Making a mistake here and there is normal in the Search Engine Optimization world. In fact, whether you’re a newbie or a veteran, none of that matters because even the smartest people in the SEO industry have made dumb mistakes. Well, everyone practically makes mistakes, but you may want to know the 4 common SEO mistakes that most people do so that you can learn how to avoid them. You never know, you may have committed some of them without you knowing.

1. The misguided notion of thinking bots are above humans.

Even after putting behind those days where tricking search engines and chasing algorithms were the best ways to go with SEO, there are still people who think that bots or search engine algorithms are way above human beings. This kind of mindset gives birth to keyword cramming, specific content length, and other hopeless strategies.

Putting bots above humans is not a wise move in today’s environment especially when it comes to search engine optimization suggests Bobs SEO, a Boston SEO consultant. This is because impressing and pleasing your visitors are what everyone needs to rank well. And by this, I mean that having a user-friendly website that offers an outstanding user experience coupled with smooth navigation and well-written and informative content. You need to satisfy your visitors for them to buy your products or services, or otherwise, there’s no use in putting effort to rank your site higher, right?

2. Not able to recognize what are the real key performance indicators.

Back in the days where selling advertisements on websites were rampant, most people mistook the “hits” for page view, which we all know now is wrong. In truth, there are several aspects that are considered as additional hits, that’s why an unreasonably high perception of traffic volume was created. However, in today’s time, “hits” can no longer be tracked down, rather, in its places are other uncertain metrics such as inbound links, follower count, and likes.

But what does it take for a metric to be considered a valuable key performance indicator (KPI)? One key indicator is that any metric must be relevant and useful in the context of your business goals. Your KPIs must be able to meet your objective and are something that is greatly related to your business goals.

3. Failure to carry out an accurate performance tracking

If you don’t have even an inkling on how your website is performing, then how else will you know whether what your campaign is effective, how far you’ve come, or what areas need some fixing or eliminating? Believe it or not, many marketers rely more on their gut instinct instead of doing an actual performance tracking. Although I can’t fault them for doing that because true, instincts have proven its value to use, but your instincts aren’t always right, let alone accurate. Considering the kind of world we live in today, there’s basically an internet tool for anything especially in tracing your website’s performance.

4. Heeding advice from uncertain sources

Perhaps one of the great and bad things about the internet is that information last forever. Over the last 20 years or so, SEO has come a long way. Being involved in the SEO world means you be able to distinguish the trusted sources and those that are not. To be on the top or to simply rank your site a little higher will require you to always learn a thing or two from various prominent sources since search engine optimization will continue to evolve in the years to come.

Author's Bio: 

Faith Patina is a freelance writer for a Boston SEO Company and has a bachelor's degree in business management.