Last month, our Cheshire-based web performance team wrote a beginners guide on how you can construct the perfect content for your website, blog or news feed. Whilst some businesses prefer to write their own SEO-friendly website content, there are many common SEO mistakes that can be made that you might not even be aware of.
I wouldn’t expect anybody to know every detail, I’m still finding out helpful SEO tips today, but it is about trial and error and seeing what works best for you. Reflecting on mistakes I have made, or have seen other people make, I thought I would provide 5 SEO content writing proven tips to avoid if you are trying to increase search rankings.
1. Long, over the top headlines
When you usually visit a blog post, what’s the first thing you do? In all honesty you skim read the titles to see if there is anything of interest or to see what’s in it for you. Right out of the gate you need to make an instant impression so the headlines and titles need to be short, sweet and snappy.
Having created web performance content for many Cheshire based clients, the general rule of thumb is to keep the titles between 50 and 60 characters. By keeping the title at this length, the end will not be cut off in Google search results. Try to use relative, organic keywords in the title to make the content look unique so you can draw in the audience.
2. Keyword Stuffing
If you are looking at writing your own search engine optimized content, chances are you have heard or read this expression countless times. Also known as keyword stacking, keyword stuffing is the term used when you repeat a keyword or phrase too many times within your content or blog, meaning sentences lose their integrity and start to sound unnatural.
If you don’t write reasonable keyword density content, search engines can pick up on this and can lead to a whole host of problems which include;
- Lose visitors if your content doesn’t make any sense
- Your website position is penalized
- You will be removed from their index database (AKA blacklisted)
3. Never duplicate existing content
Having seen the consequences of this result from a customer first hand, Google algorithms (In particular Google Panda) have really cracked down on websites that duplicate content from both their own and other websites!
Creating hidden pages that contain the exact same content but with a few words changed such as the location (e.g. Web Performance Cheshire) that users cannot see or access as well as making mirror websites containing backlinks is considered to be a major Black Hat SEO Technique. Please visit our explanation on Google Algorithms and how they work to see how they clamp down on websites.
4. Hidden activity will always be found
With so many different Google algorithms now released that continue to be updated on a regular basis, search engines are now able to spot any hidden activity that may be taking place on a website. Any of the following can lead to some serious penalties if you are found out:
- Hidden Text (Same as the background so it looks invisible)
- Hidden Links
- Tiny Text
- Hidden Keyword Stuffing
5. Poor or no value hyperlinks
Similar to keywords, having organic backlinks is a very important factor in improving your search engine rankings. However having links that are not considered to be within your industry field or just an overall poor looking website won’t really do much to boost your website.
Buying links (Link Farming) is now considered to be an SEO Myth! Whilst they may provide short term boost rankings, search engines are instantly outlawing any kind of activity like this. Links from totally unrelated categories will be immediately flagged and will lead to your website being penalized or even blacklisted.
Conclusion
By avoiding these content writing pitfalls, there are still plenty of ways to legitimately improve your overall web performance. Implementing SEO friendly, white hat techniques organically improve web performance on a long-term basis.
If you would like to discuss how to write organic, SEO friendly content for your website or how we can help to increase your web performance in Cheshire, please give us a call on 01565 653 616 or if you are in the area why not pop in for a coffee.