- We've done a ton of videos on SEO.
You know how important it is,
but there may be a couple of mistakes
that you're overlooking.
That's what we're talking about today on The Journey.
- Before you're ready take on world domination
with your new business,
you've got to start with the local arena
and that begins with your online presence.
- Yeah.
So let's cover some of those mistakes you might be making,
starting with not doing your research.
Research is super important, right?
We can't just expect SEOs to just happen and work.
We've got to do the work before that.
- Picking the right keywords is the key to success here.
- I see what you did there.
- Exactly.
You wanna avoid those high frequency keywords.
- Yeah. So things like shirts, right?
So shirts can mean a plethora of different things.
Whether it's shirts for women, shirts for men,
shirts for toddlers, whatever have you.
And the people that are already ranking
really well with with shirts,
they have a lot of dollars behind that investment, right?
If you go out there as a brand new business
and try to rank against some of the big dogs,
you're just gonna get flooded because they're everywhere.
- Yeah. There's no way you can compete.
If someone's just going to type in shirts,
they're just gonna see the big giants.
It's impossible to compete.
That's basically a waste of money.
But think about it from the perspective
of an actual consumer.
If I'm looking for a place to buy a T-shirt,
I'm not going to Google and typing in shirts.
- Right.
There's no intent there
- Exactly.
You wanna be more specific.
So I would be looking up, okay, vintage T-shirts in Austin.
You wanna use those long tail keywords
that are actually what consumers are using.
- Absolutely.
And the specific search in Austin is absolutely important.
I know that if you're,
based in Austin or wherever you're based in,
you might wanna serve everyone.
But starting, like we said, in the beginning,
starting close to home where you know your audience,
you know the people is sometimes the best avenue to go to.
- It's also important to monitor trends in your local area
so that you can always stay one step ahead.
And a tool you can use for that
is https://trends.google.com.
- Yeah. You basically go and search your keywords,
whether it's shirts in Austin
or hip shirts and things like that.
It'll kind of give you how it's been trending related
to some other keywords too.
It'll give you some content suggestions
and other related queries.
Google Keyword Planner is also a great tool to use
when it comes to researching different keywords
because what you might think is relevant may not be relevant
to your audience, what they're actually searching for.
So you can see the volume of searches per month
and then related keywords
that you may want to focus on more.
So Google keyword Planner is a great tool
along with https://trends.google.com.
- The next mistake you want to avoid
is keyword stuffing. I mean,
it's basically spamming in the eyes of search engines,
especially Google.
- Yeah. I mean, I'm all for stuffing at Thanksgiving,
but stuffing on your website is bad.
So there's lots of practices back in the day
where people would put white text on white background
and just stuff it with a bunch of keywords
they thought was relevant.
It's a big no-no for Google, or just,
just stuffing in just random words throughout
their website itself,
where it doesn't really make sense
for a normal person to read that.
If you're selling shirts in Austin,
having shirts in Austin almost every other line,
it's just,
it's not gonna flow.
We don't talk like that.
So make sure you actually put content
and make it to where we wanna read it. Right?
That's what this is all about.
It's for the consumers,
for the person looking at your site,
the longer we keep them there, the better.
Having it weird and awful,
and just all jumbled text everywhere,
just shirts in Austin, shirts in Austin, shirts in Austin,
you're not going to have a good time.
- Exactly.
Write for your audience, not an algorithm.
And even if you think you can outsmart the search engine,
they're probably gonna figure it out anyway,
and it's just gonna be for no cause.
- I like that though.
Write for people not the algorithm,
- Yeah. Something like that.
- Just to have a little quote on my wall.
Our next mistake is poorly written content.
And this covers a few things,
starting with just duplicating content.
I know there's people out there that will go on another site
that is trending and has authority
and just copy their content and put it on their own website
and treat it like it's their own.
Google sees this as duplicate content
and it's going to actually de-rank those pages
and give credit to the primary site,
or it may even hurt them too.
So you're not doing a good service by copying content.
You want to make sure that the content
that you create is quality and original.
- Basically don't be lazy,
create your own content
and make sure that all of the content
that you're producing deliver some kind of value
for the consumer that's actually on your page.
- And then while you're doing those searches,
you should also check out what your competitors are doing.
So if you sell shirts in Austin,
search that on Google,
or whatever your preferred search engine is
and see what they're using for their titles
and descriptions.
See what might be working for them,
and which ones really capture your eye
would make you click as consumer and try to not duplicate,
but use those best practices when it comes to your website.
- The next mistake to avoid is
the Bad Link Building Practices.
Google search is a constantly evolving system
and you may be able to fool it once,
but it's not going to take long for them to figure it out
and deter those types of bad habits.
- So when she talks about those bad linking habits,
she's talking about creating back-links on other websites.
So you can think of back-links,
like little tiny up-votes for your website.
So other websites are linking to your content,
basically saying, hey, this content is rad,
It's awesome, cool, cool, cool, cool.
But what a lot of people are have done in the past
and thankfully avoiding now these days,
is paying for back-links or putting their,
their URLs on sites that aren't reputable
or just doesn't make sense to their audience.
Google does a really great job of linking sites together
that are kind of in the same industry and niche.
And now if you were on some random site,
that's talking about food and they're linking over
to Austin shirts may not make sense.
Or if it's just a malicious or poorly reputable site
that's linking to your site,
those are now down-votes not up-votes.
- So if you are commenting or leaving links on other sites,
here are some things you want to remember.
Don't put too many links in one single post
and also don't be too self-promoting. Don't be weird.
Like, hey, this is the best brand,
go check out this link.
And here's their catalog with another link.
It's obvious.
- Yeah. It just doesn't, it just,
people can smell the inauthenticity.
And they're not going to check out any of your links.
With that too, like especially if you go
to other review sites or blogs
and things like that,
don't just post a comment to post a comment
or one that's irrelevant just to try
to link back to your website.
Again, the inauthenticity.
No, one's going to click that link.
You wanna add value to the conversation
and continue that conversation as well.
And if it makes sense,
then link your content.
Don't self promote the entire time,
add value first, and then when it makes sense,
add your link.
- And if you're commenting,
make sure you have an actual photo
and an actual, you know, information on your page.
Because everyone knows that whenever someone comments
and it's just some sketchy photo,
you're not really taking that seriously
and the actual websites see that as shady practice too.
- Yeah. Those admins might see that.
Just think of you as spam,
and then they'll delete your account or move,
then all your content is gone.
- Our last mistake is ignoring databases
for local businesses.
So don't forget about Yelp, Google, TripAdvisor,
all of these sites play into your search relevancy.
So don't forget that that's where people are searching.
They're looking for local businesses
and that's a huge way to become more organically relevant.
- Yeah.
You may not use these per se yourself,
but really when you're marketing your website
and you're doing SEO and all these things,
you wanna think about
where are your visitors searching for?
Whether it's Google, or Google my business, or Yelp,
or Foursquare, or wherever it is,
you wanna be where they're searching.
Not your preference, where they're searching.
- Even if someone's searching on Apple maps,
all of that information is coming from Yelp nowadays.
So it's really important to make sure you have all of those
sites set up with all the correct information.
By avoiding these common SEO mistakes,
you can make sure that your website stays in good standing
with Google and all those other search engines as well.
Let us know in the comments down below
if there's any SEO mistakes that we missed
that you think are particularly helpful.
- Yeah. And while you're there,
make sure you like this video
and subscribe to our channel,
see these episodes first.
This is The Journey.
We'll see you next time.