If you’ve just started a Singapore business, then you know that there are a lot of things that you need to consider. And this is especially the case when it comes to optimising your website. You need to get as many visitors to your new website as possible. However, there are a lot of mistakes that new businesses tend to make with their SEO.

The good news is, if you know which mistakes to avoid along the way, you will be able to ensure that your website achieves a significant amount of visibility. In this article we will give you a list of the most common SEO mistakes new Singapore businesses make. We’ll also give you idea of how you can turn these mistakes around.

1. Not starting from the very beginning

There are many cases in which a business may create highly valuable content. In fact, it is often exactly what the business’ target audience would want to see. However, the problem is, every with excellent content, it does not always guarantee that the target audience will see it. Your target audience needs to first know that the content exists.

This is why it’s so important to perform SEO from the very beginning. Sure content is an essential part of attracting your audience, but you need to develop a sound SEO strategy in order to make sure that it doesn’t get buried in the search results. So start planning before you even post your first article or blog.

2. Choosing high-competition keywords

When your website is brand new, you shouldn’t expect to be able to earn high rankings for competitive keywords. Even if you are going by the book and engaging in every best practice that has ever been written, you will still be expected to work your way up. But still, new businesses tend to bid on the high competition terms from the very start and wonder why they are not achieving their goals.

A better strategy would be to focus on the low competition keywords. In this way, you will give yourself a fair shot at growing your brand and reputation. With some time, you will be able to compete for words that are higher in valuable.

3. Ignoring the audience’s search intent

Many Singapore startups make the mistake of thinking that SEO is purely about pleasing the search engines. Sure, you want to make sure that Google is happy, but this shouldn’t be your ultimate goal. Your main objective should be to make content that appeals to your audience; the SERPs should actually be second in priority.

And making your audience happy is a result of your understand what their intent is. You need to know what people are trying to achieve when the search for a specific term. Do they want to buy or do they simply want information?  When you are able to identify their goals and provide them with what they are looking for, the search engines will reward you with higher rankings. What’s good for your target audience is what’s good for Google.

4. Not targeting long-tail keywords

Some Singapore business owners assume that if they use keywords that are broad, this will help them to attract more of an audience. In actuality, it is the long-tail, detailed keywords that will attract more of an audience–at least in terms of quality. And there are several reasons why new businesses shouldn’t start with them.

You see, when a user enters a broad keyword into the search engine, they are likely interested in learning more about the subject. The person may not be ready to make a purchase. Also, broad keywords tend to be high competition and there are often a lot of ads that appear in the search engine for them, pushing down all of the organic results. So use long-tail keywords.

5. Forgetting about technical SEO

Another common mistake that new businesses make is that they completely neglect the technical aspect of SEO. They forget about or are not aware of the things that need to be taken care of in the background–like title tags, meta descriptions, image names, URLs, alt tags, and more. And unfortunately, it can have a negative impact as these are the things that can shape how the search engines view your website.

This is a relatively easy mistake to make as these things are not visible on the surface. They require investigation. This is why many businesses choose to work with an SEO expert. They can help you to improve your click-through rates by taking care of the technical end.

6. Keyword stuffing

Stuffing tons of keywords into an article can be tempting. After all, this lets the search engines know what your page is about and can result in high rankings in a shorter amount of time, right? Not really. Actually, stuffing keywords into your content only makes the search engines trust you less. And that’s because this type of content often makes for a bad user experience.

The algorithms can easily catch on to when a website is keyword stuffing. And this usually results in the site being penalised. Instead of using thousands of keywords in one article, try speaking naturally to your audience and keep their experience in mind.

7. Not building internal links

Sometimes businesses get so caught up in linking out to authority sites that they forget to link internally. Unfortunately, the audience misses out on other valuable content that their website happens to offer. When your audience visits your site, you need to keep them there are as long as you can. And the best way to do this is to link to some of your own articles within the content.

8. Not measuring your progress

In some instances, new businesses don’t see the value of tracking their results. Or, they don’t monitor them properly. It’s important to keep in mind that SEO is a data-driven process. You should always be aware of your progress. In this way, you will be able to achieve your goal faster.

Conclusion

There is a lot that new business owners tend to overlook. However, this is specifically the case when it comes to SEO. They don’t start working on optimisation from the very beginning. They only bid on high competition keywords. They focus more on what the search engines wants and less on what their user’s intent is. Their keywords are much too broad. They forget about the technical aspect of SEO. They participate in keyword stuffing. They build internal links. Also, they don’t measure their progress.

As a new business owner, it’s important that you keep all of these things in mind when planning your launch. Even if you have already started, it’s a good idea to address these issues early so that they will not become a problem for you later. SEO takes research, diligence, and patience.