Organic search is critical to any business, and the best way to generate this organic growth is through smart Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices. Put simply, the higher you rank in search results for specific phrases queried by your target audience, the more traffic you’ll drive to your website. Effective SEO strategy is one important part of your overall marketing strategy.

Here are some things you can do to get your business closer to the elusive Page One search rankings while helping you avoid common SEO mistakes:

Keyword Research

The key to ranking on Page One of any search engine is to find a keyword that has a high search volume and a low number of page competition. The best way to start researching keywords is to find a reliable keyword planner and start typing in different terms. From there you can see the traffic those are getting each month. Want to see your competition? Go to your favorite search engine and type in the search phrase with quotes around it.

Incorporate your Keyword Correctly

Once you find your golden ticket keyword that is on topic, incorporate it into your website. Make sure to include it in your meta description, page headline and body copy. Make sure that you aren’t duplicating efforts and using the same keyword in multiple places.

However, here’s the true secret: Once you’ve found quality keywords, make sure they are also relevant to your business. You do not ever want to force a keyword into your content, because that won’t serve your business.

Duplicate Content

This is by far the largest mistake you can make for your business. If you are reselling a product on another website and use the same description as on your business website,  you will suffer for it. Google is notorious for penalizing companies that do this.

The easiest way to avoid this is to make sure that the content you display on your website is unique. This will help you avoid the problem altogether.

Links

Linking to relevant content on your page (or outside pages) is a powerful technique. Many search engines want to know that you’re using alternative resources for your content. Equally (if not more) important is when other businesses link to your content. This being said, evaluate your links often enough to ensure they are not broken. You’ll get docked big points by search engines if links aren’t working correctly or give 404 errors.

Don’t be Afraid to Ask for Help

SEO is a finicky art that changes constantly. And plugins or SEO checklists are great tools to help make sure that you’re doing everything right the first time, without the need to go back to older content and fix mistakes.

Do you have any additional SEO strategy tips to share? Leave them below in the comments.