The #1 Biggest SEO Mistake Nearly Everyone Makes | Avoid This At All Costs

– Nearly everyone who's trying to compete in SEO makes this mistake.

They fail miserablybecause what they're doing is nearly impossible to achieve.

And yet, most people thinkthat it's the right approach.

Hi everyone, I'm Neil Patel and today, I'm going to teach you the number one biggest SEOmistake nearly everyone makes and you should avoid at all costs.

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We're in a time whereSEO and digital marketing has become more saturated andmore competitive than ever.

With over a billion websites on the web, SEO is no longer an easyor open playing field.

A lot of times, I seemany of these new websites making the same mistakethat'll ultimately give them little to no SEO resultand just waste their time.

What is it? It's targeting keywordsthat are too competitive.

These days, effective keyword research is an increasingly importantskill for digital marketers.

Not only do they need to know how to develop a good keyword list, but using keyword research to find out what topics they should write about or what phrases they shouldbe using while writing is super important, especially figuring out which ones aren't competitive.

Nowadays, doing keywordresearch effectively is a top priority for any website or SEO.

If you look up a competitiveterm, such as car insurance, you'll likely see some big brands pop up.

If you're a new website, it's going to be almost nearly impossible to compete with those brands.

What's the answer? Target long tail keywords.

Some marketers keep aiming forhighly competitive head terms and they're wondering, hey, why is their searchtraffic not growing? When I start targeting long tail keywords, I increase my searching in organic traffic to 173, 336 visitors per month.

Nowadays, I'm getting well over a million.

You're missing out ona lot of search traffic if you're not creating blog posts around longer search terms.

You're probably wondering, hey Neil, is it really worth it? Well before I break down howyou can go after these terms, let me tell you one interesting stat to show you how profitable it is.

According to Search Engine Guide, Amazon makes 57% of theirsales from long tail keywords.

That's because longertail keyword variations, especially those thathave commercial intent, convert really well.

For example, let's say youhave a dog food business and you're trying to breakinto the dog food online space.

Most likely, you want to go after keywords like dogs, dog food, pet food, because that would geta lot of search traffic.

The monthly search volume for dog food is roughly 135, 000 searches per month.

But the pay difficulty is 100 and the SEO difficulty is 77.

That's incredibly high.

Coming in as a new company, there's very little to no chancethat you're going to rank well unless you have an established brand and high domain authority, which most new companies don't.

Instead, you want to focuson long tail keywords, like dog food for allergiesor dog food for senior dogs.

These keywords have a lowermonthly search volume, but higher quality search traffic because they're more specific and they're going to convertbecause they're more specific.

For example, dog food for allergies has a monthly search volume of 9, 900 and a SEO difficulty of 38.

That means it's going tobe easier to rank for.

If you're trying to figure out how you can rank for these terms or where to find them, check out Ubersuggest.

Type in an head term that you'rethinking about going after, you don't need to knowthe long tail variations, just look at the head terms, type them in, and then go to the keyword ideas report.

It'll give you all theother longer tail variations and it even breaks downthe SEO difficulty.

Look for terms that havea SEO difficulty score of 40 or under.

Those'll be easier for you to rank for.

You also want to lookfor ones that have volume at least in the few thousands per month because volume doesn't always mean clicks.

And, when you do all of this, it'll help give you more ideas and more ideas for you to produce content.

There's also a questionstab on Ubersuggest, prepositions, comparisons.

These are also more places where you can find more keywordideas, more content ideas.

That will drive keywordsthat convert into revenue.

Here's another quick tip that I love doing to find the right typeof content to produce.

On Ubersuggest, there'sa content ideas report.

When you go very specific, it'll show you all the contentthat's already been created around the web based on social shares, back links, and search traffic.

It even tells you, when youlook at the estimated visits, all the keywords thatthe article ranks for.

When you click on back links, it shows you all the peoplelinking to that article.

And when you look at social shares, the more social shares, chances are, the more people that like it.

When you're trying to figure out what keywords you should go after, also look at all the content pieces that have some of those similar keywords because this will give youideas of what you can create that can help you notonly generate traffic from all three, right? You don't want to justgenerate traffic from Google.

If you're going to create content, might as well get trafficfrom the social web and might as well get referral traffic.

Referral traffic is otherpeople linking to you, as well.

Keep that in mind because this will help you craft content that does well for more than just Google.

Don't just create contentfor users and Google, create content for users, for Google, for social media sites, for other people who own websites and want to link to you.

This will all help youdo better in the long run and generate more sales.

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