Did you know that 90% of businesses use some form of content marketing? If you are a trade school, your online presence matters more than ever. But it isn’t always easy to establish a good online presence. There are many common SEO campaign mistakes that lead to the frustrations of poor search engine rankings.

Here’s a guide to avoiding common errors in SEO campaigns for niche schools like yours.

What Is SEO?

Search engine optimization (or, more specifically, Google’s algorithms) reward sites with relevant keywords and strong internal links. To make your content stand out, use tools to do your keyword research because they can help you discover new keywords and discover which internal links are relevant to your content.

And one of the best things about keyword research tools is that you can use them to discover new keywords without investing time into day-to-day website optimization.

Why Does SEO Matter?

Search engine optimization is the process of improving your website’s ranking in search results pages (SERPs) using a combination of relevant keywords and strong anchor linking. If done well, it will also help make your site more visible to audiences interested in your product or service.

The ranking process is very competitive, with over a quarter of all keywords ranking at the top of the page. If you want your content to rank, you need to know where it stands in relation to other content and ads on the page.

Knowing how well your content ranks, you can target additional keywords to improve its position. In a nutshell, SEO is about more than just having a great website — it’s about having a great site that ranks well in search results pages (SERPs).

1. Not Using a Strong Internal Link Structure

The internal linking structure of your site is the backbone of your SEO efforts. It determines how readers move through your website and what they think.

If the links are off-kilter, the user experience will be uneven too. If the structure is lopsided, the user will likely feel disinterested in your product or service and spend less time exploring your site.

And off-kilter links will also be detected by search engines, affecting your site’s overall ranking. The best internal linking structure has a strong anchor linking to your site’s homepage.

The anchor linking should lead the reader directly to your home page or, at the very least, your top-ranking page. Ideally, the anchor links to your content, not the homepage.

Anchor linking is also essential for secondary pages on your site. For example, if your second page is a blog, the anchor linking should take the reader to your main blog page.

2. Not Creating Quality Content

New blog owners often have high expectations for themselves and their blogs because of the focus they place on their SEO campaign elements. They often want to publish great content but don’t know where to start.

That’s a common problem among new bloggers. Often, they don’t know where to begin when it comes to creating great blog content.

New blog owners often feel like they have to start with a blogroll, which is a collection of popular blogs to read. They then try to add their blogs to the list, but with only a handful of popular blogs to choose from, it’s often tough to stand out from the crowd.

Blogging is an art, not a science. Furthermore, creating great blog posts does require a bit of practice. It’s not about how many words you can put on a page — it’s about putting words on the page creatively and engagingly.

New blog owners also often don’t know how to write technical content. Even if you have a technical background, you’ll never be able to write great technical content yourself.

Technical content can be challenging to write and edit, and it’s even harder to find qualified writers who can do the job well. With the growing need for high-quality content on the Internet, it’s essential to clearly understand the importance of technical SEO and keywords.

3. Not reaching Parents With Your Content

Parents are the ultimate search engine, influencing how often your business is included in search results pages (SERPs). The more frequently your business is mentioned on search results pages, the more visible your business will be to potential customers, and the broader your brand is exposed.

Parents love to find local businesses, and they also love to research products and services that they can use themselves or that their families use. If you’re not in the business of marketing to the whole world, you probably don’t need to spend a lot of time thinking about how to reach parents.

However, if you aim for long-term success, you probably want to consider investing time and effort in developing a solid parent-friendly content strategy and decide how to use your digital marketing tools properly.

4. Failing to Review Data Analytics

Data-driven SEO is the key to success. Data is the new oil, and SEO is the new data-driven oil hydraulic fracking. Data-driven SEO requires using a variety of tools to collect data, then using those tools to create a data-driven website.

It also requires using data to make decisions, such as determining which keywords and plagiarism detection tools to use, what alt text to include, and how to present that data logically and enticingly.

It’s important to note that data-driven SEO is not just about optimizing your site for search engines; it’s also about optimizing your content for your audience.

