SEO is a delicate balancing act. There are many different aspects of your website that you need to consider and optimise to implement a successful SEO strategy. If you’re not seeing the results you want, it’s possible that you could be victim of one of these common mistakes which we see all the time. We’re going to talk you through a few forgotten details you might have missed which could be affecting your website’s visibility.
Keyword Stuffing
Keywords are the terms that people use when interacting with search engines. For example, if you’re a plumber then your organic traffic probably found you by using the keyword ‘plumber’. It’s important to use those keywords throughout the text on your site, and place them in key areas such as your SEO title, meta description and headings as well as the body content.
However, if you overuse these keywords your content can sound unnatural and lose its flow. Repeating yourself over and over not only creates a poor experience for your users, but it also negatively impacts your SEO. If you’re stuffing keywords multiple times into every sentence you can, search engine crawlers will soon catch on.
So, what should you do? We know that it’s essential to use keywords multiple times throughout a page, but it also shouldn’t be done too much. The ‘sweet spot’ is generally regarded as a keyword density of between 1% and 1.8%. That equates to roughly 1 mention of your keyword for every 100 words you write. If you’ve got a 1000 word page, you’ll ideally want to see your keyword no less than 10 times, and no more than 18.
Not Optimising For Search Intent
Okay, so now we know how many keywords you should be using and where you should be putting them. The next thing is making sure the keywords you choose are the right ones. When carrying out keyword research, you want to be looking at high volume search terms that are related to the topics you have on your website. However, some thought must be given to what users actually mean when they type in those keywords. An example of this might look like the following:
A website is made for a company that specialise in making tennis courts. They might choose a main keyword of ‘tennis courts’, which on the surface sounds appropriate. However, when we consider user intent, it becomes more complicated. Users who are searching for ‘tennis courts’ are much more likely to be looking for a place to play tennis. Therefore, this company will want to consider changing their main keywords to something closer to ‘tennis court installation’.
The danger of not optimising for search intent is that users may never find your website. In the above example, it is extremely unlikely that their website would rank among local sports centres and parks equipped with tennis courts. Instead, they may get lost in a sea of search results with very little visibility, even to users who are actively looking for their services.
Not Tracking Performance
We know, it’s so easy to get caught up in what’s happening on your website in the here and now. However, when it comes to SEO it’s really important that you track and monitor data consistently throughout your campaign. SEO can be a bit of a slow burner, particularly at the start. Therefore, it’s good to have a full picture of data in front of you to analyse. That way, you can see improvements over time and compare your website’s performance from the place it started in to where you are now.
Having more data is always a good thing. This is particularly true for SEO because it means you’re less likely to get bogged down in minor details. When you’re looking at a broader range of analytics, you can make better informed decisions. Your rankings, traffic and user behaviour over a long period of time can be very informative and lead you to realisations that ultimately improve the performance of your website over time.
Slow Website Speed
It’s all well and good having a beautiful website, but if large images and unnecessary animations are slowing down the load time, your SEO efforts could be wasted. The benchmark is to have a website that loads in 2 seconds or less. Evidence shows that users are 32% more likely to leave a website without interacting with it if it takes 3 seconds to load as opposed to one. Push that up to 5 seconds, and the number of users leaving increases to 90%. This is solid proof that faster websites retain more traffic.
Your goal should be to have the fastest website possible. So, if there’s something slowing down your website you should be doing something about it. There are many actions you can take to decrease your website’s load times. From compressing images and files to changing servers, there’s a whole host of things you’ll need to consider if speed is affecting your website’s performance.
Choose Search4Local For SEO
If you’re a small business owner who wants to succeed, why not take advantage of the services Search4Local have to offer? We can support you and your business’s growth with a whole host of successful advertising products and services. You’ll be assigned a dedicated account manager who will guide you and ensure you’re getting the most out of us. Get in touch today if you’d like to discuss any of our products in more detail.
Written by Alice Farley
