CMO alert: 5 SEO mistakes to avoid

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Let’s face it. As a CMO, you have various responsibilities piled up on your plate ranging from growth to product positioning. There’s little time to dive into the technicalities of SEO and its nuances, unless you have the budget to hire a SEO specialist (they don’t come cheap).

But given that organic SEO performs nearly six times better than paid search ads, SEO needs to have a place in your marketing playbook. Hence, it is important to have a solid grasp of what SEO is, why it is important, and how it fits into your overall digital marketing strategy to drive your company’s KPIs on a bigger scale.

Why is it important to have a SEO strategy?

Adweek reported that 81 percent of shoppers conduct online research before they make a purchase. In other words, the internet plays an integral part of modern consumers’ shopping experience as they often learn more about products before making purchases.

According to Search Engine Watch, the top three sites which appear on the first page of Google receive 58.4 percent of all clicks from users. In addition to great content, you need the right strategy for your website to be ranked above your competitors.

If you’re struggling to have your website discovered by users, it could be because your website isn’t optimized for search. Read on below to find out more about five common SEO mistakes and how you can avoid them.
 

1. Ignoring technical SEO

Technical SEO refers to any work done to a website other than the content itself. Since search engine requirements are constantly evolving and becoming more sophisticated, it is important to have a good foundation which can help optimize the user experience on your website. Therefore, it’s important to conduct a technical SEO audit before jumping into creating an actionable strategy.

Key elements of technical SEO that CMOs should pay close attention to are:

a) Crawlability and indexation

Crawlability refers to the ability and effectiveness of a search engine to access and browse the pages on your site before adding them to its gigantic database, commonly known as the index. This index is updated every time the crawler comes around your website and finds a new or revised version of it.

Crawl budget refers to the amount of money, time and resources that Google is willing to spend on your site. Crawl websites such as Screaming Frog and DeepCrawl can help you to resolve crawling and indexing issues.

Because Google needs to index your website’s pages before they appear in search, it’s important that you ensure the essential pages are indexed.

b) Website speed

Site speed is one of the key performance indicators of websites – Google ranks that as one of its most significant ranking factors which is very closely associated to a good user experience. Therefore, CMOs should prioritize testing page speed using websites such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

According to marketer Neil Patel, over 40 percent of users have abandoned a site due to the slow site speed. Some ways to improve a website’s speed include limiting the components of a website, making the templates minimalist, optimizing visuals, and cutting down on redirects from other websites.

2. Neglecting on-site SEO

On-site SEO refers to a collection of tactics aimed at making your site more search engine friendly. You need to make it as easy as possible for search engines that crawl your website to understand the content, structure and intent of your website. This is important for your website to be ranked higher on their index.

On-site SEO goes hand-in-hand with technical SEO – don’t make the mistake of giving on-site SEO a backseat.

Agora Integrated Marketing shared a comprehensive one pager on-site SEO checklist which you can tackle, ranging from page title, H1 tags, to descriptive URLs, meta descriptions, and more.

In addition, ideal lengths for different elements are also included – for instance, title tags should not exceed 60 characters, while meta descriptions should not exceed 156 characters.

3. Not prioritizing mobile-friendliness

Google is crystal clear about its intention to prioritize sites that follow best practices for mobile-first indexing. This refers to using the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking to better help customers who are primarily mobile users.

“Mobilegeddon” refers to the algorithm update that Google rolled out back in April 2015 which significantly affected the way in which it ranked websites. With Google driving 96 percent of mobile search traffic, it is important not to undermine the mobile-friendliness of your webpage.

Google’s Consumer Barometer, a research on consumer study conducted across 56 countries, reports that Asia dominates when it comes to smartphone use and engagement. In Singapore alone, there is a smartphone penetration of 91 percent, the highest in the region.

Achieving a mobile-friendly website will require you to nail critical components such as speedy load time, responsive design, and localization among others. If you haven’t made your website mobile-friendly with an easy-to-use interface that is responsive and easy to navigate, you risk losing a majority of your potential traffic.

4. Keyword stuffing

Google defines keyword stuffing as the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in search results.

This is severely frowned upon by search engines because you are trying to game the system by loading up keywords on each page and attempting to trick the bot into ranking your page higher. It’s one of the oldest spam tactics on the books, but some companies still do it, thinking they can get away with it.

While there is no definition of how much is too much, the algorithm is able to quickly detect if an unnaturally high density of keywords are used too often, without context and relevance.

5. Expecting immediate results from your SEO efforts

Marketing practitioners estimate approximately four to six months before you should expect to reap the harvest.

In order to stay on top of the SEO game, you will need to relentlessly create relevant and value-added content, monitor your KPIs closely and maintain consistency. SEO isn’t a “set it and forget it” tactic. It’s a long term investment, but you can bet that if you don’t jump onto the SEO bandwagon, your business will lose out significantly.

Consistency and commitment are key

These mistakes are just a snapshot of common mistakes CMOs tend to make. While most marketers may have a SEO playbook to refer to, it’s equally important to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all SEO strategy for every business – consistency and commitment are the only keys to success.

Looking to up your SEO game but unsure if it should be handled by your marketing team or a specialized agency? Have a read at this article, where we lay out key factors for marketers who are considering between the in-house or outsourced route.

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