SEO Myths to Leave in 2017

Multiple Keywords in a Page Title

Many business owners know that having your keyword in the title of your page is important for SEO. If one is good, more must be better, right? That leads us to pages like:

“Minneapolis Web Design & Minneapolis Digital Marketing: How to Advertise on Social Media”

Not only is this clunky to read, but it’s also ineffective. Google is sophisticated enough to recognize these sorts of tricks. Instead, pick one keyword for your page title:

“How to Advertise on Social Media”

Much cleaner, much more to the point and, most importantly – much more acceptable to Google.

Keyword Stuffing

Continuing on with keywords, one common mistake many business owners make is stuffing too many keywords into text. It leads to stilted, awkward copy like:

BizzyWeb is a digital marketing service in Minneapolis that offers digital marketing and web design in Minneapolis. Our Minneapolis digital marketing teams can help you with SEO, social media, online advertising and all facets of digital marketing.

This sort of blatant keyword stuffing is now considered “black hat SEO” and Google will penalize your site if it catches you at it. Instead, try to write more authentically and aim for a keyword density of 2.5% or under.

Pages for Every Keyword Variant

Oy vey – again with the keywords! Keywords are a hot topic for SEO mistakes. Some business owners understand that one page should only target one keyword…but then take that to the nth degree by creating pages for each variation of that keyword. So you might end up with sites that have several pages of the same thing:

• Social Media
• Social Media Advertising
• Social Media Content
• Social Media Marketing

And so on and so forth. By now, you probably can see why this logic is flawed – Google is sophisticated enough to recognize duplicate content. Having 5 identical pages with a few text tweaks won’t do you any favors.

Clickbait

In 2018, can we all collectively agree to leave clickbait behind? Most commonly seen on Facebook, clickbait uses sensationalist headlines to draw in traffic, regardless of whether or not the actual page has anything to do with the title. E.g.,

This woman dropped her sandwich. You won’t believe what happens next…

5 celebrity cactus scandals that ruined their careers forever…

The world’s smallest puppy trying to climb stairs will make you saw “awwwww”…

If you want meaningless clicks to your site, clickbait is the way to go. But if you want people to stick around and use your services, nothing beats meaningful, relevant content.

* * *

Increase Your Search Engine Rankings

Find out what to do to improve your score on Google. Get your Buzz Report and use it to find out what needs to be changed on your website to improve your search engine rankings. 

Need Digital Marketing or Web Design help? Our Buzz Builders Online Marketing programs will get you found online. And if you’re looking at a new website, our Minneapolis Web Design programs create beautiful and functional websites that get results. Click here to get started.