7 SEO Mistakes Small Businesses Make

7 SEO Mistakes Small Businesses Make

When it comes to websites, many business owners think they are doing everything right with their SEO efforts.  However, many don’t realize that they may be committing critical mistakes that are doing more harm than good.

 

With millions upon millions of local business websites out there looking to rank for specific keywords, here are some of the most common mistakes they make with their SEO strategies –

 

Title, Tags and Meta Descriptions

Sadly, if you talk with some business owners, they only think that the title, meta tags and descriptions are the only thing that matters to search engines.  What they don’t realize is that there is much more under the hood such as drawing in backlinks, on page optimization strategies, content creation and more.  Yes, title, tags and meta tags worked in 1999, however, this is only a small piece of the pie today.

 

Focusing on the Number of Links

When small business owners hear you have to get links, they often think of a number they have to get.  When trying to get a backlink, numbers don’t matter anymore – quality does.  So to put it in a nutshell:  It’s going to be a lot better to get a link from the Wall Street journal than 10,000 low-quality directory links.

 

Taking Shortcuts

There are no quick ways to get you to the top of Google.  Yes, while there are some strategies that can work instantly, they are only going to be limited.  Plus, once Google finds out you’re trying to cheat the system, they are either going to apply a penalty or ban you from their search engine.  In the end, work hard to create quality and don’t try to find spam methods that may give you instant gratification.

 

Focusing on Stats

Your website isn’t going to draw in thousands of customers over night.  Instead, it’s going to take time and effort.  If you focus too much on your stats, it’s going to take away from what matters – your marketing and content.  Try your hardest to focus on creating compelling content and developing unique marketing strategies.  If done right, the traffic will follow.

 

Ignoring Other Outlets

It’s great to write compelling content, however, in today’s world, people love video and social media.  If your small business doesn’t have a presence on places such as YouTube, it’s time to start considering this marketing giant as well.  Always make sure that you have more than just content.

 

Too Much SEO

Sure, while you need to focus on SEO, it isn’t going to be everything.  Don’t forget that you should focus on other things such as developing content, interacting with your customers and reaching out to industry experts to promote your product.  If you do these things effectively, a lot of times you won’t even have to think about SEO because others will link to you naturally.

 

Stop Looking for the Tricks

Yes, SEO has changed over time.  However, when you look at a change, it’s a way to combat spam and cheap tricks that get people to the top of the search engines.  If you’re looking for the tricks that work today, it’s not going to work.  You have to remember that good content, solid links and a legitimate marketing strategy will always work, even years from now.

10 thoughts on “7 SEO Mistakes Small Businesses Make”

  1. Oh yes, I agree with this all the points and apart from this7 there’s few more common mistake that all most all the small business people are doing.

    1) Building a site on a free subdomain or social media site

    2) Duplicate or non-descriptive title tags

    3) Building primarily flash-based websites

    4) Using “splash” pages as homepages

    5) Not optimizing local listing pages on popular local sites

  2. Building a site on a free subdomain or social media site
    Duplicate or non-descriptive title tags
    Building primarily flash-based websites
    Using “splash” pages as homepages
    Not optimizing local listing pages on popular local sites

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