8 SEO Mistakes to Stop Making in 2018

20 December 2017

SEO best practice is always changing, which means what has worked for your website in the past might lead to lower rankings in future. With New Year just around the corner, here’s a list of 8 SEO faux pas to avoid in 2018…

1. Forgetting to update your NAP info
According to Moz’s 2017 Local Search Ranking Factors, 86% of people will look up the location of a business on Google Maps, and 76% of those searches will lead to a telephone enquiry. Make sure you’re not missing out on local search traffic by registering your website on Google My Business, and keeping all information updated for this page as well as Yelp, Internet Yellow Pages and other local directories.

2. Not asking for reviews
Google wants to recommend the highest quality, most relevant pages to its users, and with local searches on the increase, it’s no surprise that it’s becoming increasingly important to encourage your customers to leave reviews. You could ask them to do this when they visit your business or with an automated follow up email.

3. Not optimising your website for Voice Search
With more and more people using voice-controlled “intelligent assistants” such as Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant on a daily basis, the way that we enter search queries is changing. This means that your website will need to be optimised for spoken searches as well as typed searches - you can find out more about this in our blog How can you optimise your website for Voice Search?

4. Creating content for the sake of it
Google loves high-value content - content that gives your users the answers they need in a way that is useful to them. Posting random content packed full of your targeted keywords isn’t necessarily going to deliver this,and could result in your website being penalised. Avoid keyword-stuffing tactics, and start thinking about delivering a high-value, well-structured Content Plan.

5. Not knowing what Quick Answers are
Quick answers appear in your Google search in response to question queries such as “How do I..?” or “What is..?” Excerpts are pulled from high-ranking websites that Google trusts to provide the right answers, making it even more important to have relevant and well-structured content, optimised for question queries.

6. Failing to promote content
Of course, it’s no use creating high value content if you’re not going to promote it. According to a study by Moz, 50% of the content they sampled had 2 or less Facebook interactions (shares, likes or comments). So don’t forget to include promotion in your Content Plans for 2018.

7. Undervaluing formal link building
That being said, promotion should never substitute formal link building - having links to high-ranking websites should still form an integral part of your SEO strategy.

8. Not optimising your website for mobile
Finally, if you haven’t already optimised your website for mobile in 2017, then what have you been doing? Mobile optimisation is highly important for being ranked in SEO, particularly with the rise of Voice Search, so if you don’t want to get left behind, then this should be the first thing on your January to-do list.

Resolving to improve your SEO in 2018 ? Wida’s SEO specialists can help you. Call us today on 0115 921 4797, or fill in the form below to book a consultation