Search Engine Optimization(SEO)is critical to a website's success and by extension an organization's profitability. Hence, most businesses or individuals online have some form of SEO strategy to bring relevant traffic to their website. However, there are a few mistakes that could be hampering your efforts.

Here are 10 of them:

1. Not Creating Engaging Content

You are writing for an audience and if they do not find it useful or interesting, there is a high probability search engines too will rank it lower. An additional benefit of creating engaging content is that it gets shared on social media thereby extending your reach and increasing your traffic further.

2. Uninteresting Headlines

If engaging content is the key to traffic, then having an engaging headline is the secret to having your engaging content discovered. Try to hook your audience with something important that will make them feel they must click on the link to read your content. You can also use this tool from Hubspot.

3. Not Having a Sitemap

Search engines are logical in nature and like orderly sites. One of the best ways to get the best out of your website is to have a sitemap that details where different content can be found, it definitely helps your rankings and you should get someone to do it for you if you lack the required technical skill.

4. Zero (Or Limited) Social Media Presence

Search engines also check which posts are getting traction and generating buzz on social media. Twitter and Google+ are very useful in this regard while platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit and Stumbleupon can get you a lot of direct traffic if you engage with other users effectively.

5. Not Promoting Your Content Effectively

There is the old saying that 'if you build it, they will come'. This might have been true in the early days of the internet but these days you have to promote your content on social media, to your family and friends,online forums, even on electronic media like TV and radio if you can. Do not hesitate to use any opportunity to promote your content as long as you do not spam or overdo it.

6. Inconsistent Content Publishing

Most bloggers and website owners find it extremely difficult to post quality content every day. However, it is important that you make an effort to update your site consistently be-it weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. I would suggest trying to post weekly or latest bi-weekly, this helps your readers to remain engaged and search engines would also learn to index your new content at the regular interval you have created. Do not abandon your site until it begins to lose followership from people and even search engines.

7. Ineffective Keyword Research

Keywords are pointers to your content as search engines do not use every word in an article for indexing and ranking. Hence, the keywords represent the closest themes of a post. For example this post is about SEO and website traffic. Hence, I should label and tag it as such because they best describe what I am writing about. However, there are times you might want to modify your posts to target less-competitive keywords that can get you the traffic you need.

8. Poorly Designed Landing Pages

There is this saying that goes thus: 'you do not get a second chance to make a first impression'. This is so true for your website,your landing page has to impress and engage a first-time visitor to want more of your website to the point that they feel they have to take action if you are selling something or read more of your content if it is more of blogging you are doing. Make that first opportunity to impress count!

9. Using Boring and Irrelevant Images

'A picture speaks more than a thousand words', this saying makes it clear why your posts need to have catchy and relevant images to encourage people to view them especially when you are promoting on social media. Do research and use relevant and catchy images for your posts.

10. Failing to Track and Analyze Results

This is one of the most important things you can do to improve your SEO and increase traffic to your website. You are making efforts I am sure, it is important to know and improve what works for you and drop what doesn't. This is a continuous process and you should do at least on a monthly basis. This will help you improve and increase your gains which should have a great impact on your results over time.

cc: Lalasticlala, Mynd44

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