Most online experiences start on search engines. A report found that 68 percent of online experiences begin with a search engine. So, if your website is not showing up on search engines, then customers might never find you. 

You can improve your site’s searchability through SEO. If you already have an SEO strategy in place but are still not showing up on search results, it is time to reevaluate it and look for mistakes. Our SEO Austin Texas team has gathered some common SEO mistakes small businesses must avoid and how to fix them. 

What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the practice to improve a website’s visibility on search engines, like Google or Bing. Why is it important? Well, search engines are one of the top ways consumers look for products and services. If your website is not showing up on these searches, you could lose potential customers to competitors.

SEO mistakes small businesses must avoid

Keyword stuffing

The term “keyword stuffing” is the practice of placing keywords on a webpage to manipulate the site’s ranking in search engines results. Typically, you can easily notice if a webpage is keyword stuffing because the keywords are in a list, grouped and sound unnatural in a sentence. 

Using this method will only harm your website. Google will pick up on keyword stuffing and decrease your website’s overall ranking. You can avoid this mistake by using keywords in the correct context and not repeating words unnecessarily. 

Spam backlinks 

A backlink is essentially when a website links to another website. Backlinks are crucial to SEO strategies. Having your website backlinks to other sites essentially tells search engines that your website is trustworthy. If your website has many backlinks, then search engines will know your content is worth showing on search engine page results (SERP). 

However, not every backlink is good for your site. Spam backlinks can lower your website’s ranking. These kinds of links are found in low-quality or spam websites. Some characteristics to look out for include low domain authority or domain not indexed by Google. 

No local keywords

A report found that 80 percent of users use search engines to find local services and products. If you are a local business, then you should use local SEO. This SEO strategy is the process of optimizing your website for local searches on search engines. 

It helps people find your website based on location through the use of local keywords. This type of keyword contains certain geographic location phrases. The first step in finding local keywords is doing some keyword research and picking the right keywords for your business. 

Having a slow site

One of the SEO trends for 2022 is Google Core Web Vitals. This update sets focus on a website’s user-friendliness when it comes to ranking sites. One of those factors is loading speed. If your site is taking too long to load, Google may decrease your site’s ranking.

If your site takes longer than five seconds to load, it is time to make some adjustments to speed up your site. You can increase your site’s speed by reducing image sizes, reducing HTML and CSS code. 

Hire an SEO Austin Texas agency!

One of the best ways to avoid SEO mistakes is by hiring an SEO agency like OMG Austin. Our SEO experts can ensure your site is up-to-date with the best SEO practices to help your site rank. Contact us to learn more about our SEO services.