Top 10 SEO mistakes agencies still make

For modern SEO, solely focusing on Google is no longer viable, even if it does still dominate the search market. AI generated SERPS and the rise of “answer engines” is very much disrupting the search landscape. In fact, studies have found that fewer than 60% of Google searches now result in clicks, and 90% of B2B buyers have been found to click on citations in Google’s AI Overviews to fact-check the information.

Yep, buyers aren’t just Googling; they’re asking peers on LinkedIn, scrolling through social media, watching video tutorials, and – the big problem for SEOs – going straight to the brands they already trust. Because of this, the ultimate goal for B2B brands has changed and the goalposts have shifted. Many SEOs risk being left behind by solely prioritising rankings and ‘vanity’ metrics.

But now’s the time to think beyond this and earn a spot on your buyer’s ‘Day 1 List’ – the one they turn to before they even think to search. This is where we’re seeing a major disconnect; many agency ‘best practices’ are still stuck with an SEO playbook that probably belongs on the dusty shelf at the back of the library (okay, maybe a little harsh). Failing to adapt to modern search and continuing to make the same mistakes is a strategic liability that wastes budget and fails to build long-term brand equity.

Agency success today requires a new framework when it comes to SEO, demanding a strategy that builds authority across all the ‘search engines’ your buyer uses and adapts to a new AI-driven world. I’m going to highlight 10 strategic SEO mistakes that agencies are still making (including ones we’ve been guilty of too!), as well as how to approach them in a modern and strategic way.

Contents

1. Relying on SEO tools over real audience insights
2. Chasing “traffic” over “revenue”
3. Lack of diverse formats for informational content
4. Treating SEO as a “Google-only” channel
5. Chasing non-branded keywords at the expense of brand
6. Misunderstanding AI’s role in content creation
7. Failing to evolve from “ranking” to “being the source”
8. Chasing backlinks instead of source citations for LLMs
9. Ignoring AI’s impact on brand consistency
10. Chasing perfect technical scores while ignoring site architecture
11. Wrapping up

1. Relying on SEO tools over real audience insights

Tools like Ahrefs and Semrush are the bread and butter for many SEOs and digital marketing agencies; there’s no doubt they offer real value, but they don’t paint the full picture. The problem arises when agencies over-rely on these tools and the data they export. 

Why? Because the data is public (your competitors have it too) and, critically, it’s retrospective. It tells you what people searched for, but it completely fails to tell you why they searched or who they are.

A perfect example of this fragility is the recent deprecation of the num=100 search parameter. For years, agencies built automated processes around scraping 100 results at once to analyse SERPs. When Google removed this, it instantly broke countless custom tools and workflows. As Search Engine Land highlighted, this single change caused significant disruption with up to 77% of sites losing keyword visibility, proving that a strategy built on a technical workaround, rather than real insight, is a house of cards.

This “tool-first” approach is a fast track to creating me-too content. It targets a keyword but misses the real-world, niche pain points of your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). For a B2B brand with a complex product and a long sales cycle, this can be a fatal flaw.

Modern SEO requires us to move ‘beyond keywords’; using tool data as a starting point, not the finish line. That quantitative data is then enriched with proprietary, qualitative insights via customer interviews, analysing your sales team’s call logs, and digging through customer support tickets. This is how we uncover the exact language, unspoken needs, and true intent of your best-fit buyers – the insights your competitors can’t just find in a tool.

2. Chasing traffic over revenue

Many SEOs will still proudly report on 30% traffic growth, and while this remains a fundamental aspect of organic reporting, are the sales teams seeing the same results? High traffic from non-ICP sources often fails to offer any commercial benefits to the client. This can result in unhappy board members and a sales team looking like the iconic John Travolta meme. 

The solution? A revenue-first alignment. A modern SEO agency reports on MQLs, SQLs, and qualified demo requests from organic search, so that every SEO action – from a content brief to schema markup – is mapped directly to a business goal, like “increasing demo requests from enterprise prospects” or “shortening the sales cycle.” We’d rather have 100 visitors from the right companies than 10,000 from the wrong ones.

3. Lack of diverse formats for informational content

Many SEOs will have a “question keyword = blog post” thought process; for example, an informational keyword like “how to improve sales close rate” or “what is [technical concept]” would result in a 1,200-word blog article draft. This “blog-only” approach fails to engage users who prefer other formats, misses huge opportunities to build authority on other “search engine” platforms (like YouTube), and creates “me-too” content that struggles to stand out.

A modern agency first asks, “What is the absolute best way to teach this concept or solve this problem?” and then selects the optimal format. This means building a rich content ecosystem, not just a blog.

• For “how-to” queries: Create a concise video tutorial for YouTube (the world’s second-biggest search engine) and embed it on the page.
• For complex concepts: Host an expert webinar, then break it down into short-form video clips for LinkedIn/TikTok and a “key takeaways” slide deck for SlideShare.
• For data-heavy topics: Build an interactive calculator or a shareable, high-impact infographic.
• For actionable advice: Offer a downloadable template or checklist in exchange for an email.

This multi-format approach meets your audience where they are, creates far more engaging content and builds a more resilient cluster than a blog typically would.

4. Treating SEO as a “Google-only” channel

Just because Google is still the dominant force in search, it doesn’t mean taking a step back and viewing the bigger picture is a bad idea. In fact, much like looking over your right shoulder while driving, it’s a significant blind spot. 

Agencies obsess over Google rankings while your audience is searching for solutions everywhere else. If your agency’s entire strategy begins and ends with Google, you’re invisible in the exact places where real decision-making and trust-building happen. 