5. Not Optimizing Meta Tags & Descriptions

Meta tags and descriptions are the glue that holds your SEO efforts together. Without them, your SEO efforts will fall apart. And it’s not just essential meta tags and descriptions — it’s the entire content strategy.

You cannot rank well if your content is terrible. Not only will readers not be able to figure out what your site is about, but Google will also penalize you for your poor H1-H2 content.

6. Poor Website Design

New website owners often feel overwhelmed by the prospect of creating a website from scratch. They don’t have an engineer’s mind for it and don’t even know where to start as far as understanding the benefits of SEO.

The first step toward a great website is having a great idea. You need to know what kind of site you want to build. If you don’t know, you can hire a pro to help you brainstorm potential features, but the first step is to have a general idea of what you want your site to look like.

You don’t want your site to look like a brochure or a brochure-like website. A brochure-like site feels static, whereas a site that looks mobile-friendly should be fluid and responsive.

7. Misuse of the Home Page

The number one mistake that new and old alike make when it comes to SEO is misusing the home page. Home pages are critical, and the first thing users see when they land on your site.

This is your chance to establish yourself as an authority in your niche and get potential customers clicking on all your great offers. But what exactly is a home page, and how can you ensure that your site’s homepage meets the latest SEO guidelines?

Home pages should be around 1,000 – 1,500 words long. This content length gives you a good amount of information to get your reader’s attention.

The key here is to include information about your business that is relevant to the page’s users. For five pages, you don’t want to ramblingly go on about your life story.

Instead, you want to focus on presenting a concise and focused overview of your brand. Now, the best home pages don’t just meet these minimum guidelines; they exceed them.

A home page that is informative, engaging, professional, and well-referenced is the best possible start to any SEO journey.

8. Poor Use of Website Navigation Tools

SEO is all about optimization. You need to guarantee that when a person lands on your site, the first thing that they will see is the homepage.

You, therefore, need to use the tools on your website to help with this. However, many people either don’t know how to use them or, if they do use them, don’t know how to optimize their site with them.

Here are a few common mistakes that new and old alike make when using website navigation tools: Users often don’t take the time to learn how to use the tools on their website.

This often leads to:

Incorrect navigation: The most common mistake people make when marketing businesses online is using the Home, About, and Contact pages as the page that gets them to your site.

Navigating to your homepage also means that you have a significant opportunity to fix these issues. Inaccessibility: Users often miss out on valuable information if they cannot find it. This can include prices, offers, deals, and more.

Users often don’t take the time to learn how to use the tools on their websites.

9. Not Posting Enough Content

As a new business owner, you may be tempted to try and boost your rankings by posting blog content. This can be on any number of topics, but you must ensure that these topics are relevant to your product or service.

For example, if your business sells wedding dresses, you will want to focus your content on selecting the perfect dress for your special day. However, you need to choose the best content for your situation.

In some cases, this might mean picking niche-specific content.

10. Having a Weak Call to Action

A strong call to action is what gets visitors to your site. However, many people don’t click on these calls to action because they lack confidence in their ability to execute the action.

For example, if a potential customer lands on your site and then lands on your competitor’s site and then lands on your website, they will bounce rather than click on your landing page.

If you want to maximize your conversions and make your site as successful as possible, you need to provide the following options:

Confidence in ability: Consumers will click on a call to action when they believe they can take action. This is why you need to reassure them that they can do the task and get them started.

Convenience: After consumers are happy with your product or service, they are more likely to continue their journey with you. This is when you need to provide the option to purchase.

11. Relying Too Much on Automation

Let’s say you decide to try and rank better in search results by installing a free SEO plugin. This type of automation is excellent as it helps you get started, but it should be used in conjunction with a qualified professional.

With the right implementation, this automation can help you rank well in specific search results, but it should not be the only tool you use for SEO.

You’re better off using a combination of manual and automated tools to boost your site’s SEO.

SEO Campaign Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make

The combination of a strong business strategy and a well-implemented SEO campaign can finally deliver the results your trade school has been looking for. Above we’ve listed the SEO campaign mistakes you want to avoid at all costs.

Are you in need of SEO help? Contact Local Finder and let the experts show you how SEO is truly done.