Keyword Stuffing and Other Common SEO Mistakes

SEO content marketing has become a pillar of digital strategy across every industry. The practice of creating optimised blog and website content to drive traffic is a cheap, long-term way to increase online visibility. However, to the uninitiated, there are plenty of SEO mistakes that can get in the way of making real progress. 

This blog is our way of sharing some insight into the mistakes that SEO newcomers commonly make, ensuring you can better approach your content strategy. 

Keyword stuffing 

Stuffing keywords is one of the easiest ways to impede on your content’s SEO value. If you’re starting to focus on SEO, you must have heard of keywords from platforms like Semrush and Ahrefs. These are the terms and phrases that will rank your content on search engines (SEs); however, if you use too many keywords in one piece of content, SEs like Google will penalise you. Don’t get greedy when incorporating keywords!

Duplicate content

Another of the most common mistakes in SEO is uploading duplicate content. This means uploading blogs or web pages that simply repeat content from other pages – whether they’re from other parts of your own website or competitor pieces. This won’t necessarily penalise your website overall, but it will mean that only one of the pages will rank in SEO terms.

Duplicate content vs plagiarism

Duplicate content SEO penalties aren’t going to be as severe as the penalties for actively plagiarising content from competitors. Of course, there are always going to be crossovers between SEO-friendly pieces of content. However, if you simply steal someone else’s work – even if you rewrite it a little – you’re going to be seriously penalised. 

Anchor text SEO mistakes

Anchor text is the text that leads to internal links within your content, such as: 

“Learn more about dynamic SEO content structure here”

However, there are some easy mistakes to make in your approach to anchor text. 

• Going overly generic, such as linking to the words “click here” or “read more”
• Trying to stuff too many keywords and links into one short stretch of text
• Making the anchor text too boring, even if it is more relevant

As a rule, just try to make the anchor text clear, concise and natural. 

Creating sub-standard content

At the end of the day, the best thing you can do for your content is make it good! Google is smart enough to know if you’re pumping out poor-quality content. Try to make sure that anything you put out there actually offers some value to readers. It’s not just good for SEO, it will ensure that you build a stronger, more reliable reputation with your content and direct potential customers to your goods/services. 

Avoid all SEO mistakes

If you’re interested in creating an effective, reliable SEO strategy, collaborate with agencies who have years of experience in the field. At Digital Next, we know SEO inside out, offering content strategies, backend services and so much more. Visit our website or get in touch today to learn more.