Common SEO Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Blogging Journey

What Is SEO & Why Do You Need It?

SEO is the acronym for search engine optimization. It is a type of marketing technique used to improve the ranking of a website in organic (non-paid) search results. Companies that do their own SEO work, as well as individuals seeking to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPS) through organic search, often use a technique known as search engine optimization (SEO).

Organic search is a technique used by businesses to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). It is often an effective strategy because it does not rely on paid advertising. Organic marketing can be done through various channels, including social media, blogging, and email campaigns.

Organic marketing is also known as inbound marketing. It relies on attracting customers with content that they find useful and want to share with their friends. The most important thing to remember is that it’s all about the customer (or reader). This means understanding their needs and desires and aligning your business (or blog) to be in alignment with those needs.

What is organic marketing? Organic marketing refers to a marketing strategy where you build trust and credibility with your customers by providing information that they need or want. And most bloggers, regardless of whether they are an individual or a business owner, at least initially, focus on organic SEO to bring in readers. When a blogger is new to SEO, they make some common mistakes that mean they end up not ranking as well as they could rank. These mistakes can include making mistakes with on-page SEO optimization, external outreach, and inbound marketing.

So, let’s talk about it.

Common Mistakes with On-Page Optimization

The first SEO mistake new bloggers make is on-page optimization. This is a broad term that covers several things.

1. Your keyword isn’t in the title of your blog post.
2. The best keyword is not a natural search term that people use to find your website or blog.
3. You might have too many keywords in your description tag, your blog post, etc. Overstuffing is bad. Very bad.
4. You might not be making use of tags and categories on your site.
5. You might not be making use of image descriptions.
6. You might not be keeping the reader on your site by using a good internal linking strategy.

In short, there are several SEO mistakes that can be made on your actual blog post that could be hurting your on-site SEO. And to think that I didn’t even mention secondary keywords. That seems like a topic for another day.

Common Mistakes with External Outreach for Your Blog

The best way to avoid mistakes in your external outreach is to prepare for them. Find viable connections that may actually be interested in partnering with you to connect to your blog. Maybe they’ll allow you to guest post on their blog which would then link back to your blog (and writing for free for a link back is fine, especially if another site has good traffic and good domain authority).

Do not spam the person with a million emails. Just like you wouldn’t want spam in your inbox, others don’t want it either. If they say that they are not interested in you, do not take it personally. If they are interested, move forward with a reasonable timeline. I can’t tell you how many times on my personal blog I’ll respond back to people who are interested, but I never hear from them again.

Do not be too pushy with your outreach and always remember that you are asking for permission, not demanding it.

Do not use any sales-like language or words that would make the person feel like they are being sold something.

You need a social media strategy. Your blog posts need to go out into your social media on a regular basis. This is not a one-and-done routine. You cannot send a post out once and expect that you will magically get millions of likes and visits. Yes, I know some things do go viral. Guess what? That’s not the norm. Write your post, practice good SEO, create a good social media strategy (including hashtags and interaction…and do not tell me that you don’t have “time” to interact on social media – if you don’t, hire someone to do it. It’s called social media for a reason. You get more clicks when you’re social).

Related: Blog Writing Tips: 3 Things You Should Know

Make sure that you’re using an external linking strategy on your website. This helps establish your authority on whatever it is that you’re talking about. Make sure that the link opens into a new tab or window so that your reader doesn’t bounce away from you.

And make sure that your reader has a way to subscribe and also to share your content. This is one reason I use WordPress on my domains. It makes it easy to have specific tools for subscribing and sharing.

Common Mistakes with Inbound Marketing and SEO

Inbound marketing is a fancy way of saying getting people to visit your blog. You want people to come and visit your blog because you want people to read what you have to say. Maybe you have it monetized, have something to sell, or you just want people to read your brilliance. Regardless of your reason, SEO helps you with inbound marketing.

A common mistake made by those beginning inbound marketing is keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is using a high volume of words that are the same or similar to your company’s name,  products/services, and key phrases as keywords in your website content to increase the metric for measuring the number of people that visit your website. Don’t do this. You can get in big trouble with Google. They can delist your site from the search engine. Instead, choose good keywords (your main keyword and secondaries).

How to Avoid These Common SEO Mistakes

In a short phrase: practice safe text.

1. Write like a human. Your readers are smart, like you. So, write something you would want to read.
2. Choose good keywords. My main keyword for this was “SEO mistakes.” I didn’t bother with secondary keywords.
3. Create a good internal and external plan. Internal: clean up your categories, tags, and create a good internal linking strategy. External: have an external link to a good site. If you’re going to pursue external writing opportunities, choose the right sites and if they are interested, move forward. Create a social media plan and use it. Have a way for people to share your work and subscribe.
4. Don’t keyword stuff, ever.

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