Britcom fans will recall an episode of I’m Alan Partridge in which Steve Coogan’s beleaguered former TV star finds himself struggling to contain his frustration with his friends. The former chat show host and inveterate Bond fan growls with frustration as they misremember the opening to The Spy Who Loved Me. In a fit of rage he howls “No, no STOP GETTING BOND WRONG!”, before going into a bizarrely accurate one-man rendition of the Roger Moore Bond film’s opening.

For those well-versed in the ways of SEO it can be similarly frustrating seeing intelligent and generally well informed people making rookie SEO mistakes that risk the ruination of their content’s reach. Sometimes people do the wrong things for the right reasons, other times they have misinterpreted what good SEO practice may be and other times they’re working from a fundamental misunderstanding of just what SEO is. As such, it’s always a good investment to get an SEO marketing agency to take a look at your content and ensure that it’s doing all that it can to maximise its reach. Even if you’re not quite ready to outsource external help, it behoves you to get out of these bad habits…

You’re Using Keywords Perfectly… They’re Just the Wrong Keywords!

You’ve read up enough about SEO to understand the importance of keywords. You know the dangers of over-stuffing your keywords or writing so that there is a huge disparity between the keywords you choose and the content itself. However, while you’re use of keywords may be exemplary, there’s a chance that you’re choosing the wrong keywords.

You may think that jargon and technical terms are poor practice in SEO but for sites with lower domain authority the opposite may be true. The more specific and relevant your keywords to specific searches, the less likely it is that you’ll be competing with high authority sites.

Your Website Looks Gorgeous, but It Handles like a Two-Wheeled Tricycle

When it comes to web design and development, beauty really is skin deep. Many nascent entrepreneurs invest heavily in a website that looks gorgeous and follows the latest design trends. However, they find that their content fails to gain traction because their site is such a nightmare to navigate.

You should never focus on appearance at the expense of UX (user experience). UX can have a knock-on effect on your SEO as it influences scroll depth, time on page and other engagement metrics which are highly prized by search engine crawlers. It’s also an important part of the customer experience and can drive even loyal customers into the arms of your competitors.

Your Website Is Mired by Duplicate or Spun Content

Most entrepreneurs know that the key to good quality organic SEO is posting content regularly. However, sometimes they employ shortcuts to get there which are a red flag to search engines.  Duplicate content is one such bad habit as is the practice of spinning content. This is where content is copied and pasted from another site with only minor revisions and restructuring.

Neglecting the Little Things

Sometimes in SEO the little things can make a huge difference! Getting into little good habits every time you post can lead to serious dividends. Take simple things like title tags and meta descriptions. These take only a few seconds and they can make a huge difference in helping search engines determine what your content is about.

Neglect them and the consequences for your content could be dire.