![\"Mistakes\"](\"http:\/\/www.florist20.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Mistakes.jpg\")
<\/p>\nYou’ve heard all about SEO and know it has something to do with optimizing your site to get it ranking in the\u00a0SERPs\u2014or search engine results pages. So, you’ve taken everyone’s advice, and optimized your site as well as you\u00a0could. But for some reason your site isn’t ranking. And you have no idea why.<\/p>\n
It’s understandable. You’re a florist, after all. You look after plants and flowers and make people’s lives better by\u00a0offering them beauty, so you shouldn’t be expected to know every aspect of SEO. The rules seem to change every\u00a0other day anyway, and there’s so much conflicting advice online that it’s hard to figure out what works and what\u00a0doesn’t.<\/p>\n
While we might not be able to pinpoint the exact problems with your site without actually studying it, the fact is that\u00a0many sites don’t rank because they make one or more of these mistakes.<\/p>\n
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Quite a few people know that they need to optimize their sites for certain keywords for the search engines to rank\u00a0them well. A keyword simply refers to a term or phrase people use to search for specific things. For example, if\u00a0someone is looking for a florist that does floral arrangements for weddings in Markham, they might search with a\u00a0term like “floral wedding\u00a0arrangements Markham.”<\/p>\n
Search engines match content with search queries using a wide range of variables\u2014most of which are secret\u2014including whether the content is relevant. This is usually determined based on the keywords that appear in the\u00a0content. So, if you’re a florist in Markham and you specialize in floral arrangements for weddings, then you’d\u00a0probably want your site to show up on the first page for the aforementioned keyword phrade, or any other relevant\u00a0keyword terms.<\/p>\n
To find these keywords, most people use Google Keyword Planner, which is free. They look at how many searches\u00a0that particular keyword gets per month and that’s where they stop. The problem is that they don’t look at the\u00a0competition for that keyword. If there’s a lot of competition, or it’s tough, you’re going to spend a ridiculous\u00a0amount of time and money trying to rank for it.<\/p>\n
Ideally, once you’ve found a keyword that has a decent number of searches, you also need to look at the top ten sites\u00a0that are already ranking for that term. The stronger the site, the harder it will be to beat it. So, you want to target\u00a0keywords with medium to low competition, at least at first, as they will be easier to rank for.<\/p>\n
One term you’ll come across quite often is keyword density. This simply refers to the number of times a keyword\u00a0appears in your content and is expressed as a percentage. It used to be believed that keyword density was important\u00a0to how relevant search engines considered your content. However, this myth has been repeatedly debunked.<\/p>\n
“So, how can I be over-optimizing if keyword density doesn’t matter?” you might ask. Well, keyword density in your\u00a0content does matter, but it matters from a global perspective of how often you’re using the exact keyword on your\u00a0page. This includes everything from your title and heading tags to your URL and the recent posts widgets in your\u00a0sidebar, as well as the anchor texts for incoming links.<\/p>\n
Say you are trying to optimize a page for the keyword “wedding floral arrangements Manhattan.” You manage to\u00a0find a domain with the exact keyword phrase in it and you write an article based around the same keyword. You\u00a0name your page the exact keyword, you use it in the title of your post, a couple of times throughout your content,\u00a0you add it to as many heading tags as you can, you put it in your meta description, and essentially make sure it\u00a0shows up in every element you’ve heard is important to SEO. And that’s not all. You even make sure that all of your\u00a0incoming links use anchor text that’s an exact match to “wedding floral arrangements Manhattan.”<\/p>\n
If this is you, then there’s no need to wonder why your website isn’t ranking. It’s not ranking because Google has\u00a0penalized you for over-optimizing for a certain keyword. To fix it, you need to tone it down a little and, instead, use\u00a0a variety of keyword phrases that are naturally related. Some alternatives to our previous example could be: florist in\u00a0Manhattan, wedding floral arrangement specialist, flowers for weddings and so on and so forth.<\/p>\n
Essentially, you should be using a variety of related terms throughout the page to ensure Google doesn’t penalize\u00a0you for over-optimization. If you focus on creating content for your readers and forget about search engines, you’ll\u00a0find that you’ll come up with variations on the term you’re targeting naturally.<\/p>\n
And don’t forget those incoming links. You want to have incoming links that look natural, which means they can’t\u00a0all have anchor text that’s an exact match for you keyword phrase. Instead, vary things by using the name of your\u00a0company, “click here”, and related terms.<\/p>\n
Linking between your posts is important. Not only will it guide your visitors to content they might find useful, but\u00a0it will also give you a boost with the search engines. Internal linking shows search engines that you have plenty of\u00a0relevant content, and it also shows that you’re focused on delivering value to your audience.<\/p>\n
If you have no internal links, there’s a good chance you’re ranking poorly because of it. Likewise, if all your internal\u00a0links point to the home page, you might also have trouble ranking. Ideally, you want to interlink your content in\u00a0a way that makes sense to your readers. For example, if you wrote a post about bridal bouquets, then you could\u00a0naturally link to a post on floral arrangements for weddings, rather than to the home page.<\/p>\n
So, it’s time to take a closer look at your site and see whether the keywords you’re trying to rank for have too much\u00a0competition, if you have over-optimized your pages, or if your internal linking structure is non-existent or poorly\u00a0constructed. All of these aspects are incredibly important to getting your site to rank well in the SERPs. The good\u00a0news is that these issues are relatively easy to fix, and it won’t be long before you see an improvement in your site’s\u00a0rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You’ve heard all about SEO and know it has something to do with optimizing your site to get it ranking in the\u00a0SERPs\u2014or search engine results pages. So, you’ve taken everyone’s advice, and optimized your site as well as you\u00a0could. But for some reason your site isn’t ranking. And you have no idea why. It’s understandable. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo"],"yoast_head":"\n