Apr 04, 2023
Have you been implementing SEO techniques on your website only to see no results? This is a common complaint we hear from potential clients almost daily. You do not see results because you are making some of the most common SEO mistakes, and you may be self-sabotaging your website as a result. Search Engine Optimization is a multi-faceted process that is constantly evolving. Suppose you are still using the same techniques you learned ten years ago. In that case, you will not get the same results as someone working with a professional SEO company in Knoxville that is on the cutting edge of the latest SEO techniques. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest SEO mistakes you might be making on your website!
You may have heard that audiovisual content like images and videos gets more attention when it comes to online engagement. This is true, but that doesn’t mean text content is not also valuable. In fact, a common SEO error that many small business owners make is that they don’t use enough text. This could be because you have an image-heavy site, or maybe you have an outdated flash website. Either way, this leaves search engines without anything to read. If the search engine can’t read your content, it can’t rank your website! According to Google’s official webmaster guidelines, anything important should be presented in plain text rather than images. You will also want to use the ALT attribute for any images used to briefly summarize what it depicts. This is also great for making your website accessible in accordance with ADA guidelines! Of course, that doesn’t mean you cannot have a beautiful website with captivating graphics! Work with an SEO company in Knoxville that also offers web design to help produce a user-friendly, engaging website that is also search engine compatible!
Another big mistake that we see is something often found on websites that use drag-and-drop website builders. When new pages are added to the website, a generic name is given to it, creating an irrelevant URL such as www.yourwebsite.com/node17. This URL does not tell the search engine anything about the content of your page. It is much better to choose a URL describing the content, for example, www.yourwebsite.com/choosing-a-URL.
We briefly touched on the use of the ALT attribute above, but it is something important enough to warrant its own discussion. A huge SEO mistake that even experienced business owners make with their websites is failing to add ALT tags to the images. When you correctly title your image files and add a description to the ALT tag, you are telling search engines what is in the image. You don’t have to write a detailed description, but a few words that give an idea of the image make a huge difference. If you have a lot of images and icons throughout your website, it may become a laborious task to go back and add ALT attributes for everything. However, it is well worth making an effort for the most important images on your website. Work with an SEO company in Knoxville to come up with an excellent naming process that makes sense and uses your targeted keywords.
Another SEO mistake we see that is a hangover from times gone by is designing your website exclusively in HTML. This can be a problem because search engines will sometimes have difficulty separating your design from your content. Another downside of exclusively HTML sites is not SEO related, but still frustrating - making layout changes can be a slow and painstaking process as you have to move page by page. So, what solutions does an SEO company in Knoxville recommend? The answer is a cascading style sheet or CSS. This allows you to control the look and feel of your website while the content is added using HTML. This is going to make it easier for search engines to separate design elements from content when crawling your website. As an additional bonus, using CSS can also help your pages to load faster! Google now emphasizes loading times as one of their key ranking factors when determining search results.
Choosing the right keywords is one of the biggest keys to unlocking a successful SEO strategy. As an SEO company in Knoxville, we frequently see websites that are not ranking because of incorrect keyword choices. Keyword research is incredibly important, and that is one of the reasons it is so beneficial to work with an experienced SEO company in Knoxville that can help you determine which keywords you should target. One of the ways many people go wrong is that they need to consider what a consumer will search for. They use industry jargon and terms that the end consumer might not understand instead of choosing layperson’s terms! Another common mistake is targeting keywords that are too competitive. Sometimes it pays off to target less competitive keywords rather than fight major corporations for the most popular ones!
These are just a few of the SEO mistakes that could be causing you to sabotage the success of your website. Work with an SEO company in Knoxville to update your online marketing strategy and take your business to the next level.
To Your Best Online!
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Ingrid Maddox, Internet Marketing & Strategy Consultant. bluedress INTERNET MARKETING®, an Internet Marketing Company headquartered in Knoxville, TN. Internet Marketing Developed, Implemented, and Managed to Full Circle! Organic Internet Search Engine Guru. Turn-Key Internet Optimization Programs Placing You Everywhere and Anywhere You Need to Be Online.
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