You’ve spent hours perfecting your website. It’s bursting with your products or services and photographs you spent days collecting. So why is it still hiding in the shadows of the internet, like a socially awkward teenager at a school disco? 

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) isn’t just a buzzword digital marketers like to throw around to sound smart – it’s the secret sauce to getting found online. But just like a bad haircut, SEO can make or break your online image. 

Over our tenure as digital marketers, we’ve seen some truly incredible home-brew SEO practices, but more often than not, we find ourselves coming up against the same ten core problems. So we’ve collated our top nine “SEO-no-you-didn’t” moments that might be tanking your site’s chances of being seen. 

Come with us now on a journey through time and space as we uncover the nine most common ways poor SEO harms your business. It’s time to shine a light on those SEO blunders and turn things around!

How can people find you if they don’t know you’re there? You are missing out on a HUGE chunk of potential customers by not optimising for local SEO. The easiest fix is to claim your Google Business Profile and make sure that you’re including local keywords in your business description (“Pizza delivery in Stockport”, for example). Otherwise, your business won’t appear in local search results, and that’s a major lost opportunity.

Stuffing your website with keywords may seem like an easy way  to rank higher, but remember how annoying the Safestyle TV adverts were? Much like that advert repeatedly shouting, “YOU BUY ONE YA GET ONE FREE”, repeating the same keywords with zero context is just as, if not more, annoying. Search engines can quickly recognise this tactic and penalise your site for it – in short, it’s unreadable and unappealing. Not only that, you are incredibly likely to tank your on-page conversion rates. Don’t do it.

Over 60% of global web traffic comes from mobile devices. If your website doesn’t perform on mobile, you’ll get higher bounce rates as people “nope” out of using your site in favour of a mobile-optimised business. This will negatively impact your SEO, leading to a significant drop in your local rankings.

These are the unsung heroes of SEO. Ignoring your meta descriptions and title tags will result in significantly lower traffic (or “click-through rates”). These help search engines understand your content and are what a user sees on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). If they aren’t optimised with your keywords and effective calls to action, people won’t click through to your site. Think of a website without title tags like reading a newspaper without headings above the articles.

If you need help wrangling your meta descriptions & title tags, fill out the form below & we’ll be in touch to help!

Backlinks are just links on other websites that link back to yours. Think of them as an endorsement of your business – would you want to be endorsed by a reputable website or the equivalent of a dodgy bloke on the street corner saying, “Just trust me”? A great source for backlinks can be local directories, but it’s worth looking into getting backlinks from news websites or review services. The key here is ensuring that they are relevant. There is no use in getting a backlink from “Dog Groomers Quarterly” if you’re a podiatrist. Poor or spammy backlinks can lead to penalties and lower rankings. Focusing on earning quality backlinks helps build your site’s authority and credibility.

I’m ageing myself here, but imagine you’ve just picked up the latest VHS from Blockbuster. You rush home, throw it in the VHS player, and realise that someone wasn’t kind and didn’t rewind. That’s how a slow website feels – and why search engines prioritise faster-loading sites over slower ones. A study by Google found that 53% of website visits will go elsewhere if a website takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

Reusing the same content across multiple pages confuses search engines and dilutes your SEO efforts. Not only that, but it looks sloppy—search engines (and users!) love it when your site is full of unique, high-quality, relevant content. If you’ve got three pages that all say the same thing, you don’t need three pages—you just need one. If you’ve got three pages trying to rank for “hair cuts in Hounslow”, search engines won’t know which one to show, so it won’t show any. In particular avoid duplicating content between different domains/websites, this can be even more damaging for your content visibility (and it’s just not a nice thing to do!).

Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) information across online directories is crucial for local SEO. Inconsistent information can confuse search engines and hurt your local search rankings. It’s also very important to ensure your opening times are current. Very few things are more annoying than trying to work out if that burger place you like is open on a bank holiday!

SEO performance isn’t something you can intuitively feel working. If you’re not tracking it using (at the very least) a free tool like Google Analytics, then you won’t understand what’s working and what’s not. Looking at the content that performs best and using that to inform your strategy is just as important as looking for new products or developing new services to offer.

SEO is more than just a buzzword; it’s a crucial part of a robust business strategy, especially if you want to dominate your local market. Remember, first and foremost, good SEO is all about providing value, being user-friendly and staying relevant. 

You’re not alone, however! Think of us as your own personal SEO superheroes. We’re here to ensure you get found online – no matter your niche. 

Get in touch with us today for a free consultation to discuss your SEO. Simply fill out the form below or click the chat button in the bottom right, and we’ll contact you!