still make big SEO mistakes.

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