This is killing your SEO strategy,
and here's how to fix it.
I get some variation of this question all the time.
If you could avoid one SEO mistake, what would it be?
Now, there are tons of big no-nos when it comes to SEO.
The more obvious red flags
that can actually get you penalized
include things like keyword stuffing,
using a ton of duplicate content,
(chime) buying backlinks,
things like that.
But there's one major issue I see a ton of newbies make
and it's probably not the one you think,
because when people think of SEO, they think of keywords,
backlinks, meta descriptions, and things like that.
Can you guess what it is?
Let me know in the comments below.
The thing I see that people look over all the time
that's killing their SEO strategy is
not optimizing their UX.
See, search engines don't just evaluate webpages
based on the keywords you use
or how many backlinks you have.
Your website has to provide users
with a high quality experience,
or they will 100% seek out a different website.
Here's how you can optimize your UX
so that you can kick your SEO strategy into high gear.
Tip number one, optimize your page speed.
88.5% of visitors leave a website because of slow load time.
Just imagine, you pick up your phone,
you go to do a Google search, you click on a result,
one second, two seconds, three seconds,
still not loaded,
four seconds, five seconds, six seconds, halfway loaded,
seven seconds, eight seconds, nine seconds,
fully loaded.
That's a long time.
You're going to leave the site.
Make sure your code is clean using a CDN,
which is a content delivery network,
so that way your website is on servers all over the web.
So that way when someone from India visits your website,
they're picking up your website from a server in India.
When someone in California visits your website,
they may pick up your website from a server
in Texas or California or somewhere on the West Coast.
Tip number two, optimize your images and content.
Updating and republishing old blog posts
with new content and images can increase traffic
by as much as 106%.
According to HTTP Archive, images make up a average of 21%
of a total webpages weight,
so make sure that you're compressing the images,
not in size, I'm talking about file size,
so not in dimensions, but more so file sizes
of where you want to compress 'em,
and when you update your content, optimize your images,
make sure that they're images
on what people are looking for,
you're going to be much better off.
Tip number three, make sure your headlines are perfect.
36% of SEO experts said
that the headlines were the most important SEO element.
David Ogilvy always used to say,
"80 cents on the dollar spent on the headline."
So you got to make sure that your headline is amazing,
and there's a lot of stats out there that show this.
Eight out of 10 people read a headline,
two out of 10 people read the rest of your content.
So you got to really focus on the headline
and make it catchy.
What I like doing is running A/B tests
using paid ads with different headlines
to figure out what people like the most.
Tip number four, simplify your website's navigation.
84.6% of web designers believe that crowded web design
is the most common mistake made by small businesses,
and look, simplify your navigation,
simplify what's on a page, remove unnecessary elements,
it just makes things easier for people to navigate.
If you're not sure if you're making things simpler or worse,
you can always use analytics tools like Crazy Egg
which shows you where people click.
You can also survey 'em,
and on top of that, if you want to do a lot
of user testing, check out usertesting.com
which can also give you more feedback.
Tip number five, improve your mobile experience.
Google recently reported that 60% of searches are completed
on your phone.
That's a lot.
How's your mobile experience?
Is it amazing, is it bad?
Majority of the people that visit your website eventually,
if not already, will be from mobile devices.
Look at a lot of social networks that you use,
Instagram, Twitter, TikTok.
Where do you find them?
Mobile devices.
It's super important that you optimize your site
to be responsive so that way your website can expand
if someone has a big desktop computer,
a laptop, a iPad, a small mobile phone,
or a big mobile phone, a responsive design adapts
so that way it fits all these devices,
and you can also use tools
like browser testing to figure out if, hey,
is my website actually responsive and working effectively,
depending on the operating system, the phone type,
the screen size, and even the browser type.
Now, if you need help with your SEO,
check out my ad agency, NP Digital.
If you enjoyed this video, like it, share it,
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and leave a comment if you have any questions.