Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important part of any marketing effort, yet many website owners don’t get it right. This is mostly because there is an overwhelming amount of information out there, most of which is outdated. SEO helps your website to rank higher in search engine result pages like Bing, Google, or Yahoo. While there are many factors considered when ranking a website, SEO is the main one.
Remember that SEO is very competitive, and making even a small mistake can easily give your rivals a chance to outrank you. As a business owner, you have a lot of things to handle, and it becomes easy to overlook some SEO mistakes, which can result in unwanted consequences. However, the good news is that these mistakes are avoidable.
Keep yourself from making the following SEO mistakes and maximize your Search Engine Optimization performance.
Poor quality and duplicate content on your website
Have you ever been to a website page reading something, and you feel like you have read that somewhere else before? Well, you were dealing with duplicate content. And for search engines, it can be pretty boring to scroll down similar content, and this can negatively impact your status as well as your ranking.
You need to avoid duplicating content on different pages. Make sure that all your pages are unique and different. Each page on your website must have a different topic and different keywords and offer great value to the reader. Also, duplication and poor-quality content are issues that can be addressed at the planning stage. So, even if you generate your own content, consider seeking expert help.
Keep in mind that good quality content will make you a more valuable resource to search engines and your website visitors. Besides, Google will just crawl your first page and ignore all the others with similar content. Other search engines will overlook your website instantly when they see duplicated content.
Keyword stuffing
In the past, people had to use keywords as many times as possible to rank high in the search engines. However, that is not the case now. Keyword stuffing can result in hefty penalties. Also, the current algorithms used by Google are sophisticated and will know if you use this strategy to get an advantage. Besides, Google has filters that will instantly avoid displaying pages that are stuffed with keywords instead of ones that offer actual value to readers.
Therefore, consider mentioning your keywords, and describe what you are selling, but never exaggerate it. Note that search engines are there to serve people with the ideal result for their search queries. So, you need to make them see your website, page, or blog as the ideal answer to the query you are optimizing for.
Also, it is vital to include the human element in your website. Focusing more on making your website rank higher is fine; however, pay more attention to making your readers or website visitors satisfied.
Using the wrong keywords
You might be a professional using acronyms, terms, and other expressions that the normal person will find hard to understand. But remember that your ideal customers will likely look for your services or products using expressions or terms that are simpler and less particular than your professional wording.
That said, as an expert, it is important to use different phrases for your customers since they might have misconceptions or different views. Also, find out what their problems are and try to address them. Get them to come to your website. And remember, being ranked high on Google for keywords that are not relevant is a total waste of money and time.
Little content on your page
Having a website does not mean that you should fill it with images and lack on the content part. Remember that while Google factors images when ranking your website, it is not enough to give you a higher ranking, so avoid stuffing your page with images.
Instead, have written content or use video to improve your SEO ranking. An excellent way to do this is by having a blog section on your website where you will give your web visitors advice.
You can utilize your website’s keywords to come up with great content that will be relevant and at the same time helpful to your readers. Remember that long content that has videos, infographics, and images will be ranked better on search engine pages.
Failure to optimize for mobile
How is your website’s performance when it comes to mobile devices? Remember that a website that is not mobile-friendly will end up being pushed down in rankings as search engines usually want to improve user experience, and the first step to do so is by having a responsive website. Also, Google and other search engine result pages now rank websites according to their mobile responsiveness and voice search. Therefore, if you do not have a mobile-friendly website, you are missing out and your website will move down in ranking.
Consider doing a mobile-friendly test, as Google will give suggestions on modifications you might need to make. Also, ask your website developer to make changes or make your site responsive to mobile devices. This will make your website accessible to people regardless of the device they are using.
Slow speed and load time
Another factor that is used by search engines to rank websites is their page speed and load time. Also, do you know that Google or any other search engine will lower your website rankings if it has a slow speed? That said, if your website is taking too long to load, consider checking your image sizes. You can also consider testing your website’s loading speed and time.
Conclusion
The first step to improving your SEO is breaking old practices that you got from bad information and being up to date with the current SEO practices. Begin by generating good quality content for your website visitors. Make sure that your content is educational, relevant, and interesting; keep it engaging and captivating. Once you’ve done that, optimize it with SEO and the right keywords. Remember that a single mistake can make you lose your ranking and hurt your reputation.
If you need help creating content and optimizing it with SEO, Warren Research can help. We can assist with your content writing and web optimization needs to improve your website ranking.