I hope that you will avoid these same mistakes that I have witnessed over and over again. Maybe someone will see these mistakes to avoid and will end up saving some money and lost rankings in the process.
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- 1.) The most common mistake I see is the friend of a friend who knows someone that can offer you “fantastic” web hosting. I have had the conversation at least 5 times in the last 5 years where I ask my client why they are paying $100 a month to host their small businesses website that is only 6 pages. It’s the realisation that they could have been paying no more than $5 a month from a real web hosting company, not a friend who is trying to make money off you by selling you reseller hosting packages.
- 2.) Someone from India is offering them $20 a month SEO packages and they wonder why their website is not ranking in Google. I think there are many great advantages to outsourcing work to countries like India and Pakistan, but not when it comes to SEO. If it’s a logo, or a website then it’s fair game, if its SEO then I would not recommend this. Always have someone working on your website that you can hold accountable. Cheap SEO most often than not means spam, automation, and shortcuts which can cost you rankings and lost prospects
- 3.) If you haven’t been adding any fresh content to your website on a regular basis, you’re going to have a hard time gaining rank in Google. I have said this in a few of my old SEO blogs but Google loves fresh content, and so do I. Try as hard as possible to be active in blogging, generating viral content, tweeting, updating photos etc. Outwork your competitors, and try as hard as possible to create content that is worth sharing.
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- 4.) Don’t steal content from other websites. Make sure all your content is original. I don’t even risk taking a sentence or paragraph from other websites. Google knows if you have been taking content from sites and will hit you with a duplicate content penalty. The problem arises when you have been taking bits of pieces from other sources over the years and can’t remember what’s yours and what’s not. Google won’t send you an e-mail telling you that they are docking your rankings; they’ll just go ahead and do it. Don’t risk it, always be safe.
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- 5.) Your stock photos are duplicates. I have been guilty of this myself, but if you are taking photos from Google images and think that Google doesn’t know how to read an image and detect a duplicate, you’re wrong. That stock photo of a phone, or a boardroom on your contact us page? Get rid of it and put your own photos up.
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- 6.) Your developer might have a test copy of your website that is still online. Might be tucked away deep on their own personal server but this can bring up a plethora of SEO problems. Chances are the test site has been around for longer than the real site, Google can see the test site as the REAL version, and dock you for having a copy of the website. You can also get docked for having a mirrored website see previous blog https://seoguelph.com/mirrored-websites.html .
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- 7.) Your web designer did your SEO as well. It’s best to get a specialist that deals specifically in Search Engine Optimization. Not someone that knows a little bit of it on the side. The problem with having your web developer doing your SEO is that they are going to take shortcuts from time to time in an effort to make the website look good. Get someone that has no interest in the development of the website. Someone that can come in and rip it apart and tell you exactly what needs to be changed to up your onsite SEO. The worst examples of SEO I have seen are ones there the web developer optimized the website.
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- 8.) No Google analytics installed! If you don’t have Google analytics installed on your website, you are not firing on all cylinders. You have to be tracking where the conversions are coming on a daily basis. You need to know at all times which pages aren’t producing, where the bounces are coming from, and how long the average customer is spending on each page. It’s only once you have the facts can you start to make positive changes. Eliminate “I think this page isn’t converting” to “I know this page isn’t converting because I have the numbers to prove it”.
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- 9.) They try and rank for hundreds of things from one page. If you have ten different services that you offer, that’s ten different pages. Your chances of ranking ten times for the same page are minimal. If you have ten dedicated, media rich pages, your chances of getting higher ranking increase exponentially.
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- 10.) Local, local, local! You aren’t going to rank for everywhere. I see local Guelph businesses trying to rank for all of Ontario. Yes this is possible but you want to be the local expert. Being situated in Guelph and trying to rank in Kitchener doesn’t make you the local guy. Focus on your area as Google is focused on ranking local businesses in close proximity to where the search query originates from.