7 Common SEO Mistakes- A Handful Guide

Murphy’s law states that anything that may go wrong will do so, And search engine optimization is entirely compatible with this law.

Your digital marketing approach could frequently suffer from even minor SEO errors. It even causes the entire marketing strategy for your content to fail miserably.

This article discusses common SEO mistakes and provides suggestions for preventing them.

Slow website loading speed

Site speed and page load metrics have become increasingly important in SEO over time.

Google reported in 2018 that incredibly slow speeds could have a detrimental impact on rankings in mobile search results. Then, in 2021, they disclosed that the new Core Web Vitals metrics they were developing would put a strong emphasis on user experience and SEO and that these evaluations would eventually be incorporated into their main ranking algorithm.

Accordingly, individual pages’ LCP (biggest contentful paint), FID (initial input delay), and CLS (cumulative layout shift) would have an effect on SEO results. It’s nevertheless common for organizations to underoptimize these KPIs in spite of this and the clear benefit to users. We can increase a website’s speed in a number of ways.

a. Image optimization

The most frequent cause of a website’s delay is typically a high number of poorly optimized images.

In order to improve user engagement, photos must be produced and delivered in the best possible format, size, and resolution.

I’ll now go over a couple of techniques for image optimization.

i. The file size of your images should be checked; anything over 1MB is really unacceptable.

ii. When working with larger photos, switch to JPEG instead of PNG. Icons are fine.

iii. To quickly check image sizes and make adjustments, use waterfall testing.

iv. Select the appropriate compression ratio.

b. Minified javascript and CSS

You should think twice before installing some WordPress plugins and themes because they load a lot of CSS and JavaScript. Instead, look for an alternative.

You may minify your JavaScript and CSS using online tools like Closure Compiler or Minify Code. This method can also be used to minify JavaScript and CSS that you develop for your plugins or include in the customizer.

c. Minimize HTTP request

Slow website? Possible problem: too many HTTP requests.

In general, your website will load more slowly the more HTTP requests it receives.

Using third-party tools is the simplest approach to determine how many HTTP requests are made on your WordPress website.

WordPress plugins like Query Monitor or web tools like Pingdom or GTmetrix.

d. Caching Techniques

The performance of webpages can be greatly enhanced via caching.

You can notice a significant improvement in your website’s performance after integrating browser/HTTP caching and server-side caching.

e. Gzip Compression

By turning on gZIP compression, you tell the server to send the web objects—such as pictures, CSS, and JavaScript files—to the requesting browser in a single container.

If you haven’t yet made gZIP compression enabled on your website, you should get started with that right away.

f. Using a CDN Service

A significant factor in improving a website’s speed is a CDN.

Your website’s resource consumption will be reduced because CDN stores and contributes various content types from the closest places.

As a result, your website will function better in terms of loading time and allow users to view it swiftly.

g. Good hosting

One of the most crucial components of your website’s performance is its hosting.

If your site is having problems with your current plan, you might just need more resources, and switching to a better plan might be beneficial for you.

Sometimes, switching to a better web host is the only option that will work. However, take some time to complete some research to identify your most dependable relocation possibilities before you take this step.

Wrong target keywords

The inappropriate keywords will make it difficult to rank and will attract traffic that converts poorly.

There is no use in targeting or using keywords that have minimal potential for traffic.

Solutions:

The issue is not which keyword research tool to select. The difficulty is in grasping the purpose of keyword research.

Search volume, keyword difficulty, traffic potential, and search intent are the four most crucial variables that support the goal of keyword research.

For the aforementioned metrics, use Semrush and Ahrefs when conducting keyword research on any topic.

Weak or duplicate content

Content is king, as we all know. However, I will state that the foundation of any digital marketing strategy is content. So, in order to easily avoid frequent SEO mistakes, you need to establish a comprehensive content strategy before beginning any digital marketing activity.

To maintain organic traffic, many websites and online businesses make is to produce new content constantly and which is one of the worst SEO blunders.

Google appreciates content, but not a lot of it. Google has recently made it clear that only websites with high-quality content receive top rankings in search results.

So change your emphasis from producing more content to producing better content. Below are some suggestions for creating high-quality content.

Solutions:

a. Prioritize your audience.

b. Make use of the information gained to improve the content quality score.

c. Regularly update both relevant and old content d. Keep Your Content Natural

No internal linking strategies

Internal links are clickable text links that lead from one of your website’s pages to another page located on the same domain.

Lack of internal linking techniques wastes link juice, lowers page rankings, and confuses the hierarchy of your website.

Solutions

i. construct a content hierarchy, silo structure, and preferred anchor texts.

ii. Use ahrefs to determine which pages are doing best and link to underperforming pages.

iii. The exchange of links between two pages can enhance both the user and search engine experiences.

Additionally, you can avoid SEO mistakes by using these free SEO tools.

Poor design in mobile

According to a lot of SEO professionals, mobile-friendly websites rank higher than those that are solely designed for PCs.

For SEO, mobile friendliness is important. In reality, the detection that a user is searching on a mobile device is a ranking indicator in both Google and Bing’s algorithms. In general, mobile search results favor websites that are optimized for mobile devices over those that are not.

Few top techniques for creating mobile-friendly websites

i. improve the load time

ii. Responsive design

iii. Pay attention on user experience

iv. Placing of CTA buttons

v. Avoid using pop-up windows

Poor backlink strategies

Building links is a skill. Without at least some link building, it is almost impossible to obtain any discernible search engine optimization (SEO) outcomes.

However, most marketers eventually hit a wall and narrow their attention to a small number of link-building tactics.

Avoid building backlinks in bulk if you want to rank well on Google. It’s an obsolete method.

Building high-quality backlinks should take priority over creating a huge number of them.

There are numerous techniques to build high-quality backlinks.

a. Link intersection with competitors

b. Acquire links from high domain authority sites

c. Guest post

d. The “sky scrapper” method

Poor UX and site structure

One of the most crucial aspects of SEO is optimizing your website for traffic, income, and conversion.

However, poor UX can lose businesses a lot of money if customers are deterred from making purchases as a result.

Solutions:

i. Break up your content into smaller paragraphs

ii. Use meaningful Heading Tags

iii. Use bullet points and ordered lists.

iv. Use graphics and videos

v. Provide value in the content

Last words of wisdom on avoiding SEO errors

It’s critical to avoid SEO mistakes and let best practices direct your effort because SEO is a big task.

Even veteran SEO experts make frequent SEO blunders; the key is recognizing and avoiding them.

To ensure that the key components of your website are receiving only the greatest SEO work,

Follow this aforementioned list of recommendations for best practices and extra resources.