Welcome back to our series on SEO and what you can unwittingly do wrong. We’ve reached Blooper #3 – optimizing web pages for services you don’t offer. It is easier than it seems to lose track of everything that is on your website. When you hire someone for SEO services, you can wind up wasting time and energy optimizing pages that refer to an older or different version of your business. Avoid confusion and high bounce rates by aligning your web content to what you really offer, then move ahead to SEO.
It may seem harmless to keep an old service page live “just in case,” but it can do more harm than good. Search engines and potential clients rely on your site’s content to understand what your business actually does. Do you offer home maintenance but no longer handle power washing? It’s time to unpublish or edit that page to reflect the latest information. When outdated services appear prominently, it sends mixed signals to search engines and potential clients alike. Visitors who come looking for something you no longer provide will quickly leave your site, increasing your bounce rate and hurting your credibility.
The same applies if you’re tempted to create content around high-volume keywords that don’t reflect your true offerings. Ranking for something irrelevant might attract clicks, but it won’t bring qualified leads or conversions. In fact, it could make your brand seem unfocused or unreliable.
The fix is simple: audit your website regularly. Identify pages that no longer match your current business model, and either update, merge, or remove them. Replace outdated service descriptions with detailed, up-to-date information that reflects what you do best today. That way when the SEO process begins the target keywords that emerge will naturally be in line with what you do.
Effective SEO starts with authenticity. When your online presence accurately represents your business, your audience and search engines will reward you with trust, engagement, and visibility.
Read our article on the “Best” SEO Bloopers for Bloopers #1, #2, and more. Stay tuned for more videos and blog posts all about navigating the many choices there are to make when optimizing your website.