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Common Mistakes That Negatively Impact Website Success
Errors Errors everywhere and not a person to help. We see errors everyday. Even sometimes we miss things. But what are critical mistakes that hamper you digital marketing success.
Table of Contents
The Platform And the Host
We will start our list of mistakes at the most fundamental genesis. Two of the first decisions a person makes when they decide to start a website are where to host it and how to build it. Often this is the biggest mistake we see, is picking wrong based on your goals.
If you wish to have a website that ranks in Google well. If you want a web hosting company that is geared toward Google success your choices are very limited. The website needs to be built in WordPress. Now granted there are two ways to approach this, .com and .org. WordPress.com is a platform and should be avoided in our opinion. The right and clear path for a website’s success is WordPress.org.
There are a few reasons for it. First off you can choose where your website is hosted which is an extremely relevant point. This is a very important decision that will impact your website. A web host that has downtime is a problem. A web host that has slow or out-of-date servers and a throttled pipe is also a problem. Additionally, there are platform-based web hosts and they too are issues where you do not have the control over your own website or even if you can have a .htaccess file, a necessary tool in the SEO toolbox.
I am often asked why I started a web hosting company and first and foremost, we needed to host our sites in a manner that best-supported search engines. At the time the only way we could meet the need was to bring hosting in-house. So that is what we did and ended up with a relatively large hosting company. Google finally came around to my way of thinking which was to include the core vitals as part of the algorithm.
On-site SEO
The next thing is how the little things being off can impact your website. Keyword research is paramount to having successful on-site seo success. The proper implementation of keywords though a page from the title tag to the Headline tags, and the navigation are supremely important signals that if don’t send them you are missing an opportunity. Having on-site SEO dialed in is an easy win and will more often than not move your website from page 2+ to possibly the first page easily.
Backlinks
There are two sets of issues that emanate from backlinks. One is totally ignoring them or two trying to game them.
New website owners especially, often think put up 5 pages and boom people will find me. Well, the days of if you build it they will come is in the rearview mirror. The reality is that you need to be an authority. You need to be fresh and you need to be a thought leader.
If you are an entrepreneur, this should not be a high bar. After all, if you are bold enough to start out on your own, leadership should not be hard for you. As a thought leader you should be putting out high-quality contact and in return, you will find people linking to your site creating the link equity needed.
Now there are SEOs that feel link manipulation is the way to go meaning, buying links, PBNs that are hard to track. Spun content. All kinds of schemes that are highly against Google Guidelines. Link manipulation is by far one of the worst errors that can be discussed. Usually, the offenders are egregious in their execution. If you build a quality site, are involved in your community and are a professional organization, more than likely good quality links will come.
Intellectual Property
So this is a fancy term but what it means for this exercise is things like your domain name and your social media properties.
In the 25 years since I’ve been working in this industry, I’ve seen so many unfortunate business owners come to us to help solve IP issues. They rang from Domains with wrong contact issues, divorce problems and even death.
Understanding the ins and outs of owning a domain are extremely important. But here is the highlight reel.
Know who owns your domain. There is a Registrant, who is ultimate and there is an Admin contact. Billing and Tech no longer matter when it comes to resolving domain issues.
There is a place for domain owners name and the domain corporate owner name. Corporations have rights so make sure you have both there, especially if you are a partnership or corporation. Just because someone dies does not mean the next of kin takes the domain over. Make sure if you have a highly sellable domain, its named in your will. Makes sure if you have a domain its not held as part of community property so it doesn’t get caught in the crossfire. We have had to have judge’s order spouses to allow the update of a domain so as to not damage the wife’s business. And most of all make sure you keep a valid email address on your domain and make sure you know when it expires. We recommend all domains always be kept with at least 5 years remaining on them.
As for social media properties, we feel a coordinated strategy is needed. First never just let your SEO Company or Social Medial company seize control and cut you out. Make sure you retain control at all times. Should you not, you could easily lose that property, just like you could lose your domain.
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