5 Common SEO Mistakes Made By Agencies

Spend a few minutes scrolling through LinkedIn, and you’ll see it—countless SEO freelancers and agencies promoting recycled tactics that look flashy on paper but fall flat in practice. From bloated content strategies to link schemes dressed up as outreach, the SEO industry is saturated with advice that either doesn’t work or delivers short-term wins with long-term consequences.

But the real issue? Too few agencies talk about what actually drives sustainable business growth. Instead of asking, “Will this rank?”, we should be asking, “Will this move the needle?”

This article unpacks 5 critical SEO mistakes made by agencies—flaws that continue to cost clients traffic, leads, and revenue. These aren’t just technical oversights or outdated tactics. These are fundamental gaps in how SEO is approached, sold, and executed.

If you’re tired of vanity metrics and want clarity on what actually works, this breakdown is for you. Behind every failed SEO strategy is one of these common SEO mistakes, —and avoiding them is half the battle.

Let’s dive in.

Weak Content Strategy: Ignoring the Search Intent That Converts

Among the common SEO mistakes made by agencies, a weak content strategy tops the list—and it's often disguised as productivity. Agencies boast about publishing dozens of blogs a month, but when you dig deeper, you’ll find those articles rarely lead to qualified leads or conversions. Why? Because they misunderstand how people actually search.

There are three essential types of content in SEO: topical, problem-based, and solution-focused.

• Topical content is broad, educational, and often high in search volume. Example: “What is probate?”
• Problem-based content targets people experiencing a specific pain point. Example: “What does probate cost?”
• Solution content is where the money is—people searching with intent to act. Example: “Probate solicitors near me.”

Most agencies default to topical content because it’s easy to scale and looks good in traffic reports. But traffic is vanity—what really matters is profit, and profit comes from problem and solution intent.

When your content is only addressing top-of-funnel queries, you’re attracting researchers—not buyers. Agencies fill client blogs with these terms, inflate monthly visits, and celebrate performance. But leads? Conversions? Crickets.

If you're serious about results, you need to align content with your prospect’s journey. The most effective SEO strategies map content across all three intent stages but prioritise commercial value. This isn’t about abandoning informative posts; it’s about balancing them with content that attracts people ready to make decisions.

Here’s the truth: No amount of keyword rankings can replace relevance. And that’s what makes this one of the top SEO mistakes—because it wastes time, budget, and opportunity.

Want to stand out? Focus on clarity over quantity. Start writing content that solves problems, addresses objections, and supports decisions.

That’s what turns readers into revenue.

Overreliance on Guest Blog Post Links

The SEO industry has a link problem—and guest blogging is right at the centre of it. Spend time with most agencies or freelancers, and you’ll quickly notice a recurring obsession with “link building.” More often than not, that means paying for guest post links.

This is one of the most common SEO mistakes and easily one of the most wasteful.

To be clear: guest posting isn’t inherently bad. But the way it’s commonly used is ineffective and short-sighted. Many agencies rely on link marketplaces where they can pay a set fee to get an article published with a backlink. It’s fast, scalable, and easy to show on a report. And yes, you might see a short-term ranking boost. But in reality, you’re buying links that Google often spots—and nullifies.

That’s the part no one talks about: Google’s link detection systems are very advanced. It won’t always penalise your site, but it will silently devalue links that look manipulative or inorganic. So while you’re spending hundreds or thousands on guest posts, there’s a real chance they’re having little to no lasting impact.

The SEO world is also full of self-proclaimed experts who sell link-building services, ebooks, and link lists—but offer no proof of actual performance. They talk a lot about Domain Authority and metrics, but rarely about relevance or outcome. And that’s the real issue: SEO isn't a metrics game—it’s a credibility game.

A smarter approach? Focus on building relationships and earning links from trusted, relevant sources. Pitch high-quality content to sites your audience reads. If there’s an editorial fee and the exposure is valuable, that’s an investment—not a manipulation.

Paying for links is risky. Paying for exposure is strategic.

If you want to avoid one of the top SEO mistakes, stop treating links as a commodity. Focus on authority, relevance, and long-term value.

Because at the end of the day, the best backlinks are the ones that exist for a reason—not just for rankings.

Overselling Tech SEO as a Universal Fix

Technical SEO is essential—but it’s not a silver bullet. And yet, one of the top SEO mistakes agencies make is treating it as the ultimate solution to every performance issue.

Let’s give credit where it’s due: great technical SEO can make a difference. It can fix crawling and indexing issues, improve site speed, and enhance the overall user experience. In cases where a website is structurally broken, a tech SEO is like a surgeon—absolutely necessary and often transformative.

But here’s where the mistake happens: many agencies promote technical SEO as the primary growth lever, even when it’s not. It’s like hiring a personal trainer to help someone who’s already fit—sure, you’ll become more efficient, but you’re not addressing what really drives growth.

Technical SEO doesn’t create demand. It doesn’t generate leads. It doesn’t persuade anyone to buy. It simply creates a more accessible version of what already exists. And if what exists is weak—poor content, no product-market fit, or lack of commercial intent—technical improvements won’t save it.

This is especially true at the enterprise level. Enterprise SEO mistakes often include overinvesting in technical audits and site architecture while underinvesting in content, CRO, and actual marketing alignment. It becomes an internal race to optimise for performance scores, rather than optimising for customer outcomes.

