No SEO strategy is one-size-fits-all, but there are common practices we follow when helping websites recover from traffic losses or drive growth.
We see these patterns across projects, making them best practices within our agency.
While they may not apply to every situation, they consistently deliver results.
Here are the SEO pitfalls to avoid if you want to regain lost traffic or get back on a growth trajectory.
1. Writing blog posts based on keyword search volume
Search engines prioritize content written for people because it provides solutions to users’ needs. They might use sitewide classifiers and human reviewers to assess this.
If every page and blog post is created solely to generate traffic based on estimated keyword search volumes, you’ve made it clear you’re prioritizing traffic over user experience (UX).
Anyone can export a list of keywords, questions, People Also Ask results, and phrases with search volume, then churn out blog posts for them using:
- LLMs and AI.
- Article spinners.
- Human writers in a native language.
- Outsourcing to content farms overseas.
Using a combination of these methods makes it even more obvious that the content is created for SEO rather than for actual users
When this happens, search engines can easily detect the pattern. It’s the same approach many new sites or amateur SEOs take.
Instead, write content that solves a keyword phrase, question, or topic and focuses on what your customers are asking.
Find topics relevant to their needs, even if there’s no recorded search volume.
By providing content that ranks for the query and offering solutions for what users need next, you create a great UX.
These posts may not bring in direct SEO traffic, but they serve as valuable resources.
Users can still discover them through internal links, recommended reading, or rich results like “People Also Ask” and AI Overviews.
Another advantage is that these unique topics can attract backlinks and social media shares because they offer fresh insights rather than competing for high-volume keywords.
You can uncover these topics by:
- Reviewing questions on blog posts (yours and competitors’).
- Exploring forums and communities.
- Using tools like AlsoAsked.com.
- Analyzing customer support databases.
- Surveying your own customers.
2. Publishing content in bulk instead of prioritizing quality
If you want your business to last, focus on quality over quantity.
Publishing ten – or even two – articles a day quickly leads to a shortage of topics.
Unless you’re a media site with a team of 20+ journalists or highly qualified contributors, it’s nearly impossible to maintain fact-checked, high-quality, and original content at that pace.
Chances are, you’ll rely on LLMs, content farms, or article spinners. In most cases, this results in content that’s either inaccurate or low quality.
Even if it’s mostly accurate, search engines may view it as low quality, which can hurt your site’s reputation.
Worse, you’ll eventually run out of topics and struggle to produce new content.
This can lead you to start publishing off-topic pieces.
When your content drifts too far from its core focus, you risk losing your reader and subscriber base as they’ll no longer find your site relevant.
More importantly, if there’s nothing new or valuable for them, they’ll stop returning.
Suppose your content is original and written in-house. Publishing too much too soon can turn your passion project into a burden, leading to burnout.
From an SEO perspective, mass publishing is a red flag for low-quality, AI-generated, or unverified content.
While it may bring an initial traffic surge, that traffic usually disappears just as fast.
Over the past 15 years, I’ve seen this same pattern play out – first with article spinners, and now with ChatGPT.
If you want your site to thrive long-term, focus on publishing quality content, not just more of it.
3. Focusing on word count instead of value
There is no minimum or maximum word count for SEO.
Some of our clients’ pages get hundreds or thousands of visitors a day with fewer than 300–400 words.
Before adding content to a page, consider the goal of a search engine:
A search engine’s job is to provide the best possible answer in the easiest, fastest, and most understandable way.
If a solution only requires 200 words – including an example – but you stretch it to 1,000 just to hit a word count, you’ve likely buried the answer under unnecessary fluff.
Think of a recipe. If all you need to know is how many cups of flour go into a loaf of bread, you don’t need a backstory about where the flour was grown, the bread’s origin, or a personal anecdote about a holiday baking mishap.
These details are supplemental, not essential to the user’s search intent.
Two simple ways to deliver this information effectively:
- Provide a clear recipe that states the exact flour measurement for a specific type of bread and the number of loaves (e.g., how many cups of flour for two loaves of sourdough).
- Create an FAQ or blog post, such as “Cups of flour per loaf of bread,” and include a chart listing ingredients in rows and loaf types or sizes in columns, making it easy for users to find what they need.
Sometimes, formatting is more important than word count. Words alone aren’t always the best way to convey information – other elements can enhance clarity and usability, such as:
- Videos.
- Sound clips.
- Tables and graphs.
- Infographics and images.
If you want to attract traffic and, more importantly, keep visitors coming back, prioritize delivering answers in an easy-to-use format that helps them find a solution efficiently.
Turning every header into a question
This trend emerged with FAQ schema and the push to appear in “People Also Ask” and “People Also Search” results.
However, once it became overused, search engines started ignoring it. Instead of forcing every header into a question, focus on writing headers that clearly indicate what’s on the page and align with how users naturally search. Some questions are useful, but others work better as statements.
Branded phrases and slang may not have search volume, but they can still resonate with users.
If every header is a question, the content may feel unnatural and forced.
More importantly, headers don’t need to be phrased as questions to appear in featured or rich results. The content itself just needs to be clear, direct, and accurate.
When creating headers, we recommend:
Using language that matches how consumers search.
Making them easy to scan so users can quickly find what they need.
Ensuring each header supports the one above it and aligns with the title tag.
Removing sections that don’t match the title or previous headers, as they likely aren’t topically relevant.
5. Publishing every single day or week
You don’t need to publish new content daily or weekly, especially if there’s nothing new to write about.
Publishing just for the sake of it often leads to thin content and a poor user experience.
Instead, growing SEO traffic can come from refreshing and improving existing content.
Start by looking at pages that have lost traffic and revamping them.
Check for broken sources, outdated information, or formatting issues. Internal links may need to be adjusted to fit your site’s current structure.
In some cases, other pages rank higher because they explain or present the information better.
Updating old content could be the key to regaining traffic, especially if the topic has already been covered in detail.
Publishing new content without a clear user need is rarely the solution.
