What Google Doesn’t Like: SEO Mistakes to Avoid

It’s important to stay on Google’s good side—search engine rankings do affect how discoverable and visible your website is to potential consumers. When it comes to Search Engine Optimization, abiding by the recommendations and policies regulated by site crawlers and Google will improve your site traffic without raising red flags on your pages. Below are six tips on what Google doesn’t like: SEO mistakes to avoid.

What Google Doesn’t Like: SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Paid links

Paying sites or others to link to your site does not fly with Google. This practice falls under “black-hat” link building which is not recommended. Instead of paying for links, reach out to like-minded blogs and websites and contact them directly to incorporate your posts, if that is something that they’d be open to. Paying for links reduces your credibility and also may look spammy to those who are viewing your links on other sites.

Excessive Internal Links

Linking your own website every other word is not a good move either. Tasteful and applicable links when needed are good and beneficial for your web traffic. If links are in every other sentence with little connection to the content—take some links out. When linking to your own website, check to see if the link is relevant and specific. If it is, feel free to add the link. If it’s not, leave the link out. This practice is pretty simple but important to remember.

Comment Spam

Obsessively commenting on a lot of other blog posts or websites will earn you little street cred with Google. Mass comments of weakly related referrals back to your websites are a no-go. As with most of these tips, moderation is key. Linking back to your website on related posts with personal and professional comments is acceptable.

Article or Website Directories

Creating pages that are just article or website directories may harm your Google status as well. If these pages are well-done and curated effectively they could possibly be benign. However, if they’re there just for the sake of adding more links or getting more traffic then your site might suffer. If you’re creating a comprehensive guide, for example, make sure to add your own information and content as well as the links you’re providing. Linking to other websites isn’t harmful in and of itself, just make sure that it is done intentionally.

Keyword Stuffing

In the same vein as above, keyword stuffing can harm instead of helping your site. Keyword stuffing is adding a bunch of SEO keywords or industry buzzwords into your content. Adding keywords naturally is innocent and, in fact, encouraged. If your content is about, say something like “SEO Mistakes to Avoid” adding those words throughout your post and meta descriptions is what you’re supposed to do. Site crawlers can then correctly organize and order your pages and content. However, if every sentence begins with the words “SEO mistakes to avoid” your reader will be turned away and so will Google.

Short Content

If your content is too short, it will raise flags in the SEO process. A general rule of thumb is having your posts and pages be over 300 words. However, this is just a minimum number. For RedMoxy’s blog, for example, we shoot for over 600 words each blog post. Increasing the word count allows for more informational content and a more helpful read. In fact, research has shown that longer posts can up your traffic. Varying the length of posts also adds variety to your reads. Just keep in mind that for Google, posts should hit the 300 word count.

Contact RedMoxy Communications to further discuss marketing for your company. Call us to talk more about website development, digital marketing, and Search Engine Optimization.