What many agencies fail to communicate is that technical SEO is supportive, not central. It enables visibility, but it doesn’t create value on its own. You still need a compelling offer, targeted content, and a strategy that speaks to your buyer’s journey.

So, should you ignore technical SEO? Absolutely not. But should you question its place in your growth strategy? Definitely.

If your site is fundamentally inaccessible or suffering from critical errors, fix them. But if your technical SEO is sound and you’re still not seeing results, the issue likely lies elsewhere—your messaging, your targeting, your funnel.

To avoid one of the 5 common SEO pitfalls, stop overselling technical SEO as the answer to everything. Use it wisely, use it when it matters—but don’t expect it to carry your entire strategy.

Because even the fastest, cleanest website can’t convert if no one wants what you’re offering.

Lack of True Commercial Awareness

One of the most overlooked and common SEO mistakes made by agencies is the lack of commercial awareness—not just of their clients’ goals, but of their own delivery model.

At face value, many agencies seem commercially aware. They talk about ROI, growth metrics, and traffic benchmarks. But scratch the surface, and you’ll find that much of that “awareness” is focused inward—on their own profitability, not the client’s business outcomes.

The real problem? Most agencies are built around the product they want to sell, not the solution the client actually needs.

That product is often a fixed SEO package—X blogs, Y backlinks, Z tech audits—delivered monthly, regardless of whether those actions tie back to commercial performance. These templated deliverables help the agency scale. But for clients? They often mean money spent on work that doesn’t move the needle.

And this is one of the 5 common SEO mistakes to avoid: mistaking activity for impact.

The agency’s job isn’t just to deliver SEO tactics—it’s to help a business achieve commercial results. That means understanding the client's revenue model, customer journey, margins, sales cycle, and buying intent. Without that context, even well-executed SEO becomes noise.

For example, ranking for high-volume keywords might seem impressive. But if those keywords don’t lead to qualified leads or align with a buyer-ready search, they don’t create value. It’s performance theatre—lots of metrics, very little meaning.

Commercially aware SEO agencies think differently. They ask better questions:

• What does a qualified lead look like?
• Where do your customers drop off in the buying journey?
• What type of content actually drives conversations and conversions?

These questions lead to SEO strategies that support marketing and sales, not just rankings.

So if you're hiring—or running—an agency, remember this: SEO doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s part of a broader business strategy. And unless it’s aligned with real business goals, it’s just another retainer.

To avoid one of the top SEO mistakes, demand commercial clarity. Your agency should understand your business as well as they understand their tools.

Because that’s what turns SEO from a service into a growth engine.

Misalignment with Marketing Goals

Here’s a truth many don’t admit: not all SEO efforts support effective marketing. And yet, countless agencies continue to invest time and budget into tactics that don’t align with real business or marketing objectives. This misalignment is one of the most subtle yet damaging common SEO mistakes.

It starts with an outdated mindset—treating SEO as a technical checklist rather than a growth strategy. So, agencies churn out keyword-stuffed blogs, optimise meta tags, run technical audits, and build backlinks. All of it may look good on paper, but too often, it’s disconnected from what actually matters to the business: leads, sales, and brand positioning.

What gets lost is marketing effectiveness. SEO should be an extension of the broader marketing strategy, not a separate track. Every action taken—whether it's content production, on-page optimisation, or link acquisition—should be tied back to customer intent, messaging, and conversion potential.

Ask yourself:

• Does this piece of content support our product narrative?
• Does this keyword reflect real purchase behaviour?
• Does this traffic source bring in qualified prospects?

When SEO operates in isolation, it delivers vanity metrics: pageviews, impressions, rankings. But when it’s embedded within marketing goals, it supports positioning, pipeline growth, and even customer retention.

This is where many agencies miss the mark. They confuse motion for progress. But real marketing isn’t just about visibility—it’s about relevance and resonance. SEO isn’t a goal; it’s a channel. And like any marketing channel, it needs strategic intent.

To avoid one of the top SEO mistakes, stop measuring success in silos. Connect your SEO work directly to what the marketing team is trying to achieve. Understand the messaging, the funnel stages, the audience personas.

Because the best SEO isn’t just optimised—it’s aligned.
And alignment is what turns rankings into revenue.

Conclusion: SEO That Actually Works

At its core, SEO is simple—but the way many agencies approach it has made it unnecessarily complex and, often, ineffective. These five common SEO mistakes aren’t just technical missteps or poor choices—they reflect a fundamental disconnect between what agencies deliver and what businesses actually need.

From creating the wrong kind of content to overvaluing guest post links, from overselling technical fixes to neglecting commercial context and marketing alignment—these are mistakes that don’t just waste budget, they cost opportunity.

The truth is, SEO isn’t just about traffic. It’s about getting the right people to the right page at the right time—and moving them to take action. That takes more than rankings or backlinks. It takes strategic clarity, commercial empathy, and a willingness to ditch bloated deliverables in favour of what actually works.

So if you’re an agency, consultant, or in-house marketer: challenge your assumptions. Audit your strategy. And ask the hard questions.

Because real SEO performance doesn’t come from doing more—it comes from doing what matters.

And when you focus on that, results always follow.