About this time of year, so many entrepreneurs begin to prepare business strategies for the new year. While this is not a bad idea, there’s still a lot to look forward to in 2017. Like SEO. If you downgrade the importance of SEO, the implications for your business could be quite serious.
Let’s take a look at the top mistakes that can destroy your SEO strategy in 2017 and the ways to ensure that it ends in success.
- Ignoring Mobile
The number of people surfing the net through mobile devices is increasing rapidly. In fact, the share of online searches initiated from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets has already exceeded the number of searches done on desktops. For you it means that your SEO strategy should be mobile-centric. Thus, you have to avoid ignoring the importance of mobile.
Things to remember:
- Mobile-friendly version of your website. Do you have one? If you don’t, you are missing an incredible, easy way to reach more people.
- Mobile first indexing. The search giant Google announced this technology in 2016. According to the company, it began experimenting with mobile first indexing because the ranking system still looks at the desktop version of a page’s content to evaluate the relevance. In other words, it’s the last warning for those who choose not to create a mobile-friendly website.
- Mobile first development. Many businesses have already focused on delivering the latest technology in the mobile SEO. What about you?
- Thinking That Your Incredible Content Does Not Need Optimization
We all know how important content marketing is for improving the position in the search results. It works well alongside SEO, so some entrepreneurs think that content is just a substitution for it. They could not be more wrong.
You might have the best content in the world but there is a small chance it’ll rank without any professional optimization. To ensure that your business is going the right way, you need to perform on-page SEO because it improves the user experience.
- Thinking You Can Ignore What People Say on Social Media
It is a known fact that social media is an important factor when it comes to improving search rankings. A business that has at least one social media profile is way ahead of the one that doesn’t, because they use more opportunities to reach the target audience. For example, sharing blog posts on Facebook increases the traffic by generating valuable links.
So, social media is an excellent tool for providing exposure and increasing the interest in a business. Clearly, ignoring its power is a bad idea because you’re missing on so many opportunities.
There are a number of ways to integrate social media into your website:
- Social share and follow buttons. They improve visitor experience by allowing to share content, which, in turn, raises awareness of your content.
- Social login. Logging in using a website or a username is becoming obsolete. Provide your visitors with the opportunity to log in with their social media profile.
- Social video. They are the videos created on social networks. Placing them on the pages of your website is a great way to visualize information and increase interest.
- Creating Short, Pointless Content
Yes, many businesses still engage in this practice today. For example, their blogs contain articles with 500 words or less. It’s practically impossible for such content to get high rankings in search engine results because it does not provide visitors with the best possible experience.
According to Medium, the optimal length of a blog post is 7 minutes of reading.
To generate this result, the average total seconds spent on each post was compared to the length. Given that a typical 7-minute read comes in around 1,600 words, this is the number you should be aiming for when writing your blog articles.
- Linking to Questionable Resources
People are looking for reliable sources of information they can trust. If you think that links from any site are suitable for an effective external linking, you might be inserting low-quality ones in your content. Remember: only links to credible sources enhance your SEO strategy.
A source is credible only if it contains an opinion of a person who is an expert in the area. Such link will outperform dozens of links from unknown and unreliable resources.
Avoid These Mistakes
If you want 2017 to be successful for your business, be sure to avoid the five mistakes described above. It’s still not too late to improve your SEO strategy, so use the tips to improve it and stay ahead in the game.
Michael Gorman is high skilled editor and proofreader who currently works at Proessaywriting. He is proficient in blog writing and online freelance
