10 Common SEO Mistakes That Are Killing Your Rankings
SEO improves a website’s visibility in search engine results pages. It is essential for website visibility. Since a website is optimized and ranked, it is easier for people to find the website and visit. When a web page ranks well, it becomes easily discoverable by users. But, the websites tend to make mistakes that can hurt their SEO without the knowledge of the admin. If your website is not doing well in search, you’re probably making some common SEO mistakes. Your rankings can get negatively affected due to these errors – improper usage of keywords, slowness, broken links and low quality content. But the good news is that these mistakes can be fixed. We’ll take a look at the most common SEO mistakes, along with actionable solutions to resolve them going forward.
Let’s dive into the most common seo mistakes and how to fix them.
1. Ignoring Keyword Research
One of the common SEO mistakes is not conducting proper keyword research. Many website owners either target overly competitive keywords, use irrelevant ones, or fail to understand search intent. Without proper research, your content may never reach the right audience.
How to fix it;
- Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, SEMrush to find relevant keywords with the right search volume and competition for you.
- Give precedence to long-tail keywords that reflect user characteristics and stuff naturally in your content.
2. Keyword Stuffing
Previously, stuffing content with keywords was a common SEO mistakes. But with time, search engines become better and punish you for using too many keywords. Keyword stuffing and making content hard to read will certainly deter audiences. Your ranking will automatically decrease.
How to fix it;
- Use keywords naturally in your content, title and meta description.
- Instead of stuffing keywords, focus more on readability and user experience.
3. Neglecting Title Tags & Meta Descriptions
When the information that users receive on SERPs is incorrect, they will not click on the website. If website title tags and meta description are missing, poorly written and not optimized for keywords, they may get fewer clicks even on ranking sites.
How to fix it;
- Create attractive titles and descriptions with the targeted keyword to attract clicks.
- Make sure every page has a distinct title tag (less than 60 characters) and a meta description (less than 160 characters) mentioning the page content.
4. Poor Website Speed
Another common seo mistakes is when a website that takes time to load isn’t user-friendly, which makes users abandon it. Fast websites are prioritized by search engines because users want quick access. If a site takes too long to load, they leave without using the site.
How to fix it;
- Make image optimization, browser caching, compression, and CDN usage to speed up your site faster.
- Make use of Google PageSpeed Insights or other tools to routinely test your site speed.
5. Not Optimizing for Mobile
Websites that are not mobile-friendly commit one of the most common SEO mistakes which significantly impacts their rankings on Google.. A large fraction of internet traffic comes from mobile users. If your website is not responsive, you may lose potential visitors and your search visibility will suffer.
How to fix it;
- To solve this problem, make sure your website is responsive.
- Make sure your website works on different mobile devices and lightweight pages speed on mobile devices for your users.
6. Ignoring Internal Linking
Internal linking assists search engines in viewing the structure of your site. If your website doesn’t have enough internal linking, your most important pages won’t get indexed and ranked, and users can’t find their way easily.
How to fix it;
- Make sure to include relevant internal links to help your users navigate easily through your internal pages, including the internal pages which you want to rank on SERPs.
- Make sure to use descriptive anchor texts and ensure that your website has a logical structure for better performance. Check out our backlink services.
7. Low-Quality or Duplicate Content
Search engines favor sites that have unique and valuable contents. Don’t use duplicate, thin, or plagiarized content, as it can get you penalized.
How to fix it;
- Make sure that the content you provide does not get duplicated from anywhere.
- Regularly refresh your older posts, and use canonical tags to eliminate duplicates where necessary.
8. Broken Links and 404 Errors
Broken links negatively impact user experience and SEO. If there are just too many broken links on your website, the search engines may consider your website not well maintained and rank it poorly which is a common seo mistakes tend to neglect.
How to fix it;
- Use tools like Screaming Frog or Google Search Console to regularly check your website for any broken links.
- Broken links should be changed or redirected on your website.
9. Ignoring Technical SEO
Technical SEO is when you make sure that search engines can find your page. One of the common seo mistakes in technical seo is failing to utilize XML sitemaps, improper utilization of robots.txt files, slow-loading scripts, and other issues can hinder search engines from fully understanding your site.
How to fix it;
- You need an XML Sitemap and ensure that your site structure is optimized and each page is crawlable.
- To make your pages easy to find on search engines, use schema markup. Also, fix crawl errors in Google Search Console.
10. Not Tracking SEO Performance
Most website owners forget to keep track of SEO work. It’s impossible to know what works and what doesn’t without monitoring performance.
How to fix it;
- Use SEO tracking tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console and more to track traffic, keyword rankings, user behavior, etc.
- Always check your reports and change your strategy as needed to keep up with SEO.
Why Choose Us?
Asterisk Digital provides expert SEO services to meet your business needs. We guarantee that your website is completely optimized in such a way that your rankings get better. Whether you need help with keyword research, technical SEO fixes, or a complete strategy overhaul, we’ve got you covered.
Contact us today and let’s take your website to the next level!
Your website’s ranking can get better and plenty of organic traffic can be driven by avoiding common SEO mistakes. Because SEO is a continuous process, keep practicing the best practices and optimizing for the best results. If you use these fixes, your website will get better and more user-friendly. So, you will find success.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is technical SEO, and why is it important?
Technical SEO is optimizing your website from the backend, like its structure, XML sitemap set up, indexing, etc. Search engines will be able to analyze and rank your site.
Why is website speed important for SEO?
If your website is slow, it may cause a bad user experience and have a higher bounce rate. A faster site helps you rank higher, meaning search engine optimization requires site speed.
What happens if my website is not mobile-friendly?
If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, it won’t do well in terms of ranking because Google is mobile-first index. A responsive design offers good visibility for the site.
What are internal links, and how do they help SEO?
Internal links are hyperlinks that point to another website or page on your website. They also improve navigation and distribute link authority.
How can Asterisk Digital help with SEO?
Asterisk Digital is a SEO service provider helping businesses improve their ranking. They provide a number of various services such as keyword research, technical SEO, content optimization and performance tracking.