3 SEO Mistakes I Made (So You Don’t Have To)

These are the three SEO mistakes I made that you should avoid if you want to actually get good at this stuff.

I’ve been in the SEO game for 10 years. I’ve worked on sites pulling over 1,000 visitors a day. I even grew a YouTube channel to more than 3 million video views using SEO

(And that’s not short-form fluff. We’re talking long-form videos where the average watch time was around five minutes)

I’ll show you exactly what went wrong, what I should’ve done instead, and how you can apply it to your own business without wasting years like I did.

Here’s the quick rundown of where I went wrong:

• Skipping keyword research: I thought I knew what people wanted. I didn’t.
  
• Ignoring on-page SEO fundamentals: My content was fine, but Google didn’t know what to do with it.
  
• Not implementing a content strategy: I posted whenever I felt like it, with no real plan.
  

Sounds good?

Let’s begin.

1. Skipping Keyword Research

Back when I first started creating content, I just made stuff I felt like.

On YouTube, I’d hit record on whatever idea popped into my head.

No keyword research. No strategy.No plan.

Nada.

Sure, it was fun. But fun doesn’t mean people are searching for it.

And if no one’s searching, no one’s watching.

Don’t make the same mistake.

The smart play is to find where your interests meet demand.

That’s what keyword research does – it helps drive traffic to your website by telling you what people actually want, so your content doesn’t just float around unseen.

When I finally ditched the “wing it” approach and actually started doing keyword research, everything changed.

Before, my videos would maybe get a few thousand views… if I got lucky.

Once I started aligning my content with what people were actually searching for, my views exploded. I’m talking hundreds of thousands of views on some videos.

I even ended up ranking #1 for my channel’s keyword: “how to jungle.” That keyword gets almost 20,000 searches per month on YouTube.

The video I created focused on this keyword brought in:

• Almost 400,000 views
  
• Nearly 45,000 hours of watch time (that’s over 5 years of someone watching!)
  
• More than 5,000 new subscribers

Funnily enough, there’s even 5 people watching it as I’m taking this screenshot (despite the fact I haven’t uploaded any content in 5+ years!).

What’s even better is that about 11% of viewers watch the entire 17-minute video.

This is a huge stark contrast to today’s world of short-form content, where people will skip after seven seconds if it doesn’t grab them.

This is what happens when everything is grounded in research, strategy, and alignment with what your audience actually wants.

These are the kinds of results proper keyword research can create.

Here’s How You Can Do Keyword Research

If you want to start with a free option, Google Keyword Planner is a solid place to begin.

All you do is plug in a keyword, and it spits out data like:

• How many people are searching for it
  
• How competitive it is
  
• Related keywords you might not have thought of
  

Another option is to use ChatGPT’s deep research function.

Just give it a prompt like:

“I have a business around X and I’m doing keyword research. Can you give me some keyword ideas to target for my content creation?”

Boom.

ChatGPT will give you a list of ideas you can start testing and creating content around.

Once you’ve validated the keywords people are actually typing into Google, put them into a spreadsheet.

Track:

• The keyword itself
  
• Monthly search volume
  
• Any other metrics you think are important

This spreadsheet becomes the foundation of your content creation.

Every blog post, video, or piece of content you make after this is grounded in real demand, not guesswork.

2. Correct On Page SEO Fundamentals

On-page SEO is one of the fundamentals of SEO that still gets skipped by a lot of businesses.

Here’s the thing. You can’t do on-page SEO in isolation.

It has to be combined with keyword research.

Otherwise, you are optimising for the wrong terms and all that effort will be wasted.

Once you have your keywords, the next step is simple:

Put them where it matters most. 

This is how you communicate with Google about what your page is actually about, so it knows which searches to show you for.

Doing this correctly will give your page the best chance to rank for the keyword you are targeting.

