5 Common SEO Mistakes Small Businesses Make

A majority of shopping experiences begin with a search engine. Despite that, a large number of small businesses have opted not to invest in search engine optimization.

According to The Manifest’s latest survey of 500 small businesses, half are not convinced that SEO is worth the effort. Unfortunately, they couldn’t be more wrong. When small businesses neglect their SEO, their online rankings begin to drop — and so do their sales.

To remain on top of the results, small businesses need to not only make the effort but also must be wary of common mistakes that companies often make.

Here are 5 mistakes companies often make and how to correct them.

1. Underestimating the competition:

Just because you might see SEO as “worth it” doesn’t mean your competition feels the same way. Just like you have to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing as far as customer service, products, and offerings, you need to know what they’re doing online. Monitor their social media activity, link-building strategies, and content marketing efforts.

2. Not thinking about mobile:

Nearly three-quarters of internet users will access the web via smartphone by 2025, according to the World Advertising Research Center. If you’re neglecting mobile SEO, not only is it poor customer experience, Google will penalize you in the rankings.

3. Neglecting internal links:

Once you’ve gotten people to your site, you want to keep them there. One strategy for doing so is to link to different pages on your website. This will keep them on the site longer — and help drive the action that you ultimately want them to take: making a purchase.

4. Not considering load speed:

How quickly your site does or does not load is not only an important part of the user experience, it also affects your site’s rankings. That’s because if your visitors come from Google, and they bounce immediately after getting to your website because it’s taking too long to load, Google will see it as a sign that something is wrong with your site.

5. Going it alone:

As a small business owner, the number of tasks on your list seemingly grows every day. Adding SEO to the list — learning it and executing it — can be a lot, and that’s okay. For some small business owners, it helps to work with a partner. It’s a smart idea to hire a Dallas SEO company that can handle the heavy SEO lifting while you take care of everything else on your list.