14 Mistakes to Avoid in Scottsdale SEO Strategies
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At the time of writing this post, there are almost 2 billion websites on the internet and Scottsdale, Arizona is no different. This number keeps increasing rapidly, with well over half of the world’s population regularly using the internet as of 2020.
Interestingly, about 91 percent of all active websites receive zero organic traffic from Google, the world’s largest search engine. It’s a brutal statistic that shows the importance of ranking highly on the first pages of search engines, which receive the vast majority of organic traffic. That’s where Scottsdale SEO comes in.
Understanding search engine optimization (SEO) is the ultimate digital marketing strategy. Keeping up with today’s constantly changing search engine algorithms is the best way to drive traffic to your business website and boost sales.
SEO has become highly crucial for growing brands in 2020, especially with the reduction in the importance of social media in driving traffic. Since 2017, Google has emerged as the primary source of referral traffic. One of the major benefits of SEO is that it boosts your website’s visibility.
In the process of trying to meet SEO demands, businesses make certain mistakes. In this comprehensive guide, we discuss some of these blunders, so keep reading.
Quality of Traffic
It’s not enough that you have traffic coming into your website. You need to make sure that the visitors to your site are people genuinely interested in the product or service you offer. If you’re receiving visitors interested in buying electronics while you’re an eCommerce store that deals with women’s clothing, that’s not quality traffic.
Quantity of Traffic
As soon as you start getting the right people that click through from search engine result pages (SERPs), you need to focus on getting more visitors. A bigger size of high-quality traffic is always better.
Organic Results
Advertisements make up a large portion of most SERPs. SEO attracts organic traffic, which is essentially traffic that you don’t pay for.
Why Do Businesses Invest in SEO?
Many businesses in Scottsdale are starting to pay more attention to SEO, and it’s easy to see why. Some of the benefits you stand to gain from SEO include:
Having a More User-Friendly Website
User experience (UX) is highly important in today’s highly competitive digital world. Internet users want faster and smoother websites that are easy to navigate. That’s why today’s SEO practices focus on improving user experience.
A clean, well-structured, and uncluttered website encourages casual visitors to stay longer, reducing bouse rates and boosting page views. Regular blog posts that are highly relevant also keep visitors happy as they solve visitors’ pressing issues and answer their questions.
Bringing in More Customers
The main reason for having a business website is to increase your customer base. Otherwise, why would you spend thousands of dollars on marketing?
A business that focuses on SEO targeting usually brings in more online customers and grows faster than a business that doesn’t have one. SEO brings in more customers who are actively seeking your product or service, increasing the chances of making sales.
Higher Conversion Rates
An SEO optimized website usually loads faster, is easy to surf, and displays well in different types of devices. Such a website is more likely to grab and hold the attention of visitors. If visitors enjoy your website, they’re more likely to become returning visitors, loyal customers, and subscribers.
Increase Brand Awareness
Another benefit of ranking higher on SERPs is creating brand awareness. When your business website appears on the top of the first page of mainstream search engines, potential customers are more likely to trust your brand compared to brands without a strong web presence.
That’s why you need to start investing in SEO and focus on using strong keywords related to your business for which you can rank.
Bypass Your Competition
Imagine there’s a business in your industry that sells similar products at similar prices. Both of you have websites, but yours is optimized while there isn’t. Which brand do you think will attract a bigger number of customers to their site from local search and go on to become more successful?
Top SEO Mistakes to Avoid
Now that we’ve seen the definition and importance of SEO in your business, it’s time to look at some of the potential SEO mistakes that can hurt your search rankings. Below are 14 top errors every business should avoid in 2020.
1. Unsatisfied Search Intent
It’s not enough that you create helpful content; you need to make sure that the content is well-targeted. Otherwise, people who find your website may not find the content useful. That’s why you need to take search intent into consideration.
Search intent refers to the intent behind the search. Ideally, your content needs to satisfy search intent by offering the right solution. It’s the reason you need to have a good grasp of what a user thinks when they perform a search.
2. Sticking to Traditional SEO Techniques
The internet is changing rapidly, and so is SEO. Unless you keep up with the new trends and apply modern SEO practices and techniques, it’s impossible to stay at the top of search results. In fact, sticking to traditional SEO techniques may result in you getting penalized.
Gone are the days when such techniques as keyword stuffing helped websites rank. Search engines are much smarter now. Today, web pages can rank for keywords that aren’t mentioned within the content too.
3. Not Updating Yourself With the Latest Changes
As we pointed out earlier, SEO is ever-changing. Businesses need to keep themselves up-to-date with the latest happenings in the field. Whether you’re a business in Phoenix or Scottsdale, we can help with our Scottsdale SEO packages.
Google, for instance, is continually bringing new updates. Unless you update yourself on the latest major updates, you may end up losing out on valuable traffic. Some of the most recent SEO changes and updates by Google include Google BERT and 3rd June Core Update.
