Address 8 SEO mistakes to pivot and grow
Traditional SEO approaches include checklists for good hygiene, implementing SEO best practices, and closely tracking competitors. But traditional methods are not always the most effective. You should be wary of quality when it comes to SEO agencies.
This blog post explores 8 mistakes that SEOs commonly make when taking this sort of traditional approach.
We’ll discuss principles of the most effective strategies, how to build action plans, and how to measure success.
SEO Mistake 1: Using traffic to benchmark success.
While many SEOs strive to grow traffic, they fail to measure the value or relevance of traffic. Let’s say you have a website for your meditation app. Which would you rather have?
A blog post that drives 1,000 monthly visits for “mental health advice”
A blog post that drives 70 monthly visits for “best meditation apps for employees”
While both topically relevant, the second keyword is directly targeting your HR audience. It indicates buying intent and is much more likely to drive leads and revenue.
Find and track progress of these high value keywords to measure success in a way that considers traffic’s revenue potential.
SEO Mistake 2: Ignoring fundamental keyword maps.
When you’re relying on rankings to measure success, a keyword map is the basis of SEO work. Take a look at your current rankings and perform keyword research to find ideal targets.
When you assign 1-3 ideal keywords to priority web pages, you will be able to:
Lay groundwork for the most impactful on-page optimizations
Confidently track the most important keywords, quickly catching drops and identifying wins
Determine where pages fall in the customer journey
Have a foundation for link building - think of your keyword map as a solid record of anchor text and “link to” pages
Keyword maps should be your first step in building an SEO roadmap.
SEO Mistake 3: Isolating keyword and landing page data.
Search Console has useful data surrounding keywords and landing pages. But it fails to tie them together in one easy view.
Search Console view of landing pages and clicks (no keyword data)
Search Console view of keywords (can only view one page at a time)
But when you track your high value keywords in a tool (like SEMRush, Ahrefs, or Moz), you can see their progress tied to landing pages.
There are several benefits to this style report:
Find wins: attribute ranking increases to work performed on their corresponding pages
Quickly build plans of action: know which pages to prioritize if their rankings drop
Of course, you can manually find this data by toggling through Search Console, but it’s more difficult to spot trends.
SEO Mistake 4: Looking at your competitors for strategic direction.
The big names tend to soar on brand recognition and legacy backlinks. If you don’t have these, chasing their target keywords and tactics are not in your best interest.
Focusing on competitors is often an easy starting point for confused SEOs, but undermines your ability to research the best methods for your website.
Here are a few scenarios where you should look to competitors:
If you want to build lists of websites for backlink outreach, their backlinks are a great starting point
If you feel you’ve already saturated priority keywords, you can consider competing for competitors’ target terms or finding their gaps
If you see a confusing change in traffic, you can rely on competitor data to measure industry-wide changes
SEO Mistake 5: Centering your publishing schedule around the algorithm.
What blog publishing cadence proves your worthiness to Google? If you’re publishing one blog post (or making some sort of content update) every other month, you aren’t going to go stale. But that’s just your minimum!
The purpose of publishing frequently is to grab more rankings. Rather than a “stay in Google’s good graces” schedule, you should publish as many quality blog posts as resources allow. That might be two blog posts a week, and it might be one blog post a month.
SEO Mistake 6: Relying on ChatGPT to write your content for you.
ChatGPT is a useful tool for SEOs to streamline their work. You can quickly write introductions and conclusions, get ideas that help with writer’s block, and add LSI keywords to an existing post. And that’s just a few use cases!
What ChatGPT shouldn’t do is write your blog posts from a prompt. In addition to backlinks, blogs rank based on original expertise, thorough research, and unique points of view. These are elements that AI cannot provide.
SEO Mistake 7: Forgetting to refresh older content.
That three-year-old blog post that rakes in endless traffic? While it’s tempting to let it sit and continue to work in the background, doing so is a missed opportunity! Refreshing older content and adding a current publish date is the most efficient way to increase blog rankings.
Make sure your content plan includes a healthy mix of refreshes and new blog posts. That way you’re doubling down on the old while seizing new opportunities to rank.
Tips for content refreshes:
Look at other ranking results. What topics do they cover that you’re missing?
Look at longtail keywords that are page 2. Can you create new sections that address these longtails?
Quote or link to authoritative websites (.org, .gov. edu)
Create custom charts and graphics
SEO Mistake 8: Prioritizing what you “should do” over personal strengths.
There are 100 ways to get your content to rank, but it primarily boils down to backlinks and the quality/quantity of content.
Play to your strengths when building your seo roadmap:
Do you want more rankings, but have no access to writers or SMEs to help? Rely heavily on backlinks.
Do you have less backlink knowledge and tools, but a killer content team? Rely on content quality and finding easier keywords to target.
Combining a strategy of both is foolproof, but where you focus time and energy should depend on your strengths. Make it easy on yourself.
Key takeaways of 8 SEO Mistakes
In the competitive space of SEO, don’t lose hope! Most people are using older tactics and traditional methods. Step outside of their common errors and focus on impactful action items that drive revenue.
Following these principles will help you gain an edge:
Get organized: start with a keyword map to build a foundation that supports future work
Find efficiencies: prioritize high-revenue keywords, build reports that drive obvious action items, and refresh two-year-old high traffic content
Play to your strengths: Instead of focusing on competitors or leaning on ChatGPT, know and use your unique advantages.
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