Are you tired of pouring time and effort into your website’s search engine optimization, only to see little to no progress in your search rankings? You may be making some common SEO mistakes that are holding you back.
In this blog post, we’ll explore some of the most common SEO mistakes to avoid in order to help your website rise through the ranks and attract more organic traffic. From slow site speed to ignoring mobile optimization, we’ll cover it all and provide practical tips for avoiding these pitfalls. So if you’re ready to optimize your website and improve your search engine success, keep reading!
1. Slow Site Speed
When people try to access your content, slow site speed can discourage them. Slow site speed can deter people from accessing your page. This will result in a loss of hard-earned SEO traffic. If the page takes too much time to load, you will lose all of your efforts and time to drive traffic to SERPs.
These performance metrics can be used to measure page speed:
Page Load Time
This refers to the time between the moment the browser sends a request to the server and the moment your page loads fully. These are the factors that can be used to assess page load time:
- First Contentful Paint
FCP is one of the metrics that Google Chrome tracks in its performance section Report on Lighthouse. It measures how long it takes your browser to render the first piece of DOM (Document Object Model), content after a user navigates toward your page. - Time to Interactive (TTI)
Time to Interactive, a measure of page load speed, is called Time to Interactive. TTI, in other words, is the measurement of how long it takes for a page to become fully interactive. Based on data from the HTTP archive. - Time to the First Byte (TTFB)
This is the time that passes between the moment a request is sent and the moment the browser receives its first byte.
There Are Many Possible Fixes
To find out more about the speed of your website, run it through the Google PageSpeed Inspections. Several factors can delay your page loading time.
- Image Size: Use picture editing tools to set the image size at 72dpi and use image formats such as JPEG 2000 or JPEG XR to reduce the bandwidth consumed by images.
- Redirects While some redirects can be avoided, fixing them will improve the speed of your site. Do a site audit to identify all internal URLs that cause redirections and fix them.
- Javascript & CSS: Compress JavaScript & CSS Code by using shorter variable names to increase loading speed and reduce their size.
Possible Solutions
This will help you understand your audience better and gain new clients. Your website will be more credible if you post on social media about the issues that were faced and the solutions used.
2. Faulty Code for Google My Business Verification
It is quite common to encounter problems with the verification pin you receive for your Google My Business Account.
Possible Solutions
Reset your “private” profile to make it “public”, and then try again. If that doesn’t work, request another PIN. After you have updated your NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number), details, the problem could arise.
3. Inadequacy of Location-Specific Pages
A Google Report shows that searches based on location-specific keywords have been increasing, particularly among mobile users. For example, there has been a 900% increase in mobile search results for “..near you” between 2013 and 2017. Additionally, 76% of people who use mobile devices to search for something near them visit the business within one day and around. 28% of those searches lead to a purchase.
Possible Solutions
This SEO error can be fixed by having well-optimized unique pages that are specific to your location to improve your rank in local SERPs.
4. Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is content that is identical or similar to any other content on your website. While Google doesn’t impose a penalty on duplicate content it can have a significant impact on the website’s ranking.
Possible Solutions
Content is the king of any website. Having unique content can help your company establish itself as a trusted player in the market. This SEO error can be corrected by making sure that your content isn’t repeated elsewhere.
5. Broken Images and Missing Alternatives
Alt tags are HTML attributes that describe the content and can be used as alternative tags. Alt tags are essential for solving on-page SEO issues. An alt tag will be used to describe the contents and function of the image in these situations.
Possible Solutions
Alt tags are easy to implement. Add an alt tag to the image component in your HTML code. This is an example of such an image source.
<img src=“image.jpg” alt=“image description” title=“image tooltip”>
6. Outdated Site Information and Content
Your site will be filtered out if the search engine finds your content outdated or not relevant. In this way, you will be wasting your crawl allowance by crawling and indexing pages not relevant to your site. This can lead to a decrease in traffic to your site and a rise in bounce rates.
Possible Solutions
This SEO error can be fixed by ensuring that your content is high-quality and contains relevant information. Search engines should always be given the best, most useful, optimized content.
7. Not Optimized for Mobile Access
Many people now rely more on their mobile devices than their computers, living in a mobile-first society. Mobile-friendly websites are more popular than half of the search results on Google. You will also lose visitors if your site isn’t optimized for mobile. This feature is not available on all sites.
Possible Solutions
A mobile-friendly website will help you rank higher in SERPs. Mobile-optimized websites are the best type of design. Mobile optimization allows the site to be completely redesigned for different devices. Mobile optimization can also improve site speed and design structure.