4. Overlooking Structured Data and Search Features
Structured data helps you stand out from the rest, especially when you’re on the first page of search results. It could even help you feature above the first search result. Your result also looks bigger than other listings and can make your webpage the top choice for searchers.
Some of the common types of structured data include:
- Product Review
- How To
- FAQ
- Events
- Books
- Address
Focus on improving your site’s internal search functions too. You want people who come to your site to find relevant information easily and incorporating the search feature into your site can help.
5. Forgetting About Conversion Optimization
The ultimate goal for a business should be to get customers. For that to happen, you need to generate leads before converting them. Unfortunately, some businesses focus only on the top funnel and ignore conversion optimization.
Businesses need to provide everything needed by your leads to become paying clients. Offer reviews and case studies and show them why they should buy from you. Make it as easy to buy from you as possible.
When you ignore conversion optimization, you lose customers and revenue.
6. Focusing Only on Text
Many businesses know that videos are the future of internet marketing, but most haven’t acted on that knowledge. Videos are the simplest method to learn about something. They’re more engaging than other content formats, which is why people love to watch them.
You may have noticed that video content appears in SERPs. Search engines show them because they realize that videos are the future. Such content takes less time to rank on SERPs compared to text.
Lately, mainstream search engines like Google have started adding podcasts in SERPs. Given that both video and podcasts are less competitive than text, you need to start focusing on them.
7. Ignoring Branding and Brand Searches
Search engines love brands. In fact, SEO has become more brand-centric in recent years. Today, SEO is no longer about getting traffic; you must build your brand as well.
It’s essential that you build a brand that people can trust. As more people begin to search for your business on Google, the search engine automatically starts to rank you on top. It’s an evergreen strategy that will establish you as an authority and grows your business.
8. Not Being Mobile-Responsive
About 57 percent of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices. Unless your business website is ready for mobile, Google automatically considers it as unfriendly for users, hurting your rankings.
That’s why it pays to redesign your website to make it responsive for mobile. Once you start to tap into mobile traffic, you automatically boost your website’s visibility. It’s a ranking factor that you cannot afford to ignore.
9. Having Unclear Scottsdale SEO Goals
Prior to doing SEO for your business website, you need to have a set of clear goals. Some small businesses do know what exactly they wish to achieve from optimizing their site. Therefore, they never actually grow their site’s SEO.
A haphazard SEO strategy can go nowhere. You need to identify what exactly you want from your business website and your SEO to plan out your strategy.
10. Writing for Search Engines Instead of People
Search engines are essential, but it’s real users who ultimately help you generate sales and make revenue. That’s why you should avoid writing your content for search engines and concentrate on people.
Google is simply a medium for you to find new customers. The search engine may penalize your site and drop your rankings at any time. However, if you focus on satisfying your customers, they will promote your business and help you rank higher.
11. Not Conducting Regular Website Audits
A website audit review reveals your business website’s performance from the point of view of customers and search engines. The review answers such questions as:
- Is navigation smooth and user-friendly?
- How easy is it to find relevant information?
- Does the mobile version launch quickly enough?
With careful examination, you can come up with ways to improve the website.
12. Buying Backlinks
Backlinks play an essential role in helping you drive traffic to your site. Perhaps that’s the top reason some businesses go out of their way to get them.
Sadly, some small businesses use illegal means to get backlinks, including buying them. The problem is that you’re typically buying backlinks from sites flagged by search engines. Once caught, your website will be penalized.
What you need to be doing is earning backlinks. Focus on making your links appear from high-authority websites that have high-quality traffic.
13. Skimping on Your Business Site
While algorithms may change continuously, maintaining a fully optimized website will always be a great investment. Instead of hiring just anyone with some basic knowledge of computers to put together a quick and cheap website, you need to find a professional SEM company to do the job for you. A poor website will ultimately cost you dearly when it comes to SEO rankings.
Look for someone with professional knowledge on web content, navigation, metadata, page names, and so on. Before hiring them, consider such things as experience, certification, and references. Check their portfolio to make sure that you’re working with someone who knows what they’re doing.
14. Treating SEO as a One-Time Project
Some businesses treat SEO as a one-time task. They assume that with the right technical optimizations, their sites can achieve never-ending SEO friendliness.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Businesses need to continually expand their websites to accommodate more relevant content regarding their products or services. They need to continually leverage user feedback and reviews.
Avoid Scottsdale SEO Mistakes to Enhance Your Rankings
As you can see, there’s a myriad of deadly Scottsdale SEO mistakes that you need to be conscious of in 2020. Stay clear of these errors can keep your visitors happy, which ultimately keeps your rankings on SERPs high.
Are you interested in top quality SEO services? We are having a limited time sale right now!
Please contact us at (916)342-9441 to learn more about us and how we can help you.
