6 Common Enterprise SEO Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

Enterprise SEO wields the power to propel a brand's online presence, visibility, and organic search performance. With larger websites, broader target audiences, and often complex organizational structures, Enterprise SEO presents its own set of unique challenges that necessitate a keen strategic eye and nuanced approach.

However, despite its known benefits, many enterprises still stumble upon common SEO pitfalls that significantly affect their digital performance. 

This blog post aims to elucidate these common SEO mistakes and provide actionable solutions to ensure your business reaps the full benefits of an effective SEO strategy. Let's delve in and learn how to avoid these common yet costly missteps.

Neglecting Technical SEO

Technical SEO is a vital component of any effective SEO strategy, especially for large enterprises with expansive websites. It involves optimizing your site's structure and backend code to help search engines crawl and index your pages more effectively. When businesses overlook technical SEO, they risk search engines misinterpreting their sites, leading to lower rankings.

Common technical SEO oversights include slow site speed, duplicate content, broken links, improper use of robots.txt, and unoptimized XML sitemaps. These issues can hinder search engines from properly crawling and indexing your site, leading to poor user experience and reduced visibility in search engine results.

How to Avoid It: Avoid neglecting technical SEO by conducting regular site audits to identify and fix issues, investing in a fast and reliable web hosting service, implementing a clean site structure, and ensuring that all content is unique and valuable. Also, consider hiring a dedicated SEO expert or team that understands the intricacies of technical SEO.

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Not Using Data Effectively

Effective SEO is data-driven. However, many enterprises fail to fully leverage the wealth of data available to them. They may not be tracking the right metrics, misinterpreting data, or not using data to inform their decision-making and strategy.

Ignoring crucial metrics like organic traffic, bounce rate, conversion rate, dwell time, or page speed can lead to misguided strategies. Ineffective data use can also result in missed opportunities to optimize content, improve user experience, and increase conversions.

How to Avoid It: To use data effectively, enterprises should first ensure they're tracking the right metrics. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console offer valuable insights. Enterprises should also consider investing in advanced SEO and analytics tools that can provide more detailed data and insights. Regularly reviewing and interpreting this data to inform decision-making is critical. Lastly, consider training or hiring data analysts who specialize in SEO

Ignoring User Experience (UX)

User experience (UX) is a key factor in SEO that many enterprises often overlook. UX involves the overall experience a user has when interacting with a website, including how easy it is to navigate, how quickly pages load, and how engaging the content is. Ignoring UX can lead to a high bounce rate, low time-on-page, and low conversion rates. For instance, a site with confusing navigation or slow page load times can frustrate users, causing them to leave and potentially damaging your search engine rankings.

How to Avoid It: Investing in website design and speed optimization can significantly improve UX. Regularly conducting UX testing and gathering feedback from users can also help identify areas for improvement. Moreover, ensure your content is engaging, relevant, and easy to digest. Mobile optimization is another key aspect, given the growing number of mobile internet users.

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Lack of Cohesive Strategy Across Departments

SEO is not a standalone function—it should be integrated with other departments like content marketing, public relations, social media, and more. However, many enterprises operate these functions in silos, which can lead to inconsistent messaging and missed opportunities to leverage SEO across various channels. For instance, if the content team isn't aligned with the SEO team, they might produce content that doesn't match target keywords or meet other SEO requirements. Or if the public relations team isn't working with the SEO team, they might miss opportunities to earn high-quality backlinks through press coverage.

How to Avoid It: Building a cohesive strategy across departments requires clear communication and coordination. Consider creating a cross-functional SEO committee that involves representatives from each department. Regular meetings and shared goals can also help ensure everyone is on the same page. Using a project management tool to track tasks and progress can enhance collaboration and transparency.

Ensure your website is responsive, meaning it automatically adjusts to fit the screen size of the device it's being viewed on. Regularly test your website on various mobile devices to ensure it's easy to navigate and functions correctly. Also, pay attention to mobile page load speed, as mobile users often have less patience for slow-loading sites.

Inadequate Keyword Research

Keyword research forms the backbone of any SEO strategy. It involves identifying the terms and phrases your target audience uses when searching for products or services like yours. However, some enterprises fall short in their keyword research, targeting the wrong keywords or neglecting to regularly update their keyword strategy.

Targeting the wrong keywords can result in attracting the wrong audience to your site, leading to lower engagement and conversion rates. Conversely, failing to target highly relevant keywords can cause you to miss out on valuable organic traffic. Moreover, keyword trends can change over time, and failing to adapt to these changes can harm your SEO performance.

How to Avoid It: Conduct thorough keyword research using reliable tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush. Aim to target keywords that are highly relevant to your business, have a good search volume, and an acceptable level of competition. Also, consider user intent when choosing keywords—think about what users are likely looking for when they use those keywords. Finally, regularly review and update your keyword strategy to align with current trends and audience behavior.

Read more: How to map SEO to the B2B Buyer’s journey

Ignoring Local SEO

For B2B enterprises, it may seem that global reach should be the main focus. However, ignoring local SEO can lead to missed opportunities for building relationships and generating leads. The common pitfalls include not claiming or optimizing your business's Google My Business profile, lacking local keywords in your content, and ignoring local link building.

How to avoid it: Start by thoroughly optimizing your Google My Business profile. This step includes adding relevant categories, a comprehensive description, your operating hours, and other necessary information. Regularly update and interact on your profile by posting news, updates, and responding to reviews. Next, include local keywords in your content and meta descriptions. Finally, consider local link building. This could mean getting listed in local business directories, joining local chambers of commerce, or sponsoring local events. These strategies will help improve your website’s visibility in local search results, leading to increased traffic and potentially higher conversions.

Adopting a proactive and informed approach to your SEO management is paramount. The mistakes highlighted in this blog post are not just pitfalls to avoid; they are opportunities to refine your strategy and gain a competitive edge. 

Remember, SEO is not a one-time effort but a continuous process requiring ongoing analysis, updates, and optimizations.

At Freshboost, we understand the nuances of enterprise SEO and the unique challenges that B2B firms face. If you want to avoid these common SEO mistakes and need a strategic partner for managing your SEO efforts, we're here to help. Talk to us to understand how you can get more leads with existing content.

Read more:

• Enterprise SEO Challenges and How to Solve Them
• Why SEO is more than just numbers: The Psychological factors and Storytelling Skills at Play 

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