5 Most common SEO mistakes and how to fix them

Having a successful website is not as simple as you might think. First, it is essential to consider that 70% of online experiences start not on your website, but on a search engine like Google. This alone should signify how important it is to keep your website optimized. The best web design companies from around the globe will all tell you the same thing – you have to stay on top of your SEO game for the best results.

In this article, we show you the 5 most common SEO mistakes that decrease your position in search engines. You need to check if you are making some of these mistakes and make the necessary changes to improve your ranking and get more customers.

SEO Mistakes You May Be Making 

Here are some common SEO mistakes you may be making on your website without realizing it!

1. Slow loading speed

A spectacular business website is one that will generate plenty of conversions. However, if users can’t see the design within a few seconds, they will most likely decide to leave the site.

Ensuring a fast loading speed is essential to prevent the user from prematurely closing the window. Time spent on a website, or the website’s bounce rate is a crucial aspect of SEO. Nowadays, algorithms demand a faster page loading speed. A popular theory by marketing experts states that it should load in less than 2 seconds.

One of the best free tools to analyze your load speed is Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool comes with the whole Google Webmaster Pack. If you see that it takes more than two seconds, proceed with the following suggestions:

• Optimize the size of the images, make them less than 900 kb, and have a resolution of no more than 1000 px.
• Make all the images or elements of your site match the template; if you can’t do it, look for a more appropriate design template.
• Migrate your site to a more straightforward web service; platforms like WordPress have hundreds of plugins that slow down sites.
• Get higher quality hosting. At 71Three, we recommend DigitalOcean or AWS for most projects.

2. Duplicate content

There can be two types of cases for duplicate content, one consisting of plagiarism from other sites and the other of two identical pages on your own website.

Both are enough reasons for Google to penalize you, so it is a mistake you should avoid at all costs, especially in the first case. That kind of plagiarism happens more often in e-commerce since they use the same product description as their suppliers. But, even if only the list of technical details is identical, you will be plagiarizing, so you should always change it by using synonyms at least.

Likewise, the description text must also be different. You can use your imagination to create something original, and eye-catching for users.

On the other hand, when it comes to duplicates within your website, you will be making the search engine algorithms work harder. This penalty usually only occurs if you have many duplicate pages, you can use tools like Google Analytics to find duplicate pages. 

In addition to that, you can use Copyscape, Semrush, and Small SEO Tools when it comes to checking plagiarized content. Also, you have to make sure that you are not the one who is plagiarizing; that happens especially when you buy links or content from unreliable third parties. So always try to use one of these tools to analyze your purchases and ensure they are positive for positioning.

3. Incorrect use of tags

Some people are not accustomed with using tags properly. Although they seem like elements that you can apply your free will, the truth is that you have to follow a specific protocol.

For example, there should only be a single H1 tag on each page of your website. Google webmasters indicates that, even if there are more H1 on a page, it is not enough reason to bring about penalties. There must be a clear difference between the H1 and title tag. The main difference is that the H1 is within your page, and other secondary tags such as H2, H3, and H4 are derived.

On the other hand, the title is the name of the page that the algorithm will see and with which it will position your website; it is also what users will see on the search results page. Also, the title should not be repeated and should contain the main keyword. If you don’t know how your tags are currently doing, you can check your source code, or use a tool like Screaming Frog for an in-depth analysis.

4. Neglected internal linking

An internal linking strategy is another pillar of good SEO, but it is not something you should do randomly. Internal links can help you achieve many goals. For example, they can lead a user to a product or content that they like or allow them to subscribe or get more information about your business. It’s also a great help to the algorithms, as they can start analyzing your entire site in a way that’s scalable.

However, if you do internal linking in the wrong way, you can affect the link juice within your site, which is basically a term used to measure the authority of each page. If you know how to distribute it, you can increase your visibility and greatly improve your SEO.

The most common mistake is to link categories with products that do not correspond or to force a relationship between different posts. If you want to know how your interlinking architecture works, use Google Search Console – it will show you all the internal links of a specific site. 

Then, make sure that what you offer on your homepage can be classified into well-differentiated categories to link products or publications according to each category. You can achieve this with the help of secondary keywords, synonyms, and longtail keywords.

5. Incorrect keywords

Another common mistake is positioning your website with incorrect keywords or keywords that do not correspond to your market sector. You can analyze related keywords suitable to position your business to avoid issues with incorrect keywords. By using the Google Keyword Planner, you can effortlessly discover how many searches per month a particular keyword has and visualize the organic traffic rank of each one.

Just remember to always do it with related words, and to make a list of the possible natural combinations you can muster-up. Synonyms are also suitable in this technique; no matter how you do it, keep in mind that it is about creating a lasting, user-friendly and pleasant strategy for the algorithms.

Improve your website’s ranking and increase traffic 

As an expert Houston web design company, we can assure you that SEO doesn’t have to be complicated. There are many easy and effective options to correct the most common mistakes on your website. Keeping your website optimized will guarantee the excellent search engine rankings and an increase in user traffic. Here is another article you may find helpful – Web Design & SEO Guide.