You decide to concentrate on SEO strategy, optimize everything for search engines, get lots of links for your keyword research, and find a few phrases that help you get more traffic. Then when you expect to see your website start climbing the search results, you didn’t get the results you hoped for.
We all faced similar situations.
Even if SEO looks super easy, it takes time to master it, and from small local businesses to big corporations, lots of website owners make some mistakes.
SEO methods are constantly evolving. The market is predicted to reach $1.6 billion by 2027. As a consequence, search engines are changing and developing some rules. While it already requires some effort to stay on top of the search results, SEO mistakes can make it even more time-consuming.
SEO has lots of advantages, and don’t worry; if you fix a few simple mistakes, you probably get better results. Let’s check some of the most common SEO mistakes you also may make.
1. Not Setting Clear Goals
The first step to having a good SEO strategy is to know what you want to achieve. You can’t start SEO activities if you don’t know where you want to be in the future.
It’s not surprising that you need some goals to achieve them.
But many website owners and marketers start their SEO campaigns without goals. They think SEO will increase their traffic and their sales.
It doesn’t always work like that.
First of all, you need to determine the specific results you want, like positioning your website on the first page of Google for specific keywords, getting more organic traffic, improving click-through rate, etc.
2. Ignoring User Intent
User Intent is what a user wants to achieve by typing something in the search bar. It would be best if you kept that in mind when creating SEO content because it can significantly impact your website ranking.
There are five types of Search Intent:
- Do Queries: The user is looking to do something. They want to take action. These queries typically start with buy, make, cook, build, etc.
- Website Queries: The user is looking for a specific website or web page. These queries typically include the name of the website or web page they are looking for.
- Visit in Person Queries: The user is looking for a physical location. They want to visit a store, restaurant, or other type of business in person. These queries typically include the name of the business and the location.
- Multiple User Intent queries: Some queries can have multiple user intents. For example, a query like “pizza near me” could be classified as a Do Query (the user wants to order pizza) or a Visit in Person Query (the user wants to find a pizza place to visit).
Depending on the type of user intent, you need to create SEO content and use different SEO strategies. If you don’t optimize your website according to the user intent, you may get a high bounce rate, which will negatively impact your SEO ranking.
3. Not Optimizing Your Website for Mobile
With the increasing popularity of smartphones, it’s essential to have a mobile-friendly website. You should know that people use their phones not only to call or text but also to search for information, products, or services.
If your website is not mobile-friendly, you may lose lots of potential customers because they will go to your competition. Also, from July 1st, 2019, Google started using mobile-first indexing for all websites. It means that Google will primarily use the mobile version of your website to rank it in the search results.
4. Not Tracking the Results
If you don’t track your SEO results, you won’t know what works and doesn’t.
You need to see which SEO strategies bring you more organic traffic and conversions because SEO isn’t only about traffic. It’s also about conversion. Without that data, you can’t improve your SEO campaign.
There are lots of SEO tools that offer analytics features like Google Analytics, Semrush, Moz, etc. You should use them to track your SEO results and see what you need to improve.
5. Not Optimizing for Local Search
If you have a small business, it can be quite hard to compete with the industry giants, even on Google. You can see they almost always take that first few results.
But, it doesn’t have to be the same for local results.
You need to do some local SEO if you have a local business. It means that you need to optimize your website for local search.
You can start by creating a Google Business Profile and filling out all the required information. After that, you should focus on creating SEO content optimized for local searches. You must include keywords related to location pages to your city or region, etc.
It would be best if you also asked your customers to leave reviews on your Google Business Profile listing. Positive reviews can have a significant impact on your SEO ranking.
6. Trying to Rank For The Wrong Keywords
7. Skipping Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
Title tags and meta descriptions are an essential part of SEO. They help search engines understand what your website is about. Without them, you rank lower in searches.
Also, your title tags and meta descriptions are like an advertisement for your website. They need to be unique and attention-grabbing if you want people to click on your website in the search results.
Don’t try to make your company name the title of every single page. Use keywords and customize them.
If you skip title tags and meta descriptions, you miss out on a valuable SEO opportunity.
8. Not Using Anchor Text for Internal Links
Anchor text is visible, clickable text in a hyperlink and labels the destination of a link. Search engines use anchor text, along with other factors, to determine the relevancy of a website for specific searches.
Using tailored anchor text for internal links can help you rank higher in the search results. Instead of generic anchor texts, try to use tailored ones and mix different kinds of anchor texts.
9. Focusing on Quantity Over Quality While Building Links
When it comes to SEO, it’s not about the quantity of links, but the quality. It would help if you focused on getting high-quality links from relevant and authoritative websites.
A few high-quality links are worth more than hundreds of low-quality links. So, don’t waste your time and effort on link-building schemes that promise hundreds or even thousands of links. They will do more harm than good.
10. Poor or Duplicate Content
This one is a huge mistake.
Avoid poor and duplicate content.
Your content needs to be better than your competition if you want to rank higher in the search results. Poor content can affect your conversation, and duplicate content can even create bigger problems.
This is an SEO mistake that can have direct consequences for your website. Not only will it hurt your search engine ranking, but it could also lead to your site being penalized or removed from Google’s index entirely.
With so much at stake, it’s simply not worth the risk of publishing low-quality content. If you’re unsure how to create quality content, consider hiring a professional copywriter or editor. With their help, you can ensure that your site’s content is both engaging and original.
11. Not Having an SEO Plan
It can be challenging to build or execute SEO strategies.
If you don’t have a roadmap, you must build one now.
Without a plan, you won’t know which SEO strategies to implement or how to measure your results. So, look at your site and results and determine where you want them to be.
Set goals and make a plan to achieve them.
Your SEO plan should include your SEO goals, target keywords, SEO strategies, etc. It should also specify how to track your results and what you will do if something isn’t working as planned.
12. Missing Alternative Texts
If you have broken images or missing alternative texts on your website, it can harm your SEO ranking. That’s because search engines can’t index images, so they rely on alternative text to understand what an image is about.
To fix this, you need to check all the images on your website and make sure that they have valid alternative texts. You can use SEO tools like Screaming Frog to find broken images and missing alternative texts.
13. Having a Slow Site
Your website needs to be fast if you want people to stay on it and convert.
Moreover, a slow-loading page could result in a lower position in search results, as Google has stated that it is a factor in their ranking algorithm.
You can use SEO tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to check the speed of your website. If your website is slow, you need to fix the issue as soon as possible.
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