1. Purchasing Links
While you might see an increase in traffic initially, generally paid links are flagged and identified by Google’s search engine experts. The Google team is a smart one, and they will watch out for team for questionable linking patterns! If you purchase over a 100 links in the same day, chances are this activity will be flagged as suspicious. If discovered, it’s really not worth the risk!
2. Duplicate Content
This needs to be paid attention to. Several bloggers will try variation blogs on the same topic with very similar keywords. For instance: “Making money” versus “Make money” does not provide enough differentiation. Rather than doubling up on the same content, you would be better off focusing on one original topic or keyword in detail, and make an effort to add enhance each post.
3. Keyword Stuffing
Probably one of the most frequent SEO mistakes is keyword stuffing. It’s not only unethical, but it also affects your overall search rankings. If you really want to rank for a bunch of keywords, create a separate page for each keyword and optimize for it accordingly. Instead of using hidden or duplicate text, focus on creating useful pages that have your keywords implemented in them as part of the content. Trying to manipulate a search engine like Google is a big no-no.
4. Thin Content
Many websites will cut blogs too short, and content therefore lacks value, especially in SEO terms. Writing extremely short posts hurts reader loyalty, and it may mean that your page will be considered as low quality when it comes to SEO rankings. It’s best to keep blog posts between 350-500 words at the minimum. When it comes to content however, it’s not always about how long each post is. It’s crucial to continually add new blog posts to your website, so there is fresh information present on an on-going basis.
5. Don’t Focus too Much on Design
While many bloggers depend on content to grow their blog, there are some who had become far too focused on the design of the blog. While it’s helpful to have an attractive design to engage visitors, remember to keep it simple. You don’t want to take away from the content or overcrowd your blog page.