8. Contact Form Isn’t Converting
Formisimo shows that only 49% of 1.5 million people who view a form complete it. Only 16 percent of viewers complete the form. Contact forms are not converted for many reasons.
- Too many form fields
- Submit button not working or unclear
- Too many or too few options in the dropdowns
Possible Solutions
Make your contact form engaging and easy to fill out to optimize its SEO. This SEO error can be corrected by limiting the number of fields in your contact form.
- Keep your contact form short and to the point with five fields
- Concentrate on form alignment
- Use a catchy CTA.
- For design elements such as color, size, and position, run A/B testing on your form.
- Use the Google autocomplete plugin to enable auto-fill for your forms
- Make sure your form is mobile-friendly
- Do not use CAPTCHA
9. Broken Links
It is a negative impression for users to visit your website via a search engine, and get a 404 error. Broken links can even impact your crawl budget. This is the number of times Google bots crawl your site in a given time.
Possible Solutions
To improve your SEO, you must fix broken pages as soon as possible. To address broken links:
- You can either replace or recreate the content of the page
- Use 301 redirects to divert your audience towards a similar piece on your site.
- To resolve external links quickly, contact the website. You can remove the domain or replace it with another source if it is not functional.
10. Low Text to HTML Ratio
This is another SEO error that is not being paid attention to because it is more technical SEO. While the content of your website is written in the textual format it is HTML code (such as headings, JavaScript script, images, etc.). It is the HTML code that supports it.
Low ratios could be an indication of:
- Websites that load slowly due to excessive code
- Hidden text is a red flag for search engines
- Flash, inline styling, and JavaScript excessively
Possible Solutions
This SEO error can be corrected by adding relevant text to the page, moving inline scripts into separate files, and removing unnecessary code. Keep your webpage as small as possible by using simple text.
11. Pages Not Indexed
Indexing is adding your pages to the Google searchable index. Google cannot rank pages that have not been crawled by its robots. There are several reasons your pages may not be indexed.
- 404 errors
- You have pages that contain meta tags with the following source codes -> will not get indexed
- Your sitemap is out of date
- Duplicate content
- Authority or low popularity
Possible Solutions
Deep crawl, the comprehensive website crawler allows you to simulate how search engine robots crawl your site. Without affecting the website’s performance, you can dig deeper and obtain a detailed report for every URL.
12. Title Tags and Meta Descriptions of Insufficient Length
The title tag or meta title is an HTML element that describes the title of a webpage. The meta description tag provides a summary of the page’s content. These tags are displayed in the SERP for a particular result.
Meta Title
The meta title should be between 50-60 characters, depending on its width. Google displays titles around 600 pixels.
Meta Description
The maximum length is between 50 and 160 characters for a meta description. Meta descriptions don’t directly affect SEO, but they do affect CTR and, in turn, rankings. Meta descriptions can also indirectly impact SEO.
The meta description can lead to problems such as:
- Duplicate meta description tags
- Long meta descriptions can lead to misspelled keywords
- Use alphanumeric values for your meta description
Don’t Let These Common Mistakes Hold You Back From SEO Success
It’s important to be mindful of the common SEO mistakes that can hinder the success of your website. By avoiding broken links, neglecting mobile optimization, and ignoring the importance of high-quality content, you can set your website up for long-term SEO success. It’s also essential to continuously track your performance and make necessary adjustments to your strategy.
By following these tips and staying up-to-date on the latest SEO best practices, you can ensure that your website is well-optimized and able to attract a steady stream of organic traffic. So don’t let these common SEO mistakes hold you back – take action to optimize your website and watch your search rankings soar!
Get in Touch With an Experienced SEO Company Today
Are you tired of struggling to get your website to rank on search engines? Are you frustrated with the time and energy you’ve invested in your online marketing efforts, only to see little return on your investment? If so, it’s time to consider hiring a professional SEO agency.
At Lux Digital Marketing, we have a team of experienced and certified SEO experts who can help you avoid common SEO mistakes and maximize your online presence. We use proven techniques and strategies to ensure that your website ranks higher on search engines, attracts more qualified traffic, and generates more leads and sales for your business.
Other Services We Offer:
- Search Engine Optimization
- On Page SEO
- Off Page SEO
- Web Design
- Google Maps Marketing
- Most importantly, ranking you number 1 on Google!
Don’t waste any more time and resources on ineffective SEO efforts. Let us help you achieve your online marketing goals and drive measurable results for your business. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you succeed with SEO.
