5 Mistakes You May Be Making in Your Custom SEO Strategy

The higher your website ranks in the search engine results page (SERP) then the higher your chances of increasing traffic and, most importantly, maximizing conversions!
Reaching the very tip of the SERP is a complex task, though, and one which involves constructing a custom SEO strategy which plays to your strengths and keeps your website competitive.

And with the highly complicated nature of Google’s search algorithms it’s easy to make mistakes that can harm your website’s position in the SERP.

Therefore, eradicating these mistakes from your custom SEO strategy is essential to keep your website on track for the top spot. To help you in this quest we’re going to take you through some of the most common mistakes.

1. Content That’s Just Too Similar

Sure, there’s only a limited amount of topics in a specific niche that a writer can writer about, but there are still VAST amounts of topics to write about nonetheless!
And search engines are pretty damn clever, so if they find two websites with content which is strikingly similar then, guess what? The first website to publish that content will rise up the rankings and the second website will lag behind.

This is why you need to carry out thorough audits on your existing content as part of your custom SEO strategy to understand if it’s holding you back in the SERP. Don’t worry, though, as you don’t have to delete your content – you just need to rewrite it to differentiate it e.g. bringing new ideas and unique insights to the table.

2. Badly Configured Redirects

A custom SEO strategy may determine that it’s vital for your website to change its domain name. However, it’s likely that you’ve accrued a substantial amount of traffic which heads direct to that domain, so it seems a shame to jeopardize all that.

Thankfully, it’s pretty simple to redirect direct traffic from one domain to another. The problem, though, is that many website owners don’t execute this redirect as smoothly as they could. Sometimes, for example, numerous redirects are setup and their clumsy nature starts to ring alarm bells for search engines.
The best step forwards, then, is to work purely with ‘301 redirects’ as these signal that a page has permanently moved to a new position and doesn’t cause any stress for search engines or your SERP ranking.

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3. Slow, Slow Pages

Your website could have completed one of the finest keyword campaigns known to man and be packed full of killer content, but if your pages are slow to load up then it may prove to all be in vain.

And, of course, some web pages will naturally be slower than others due to the number of elements running on it e.g. videos, Flash or JavaScript, but the key to success here is optimizing this content for speed.

Google, as ever, are on hand with their useful PageSpeed Tools to help you achieve this optimization, but there are numerous other tools out there which you should integrate into your custom SEO strategy.

4. Dodgy Link Building

Thanks to Google’s Penguin algorithm updates the practice of spammy link building is fast heading for extinction.

This is, obviously, great news for consumers as it allows them to find exactly what they need when using search engines. Unfortunately, though, some website owners still aren’t fully up to date on how to comply with Penguin.

Link building needs to be as organic as possible and can’t be rushed. Any link building strategies, therefore, need to be planned carefully to ensure a healthy variety of links are built online. And don’t forget to cross-link pages on your website – search engines love this!

5. Bad URLs

Many website owners are unaware of the important role that URLs can play in your custom SEO strategy. URLs, you see, are a fantastic opportunity to strengthen your keyword game.

A URL which ends, for example, with “/564654893a.html” isn’t exactly easy to read for a human and search engines (programmed by humans) struggle as well. It doesn’t exactly help explain what the page is about, does it?!

However, a clean URL such as “/amazingseotips” uses a keyword to tell you exactly what that page is going to contain. And search engines can’t get enough of this as they love anything which enhances the user’s experience.

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To learn more about custom SEO strategy, give the experts at HubRunner.com a call, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.