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The SEO No-Nos: 7 Mistakes to Avoid When Writing SEO Content
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
December 13, 2024
A photo of a printed paper formatted to look like an online search engine. "SEO" is printed at the top and the lone "search result" is the definition of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
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In today’s digital world, having a website isn’t enough—you need to make sure people can find it, which requires taking the right steps to ensure it appears in the search engine results of your desired customers. Search engine optimization (SEO) marketing is a key tool in getting your website to appear where you would like it when potential clients and customers find themselves searching. However, several steps need to be taken to make this happen, and SEO can sometimes seem complicated. There are several things you can avoid to boost your chances of appearing on the first pages of results and improve your chances of clicks. Bearing this in mind, here are some mistakes to consider to improve your website’s overall marketability.

(Also, if you don’t know what SEO is, you may not know what other terms like B2B, CTR, and UX means. Click here to learn what all these crazy marketing acronyms mean!)

Mistake #1: Letting AI Handle Everything

ChatGPT has become increasingly more commonly used as a writing tool. However, it’s important to remember that AI tools can show evidence of plagiarism in their results, which can affect your overall SEO ranking. This is why even though AI tools can be a good option for brainstorming ideas, the overall writing of your blogs, articles, and other SEO content should still be done without these tools. Take the time to edit, refine, and humanize any AI-generated text to make it your own before publishing it on your site. Furthermore, search engines may penalize you for using purely AI-generated content or ignore it completely (not index it), wasting your time and effort. Google’s current guidance is that such content is not penalized, but keep in mind that whatever ChatGPT is spitting out for you, it’s probably spitting out for others. Simple exercise caution and try and ensure your content is of quality.

Mistake #2: Stealing Content

Hints of plagiarism can be penalized, and outright plagiarism can get your site in trouble and potentially lead to public humiliation or legal issues. Because of this, you should never steal any content word-for-word from other sources. When you do use another source as inspiration or as a reference for your own, cite those sources properly, and be sure to use a plagiarism checker such as Grammarly or Copyscape. Meanwhile, whenever any reference is used, take the time to provide additional insights into the material.

Mistake #3: Writing Off-Topic Content

While writing your content, it can be tempting to mention other topics. However, your SEO has served the purpose of drawing your audience to the content due to the topic at hand and what you are marketing. Because of this, a dentist should avoid blogging about celebrity gossip, though a mention of celebrity dental implants may make the cut if you’re really wanting to write about pop culture.

John Hall, a Senior Contributor at Forbes, wrote about this in 2022: “Long gone are the days when brands could earn SEO points via irrelevant links and keyword stuffing. Search engines now use artificial intelligence and machine learning to weed out the riffraff and rank webpages with greater and greater sophistication.”

Mistake #4: Ignoring Formatting & Readability

One common mistake writers make is ignoring the formatting in SEO content. However, readability makes content more scannable and does this through the use of headings, bullet points, shorter paragraphs, images, and infographics. A tool such as Hemingway Editor can help improve the clarity of a piece. Even if the impact to SEO is considered negligible by some, making your website content easier to read is always good policy.

Miranda Miller did an extensive breakdown of this for Search Engine Journal in 2022.

Mistake #5: Avoiding External Links

Another common misgiving is thinking linking to another site is bad as it will draw others away from a piece of content. However, linking to a high-authority website can show greater credibility and may even allow a search engine to understand a piece of content better. An example may include a medical blog linking to the Department of Health and Human Services website. It is a good idea to mix internal links within your site and external links to trusted sources.

Mistake #6: Buying Cheap Backlinks

Many individuals looking to boost their marketing efforts may attempt to purchase cheap backlinks – examples include options offering 500 backlinks for $5. However, it’s important to remember that search engines penalize this, so these purchases will only hurt your marketing tactics in the long run.

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Mistake #7: Chasing Perfection Instead of Just Writing

Various factors, such as keyword density, metadata, and backlinks, are important when writing content. However, it can become easy to become paralyzed by attempting to get the perfect number of keywords or the perfect backlinks to enhance your marketing efforts, which can prevent you from simply writing the highest piece of content possible. SEO content is a process that can take time, effort, and consistent work to master. However, by remembering key details and avoiding these mistakes, you can be well on your way to achieving great content for your sites. If you need assistance, Anthem Communications is available to provide the guidance you require. Just keep writing, learning, and improving along the way.

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