At Hallam, we’ve deployed a “Total Search Optimisation” framework. A modern partner should identify every channel your ICP uses as a search engine, and using various tools such as Sparktoro, we assess exactly where your customers are searching. We then build a cohesive strategy to make our clients the #1 answer everywhere they look. This means optimising your brand presence, creating video content for YouTube and positioning thought leaders on LinkedIn. 

5. Chasing non-branded keywords at the expense of brand

Many agencies focus 100% of their effort on high-volume, non-branded keywords (e.g., “best CRM software”). This is a high-cost, high-competition ‘sea of red’ (sure, these keywords may not always flag as red in tools like Ahrefs and Semrush, but there’s often more than meets the eye regarding these metrics). 

While non-branded keywords are still highly important for organic growth, sometimes this comes at the expense of brand.

The ultimate goal is to get on the “Day 1 List”, and a modern strategy uses non-branded content to build so much trust and authority that users start searching for you by name (this is the real endgame). We then work to dominate our client’s branded search results, making sure that when a prospect searches for “[Your Company] pricing” or “[Your Company] vs [Competitor],” we control 100% of the narrative and capture that high-intent traffic.

6. Misunderstanding AI’s role in content creation

We all remember ‘keyword stuffing’, and now we’re seeing the use of generative AI to churn out low-cost, generic articles that target a keyword but completely miss the human problem behind it. Having a unique perspective and authenticity built within your content is crucial for getting results; it’s quality over quantity in the biggest sense. 

The best way to look at this is to think of AI as a co-pilot, with human expertise at the forefront. AI can accelerate research and analyse data, but the content itself should be built on the proprietary audience insights we mentioned in Point 1. Every single piece is written or rigorously edited by a human expert to answer the actual customer question with genuine authority, empathy, and the (E-E-A-T) signals Google and, more importantly, your prospects demand.

7. Failing to evolve from “ranking” to “being the source”

The ‘blue link’ mindset is shifting, and it wouldn’t be crazy to say we might not be far off a time where ‘blue links’ no longer even matter (but that can wait for another time). 

Many SEO agencies are still putting too much focus on “ranking #1” in the traditional sense, but the reality is that we’re not far away from the new #1 being the cited source in the generated answer. To exacerbate matters, we’re seeing zero-click search occurring more and more often, where user queries are answered directly within the SERP by AI and other search snippets 

Because of all this, optimising for citation is becoming increasingly important; SEOs should be looking at strategies that use the best of traditional SEO (authority, E-E-A-T, great structure, schema) but adapt it for a new purpose. The goal is to create factually-dense, well-structured and authoritative content that an LLM will view as the most reliable source on a topic. It could be viewed as moving from “ranking for a keyword” to “owning the answer”. 

8. Chasing backlinks instead of source citations for LLMs

Building on the previous point, if your brand is never mentioned, quoted or featured in the high-authority publications the LLM already trusts, you’re going to struggle to be cited. Digital PR and SEO both play a significant role in gaining visibility in the likes of ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini.

To be successful, agencies should shift their mindset from “link building” to “authority building”. It’s time to focus on publishing proprietary data and research that industry journals and top-tier media want to cite. Furthermore, getting your subject-matter experts quoted in the news and authoritative publications to drive brand mentions (even unlinked ones) in trusted content is an excellent way to build that authority.

9. Ignoring AI’s impact on brand consistency

This is a high-level blind spot that most agencies are not even considering; AI models don’t just look at your website to better understand your brand, they synthesise information from all digital sources – think your LinkedIn, GMB profile, press releases, news articles and employee comments. If your brand messaging is weak or inconsistent across these platforms, the AI-generated answer to “Who is [Your Company]?” will be… messy.

So what’s this got to do with SEO? Well, as mentioned previously, we need to think about SEO on a much broader scale, and for brand, it’s about creating a ‘Single Source of Truth’. SEOs must work with clients to keep their core brand narrative, value propositions and key differentiators clear, consistent and dominant across all digital platforms. 

10. Chasing perfect technical scores while ignoring site architecture

Technical SEO remains a core component of any successful SEO strategy, but focusing too heavily on the wrong metrics is a common issue. They’ve “fixed” the PageSpeed, but the “Solutions” section is buried five clicks deep, product pages aren’t internally linked properly, and there’s no clear topical structure. Google (and, more importantly, your high-value prospects) can’t fully understand what the site is about or which pages are the most important.

Before obsessing over shaving milliseconds off load time (which is important, but not all-important), we should focus on the blueprint. This means designing a site architecture that:

• Mirrors the buying journey, guiding users logically from problem-aware content to solution-specific pages.
• Builds ‘Topical Silos’ that clearly organise content to demonstrate deep expertise on core topics.
• Uses internal linking strategically to pass authority to high-intent “money” pages (like product or demo pages).

Wrapping up

The most successful brands are already adapting. They understand that the goal has shifted from simply “ranking #1” to becoming the #1 trusted answer everywhere your buyer is looking – it’s all about building that authority and providing genuine value. The reward? Earning a permanent spot on your customer’s “Day 1 List”. 

It demands a strategy that connects with your true audience, builds your authority across all platforms and adapts to the new realities of AI search.

If your current SEO conversations are still focused on traditional rankings rather than revenue, brand authority and adapting to AI, it might be time to explore a new approach.

We’re passionate about helping B2B brands navigate this shift. If you’re ready to discuss what a modern, revenue-focused strategy could look like for you, we’d love to hear from you.