Here’s a list of the most important places to include your keyword:

• Meta title
  
• Meta description
  
• URL slug
  
• Image alt text
  
• First 100 words of the page
  
• H1, H2, H3 tags
  

If you include your keyword in these areas, you are doing your best job to tell Google what your page is about. This simple step alone can significantly improve your chances of ranking for that keyword.

A common mistake I see is most businesses lump all their services into one page.

That approach is fine for a general overview, but if you want to rank #1 for a specific service, you need a dedicated page targeting that service.

For example, if you are a dentist, it is fine to have a general “Our Services” page.

However, if you want to rank #1 for “dental implants in Wellington”, you need a specific service page built around that exact keyword.

If you repeat this process for every service you offer, you’ve just upped your chances of ranking higher for that keyword.

For example, this same dental practice also ranks #1 for the keyword “missing teeth wellington:”

And also “root canals wellington:”

This just goes to show the power of not just hyper-focused content creation targeting one specific keyword, but also correct on-page optimization for that particular keyword.

#3 Not Implementing a Content Strategy

Google ranks content.

That content might be your informational blog posts or your money pages (product and service pages).

But at the end of the day, if you want to rank, you need content.

Don’t get me wrong:

Expert SEO services like keyword research, on-page optimization, and link building are all fine and dandy.

They help your pages show up in search results.

But when someone actually lands on your website, you need to hit them with liquid gold.

Your content should feel like the golden egg in your market.

There should be a clear night and day difference between your content and your competitor’s. If a potential customer were to put your piece side by side with theirs, within seconds they should be able to see, feel, and know that yours is better.

That’s the combination that wins:

• SEO gets you the clicks.
  
• Content quality keeps the eyeballs, builds trust, and makes sales.

The two together are unstoppable.

My favorite way to study high quality content is to look at the very best in the business.

Personally, I’ve learned a lot from people like Backlinko in the SEO world:

And Alex Hormozi in the YouTube and business world.

They don’t just share information.

They teach, entertain, and add their own spin.

Their content isn’t only educational, it’s creative, authentic, and fun to consume. That’s the standard to aim for.

How Can You Apply This To Your Business

Think about cooking for a second.

Let’s take scrambled eggs.

It’s the most basic recipe in the world.

Everyone’s made it. But here’s the thing, not everyone makes it well.

Some chefs add their own twist.

Gordon Ramsay swears you shouldn’t salt the eggs beforehand because it breaks them down and ruins the texture.

I remember him once saying that if a chef can’t make scrambled eggs properly, then what business do they have tackling more complicated dishes? It’s a test of fundamentals.

That’s where the zazz comes in. The story, the method, the personal touch.

SEO works the same way.

The fundamentals are simple. Keyword research, on-page SEO, content, links.

Everyone knows the recipe.

But the way you put it together and the way you add your own spin is what makes the difference.

My own philosophy is what I call stacking SEO bricks:

• One brick is high-quality content.
  
• Another is on-page SEO.
  
• Another is strong backlinks.
  
• Another is your domain authority.

On their own, they don’t look like much.

But when you stack them consistently, you start building something solid.

The name of the game is simple: whoever stacks the most bricks wins.

So don’t just copy the recipe.

Take the basics, then add your own zazz.

That’s how you turn simple fundamentals into something that actually sets you apart.

Putting It All Together

The whole point of this post is simple: give you the information you need and, more importantly, help you avoid the mistakes I made.

Because every mistake you skip is time saved. And the faster you skip the pain, the sooner you hit your own version of success.

Take a few minutes to not just skim and move on, but really digest this.

Ask yourself:

“Am I making any of these mistakes in my SEO strategy right now?”

If the answer’s even a “maybe,” fix it now.

It’s just like golf. It’s way better to slow down, line up your swing, and hit clean than to rush it, slice the ball, and watch it fly a hundred yards away from where you actually wanted it to go.

SEO works the same way.

A few careful adjustments up front will save you months (sometimes years) of wandering off course.

So take the time. Align the swing. Then hit.