With Google adjusting its algorithms approximately 500-600 times a year, it’s challenging to ensure that you’re implementing the latest SEO best practices on your website. You might unintentionally be committing SEO errors that could impact your traffic, conversions, and revenue. Here are 8 SEO mistakes that might be harming your website’s performance and how to rectify them.
Neglecting technical SEO.
Attracting people to your website is the first step. Equally important is ensuring that your website performs optimally and provides an excellent user experience. Your site should be mobile-friendly and intuitively organized for easy navigation, allowing users to quickly find what they’re looking for with minimal clicks. Pages should load swiftly (most internet users expect a website to load in 2 seconds or less), and the site should operate smoothly, free from crashes, errors, or broken links.
Not upgrading to HTTPS
Since 2014, Google has been giving ranking preference to websites that use HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure), enhancing security by encrypting all communications between the browser and the server. Google persists in urging all website owners to transition from HTTP to HTTPS, as evident in “not secure” warnings for sites still using regular HTTP and the increased significance of HTTPS as a ranking signal. If you haven’t migrated to HTTPS, it’s advisable to do so—not only for the boost in ranking but also to enhance security for your website visitors and your business.
Publishing low-quality content.
Google relies on the content available on your site, including both articles and web pages, to assess the utility of your website to visitors and the quality of the user experience it provides. These factors significantly impact your search rankings. Publishing irrelevant or poorly written content can adversely affect your site’s overall performance. To enhance your SEO, ensure that your website features an abundance of well-crafted, engaging, and relevant content.
Not optimizing meta tags
The meta tag, also known as the title tag, doesn’t visibly appear on the page itself. However, it serves as the title of the page in search results and the browser bar when a visitor is on the page. Therefore, it’s crucial to ensure that it is descriptive, relevant, and includes relevant keywords.
Overlooking internal links
Internal links, which connect to other pages within the same website, play a crucial role in aiding visitors in accessing additional information and navigating a site logically. Moreover, they guide search engines to related content and contribute to the authority of those pages, potentially enhancing organic rankings. Notably, Backlinko has identified internal links as ranking factors #43 (in terms of quantity) and #44 (in terms of quality) among Google’s 200 ranking factors. To optimize your website, identify high-performing pages and incorporate links to other relevant content, distributing valuable link equity across your site. Additionally, use anchor text that is rich in keywords for these internal links.
Not optimizing for image search
The demand for visual content is experiencing substantial growth, with numerous individuals utilizing platforms such as Google Images, Bing, and Pinterest to conduct image searches. Enhancing your images increases the likelihood of visibility in these searches, subsequently driving traffic to your website. To optimize image searchability, focus on creating descriptive and user-friendly filenames. Additionally, include accurate and keyword-rich alt tags, which not only convey the content of the image to search engines but also provide descriptions for individuals using screen readers in case the image fails to load.
Working on SEO without doing an audit first.
It can be tempting to make small tweaks to your SEO or address issues as you find them, but you’ll get the best results if you do a full SEO site audit first to identify issues and opportunities, develop a comprehensive checklist and timeline, and benchmark and monitor your current rankings.
Forgetting about outbound links
Hyperlinks play a crucial role in SEO, and SEO practitioners often dedicate significant time and effort to acquire referral traffic through inbound links. However, outbound links to external sites, particularly those leading to reputable and valuable sources that enhance your site’s authority and deliver value to your visitors, can significantly impact your site’s performance. Configure your links to open in a separate tab, ensuring that your site remains accessible for readers who may wish to navigate back while exploring external content.
