It does not matter whether you have impeccable services to offer or unmatched products to sell.
What matters is that your websites should rank within the first three pages of the search engine. Or else, your efforts will inevitably end in vain. So, avoid SEO mistakes, and feel the strong presence on the World Wide Web.
“What are the common SEO mistakes?” have been a buzz topic since years, and every time, it forces business owners to ponder over it because the bots regularly update their algorithms to provide better results.
Based on my experience, here, I present the top SEO mistakes that can bring down the rank of your websites from SERPs.
1. Quantity over quality:
A widespread SEO mistake since ages is to focus on quantity and not quality links. One link from a renowned webpage can do much wonder than dozens of low-quality links. Indeed, it’s a pretty hefty sum but then working hard on that is worth.
- opt for a link that’s relevant to your industry or at least a niche
- avoid having many outgoing links
- pharmacy, gambling, and adult sites’ link is a big ‘no.’
Free tools like SEOQuack can help you find the quality of the domain for links.
2. Compatibility – mobile responsiveness:
Mobile phones are the ruling gadgets of contemporary technologies.
The biggest SEO mistake observed these days is companies are least bothered to check their mobile compatibility. Mobile searches have already surpassed the desktop ones and, therefore, your website should be mobile-friendly and have responsive design.
3. Lack of standard SEO tools:
One of the most serious and the most significant SEO mistakes is to be parsimonious and work with free tools.
You should know that quality comes with a price and, therefore, using licensed tools make better sense for your websites and blogs. Free tools come with limited functionalities that do not give desired results.
On the other hand, premium tools may ask for little money, but they offer a lot of features and exclusive services to have better on and off-page SEO practices.
However, I don’t say that free tools make no difference. It is just that paid versions have better functionalities.
Best tools for SEO you should use in 2023
4. Substandard tags and descriptions:
Image tags, title tags, and meta descriptions are a few of the essential entities largely ignored by webmasters even today.
The search engine bots read all such tags and descriptions to parse the images and surrounding texts to rank your websites. Furthermore, it should be one of the biggest SEO mistakes to avoid or else you’d lose potential organic traffic in terms of image results.
5. Audio-visual approach:
Yes, videos are the future!
Videos take lesser time to rank on search engines as compared to lengthy texts. Moreover, they provide more engagement of the users, ultimately increasing your page-time.
Recently, Google has added podcasts to rank on search engine result pages (SERPs) and hence, you should give it a shot.
Avoiding videos on your website could be the latest point to be added to top SEO mistakes in 2023.
6. Misunderstanding the intention:
In the race of having all keywords, many webmasters compromise the focus on the intention of the search.
For instance, ‘best SEO’ and ‘best SEO services’ have ‘best SEO’ in common, but the purposes of the searches are different.
The former one is intended to know the best SEO practices, and the other is utterly searched for availing professional SEO services to rank your websites higher in the SERPs.
Integrating all the keywords on a single page may get you better ranks and position, but then the intention of the reader it does not fulfil the purpose of the searchers.
7. Content is still king:
While most of the webmasters bother pleasing bots, they often forget that the ultimate reader is a human.
Old and dull content would not entice visitors, and hence, the rank may go down.
Giant search engines like Google expect the webpages to update regularly, which is possible by uploading interesting content on blogs, webpages, and other write-ups.
Poorly crafted content would be one of the biggest SEO mistakes in 2023.
8. Ergonomically designed UI for the best Ux:
Websites that are easy to navigate can retain their visitors and, therefore, such sites rank high on SERPs.
An SEO mistake would be leaving the webpages unoptimised for their content and design. Also, try not to irritate visitors with lots of pop-ups, lengthy texts, and perplexing menus.
When the website is optimised for different size displays, it should be simple to browse and find the required products and services.
9. Page speed:
Though a part of Ux (user experience), it is of paramount importance that the page loading speed is to be kept minimised.
Offering a fast page load can upscale your business.
It has two primary benefits. Firstly, the bots love to crawl and index your webpages. Secondly, visitors love navigating all over and find the desired multiple products and services.
You can take help of Google’s PageSpeed Insights to learn more about it.
10. Idle on social media:
Gone are the days when stuffing keywords and phrases on the webpages would bring you results.
After regular updates in Google, Bing, and Yahoo algorithms, it is mandatory to stay up till date in terms of activities on the web.
Social media has become an integral part of the Internet and, therefore, it plays a crucial role in ranking your websites, articles, or blogs. Social media itself has its crowd and users, which heavily influence the ranking of any page on the search engine results.
If you are idle or not regular on social media, most of your SEO practices will end up in vain. Ignoring social media presence and updates will be one of the SEO mistakes that you cannot afford.
11. Fixing problems:
If you are too lazy to fix problems you feel trivial, you are at a higher risk to commit SEO mistakes.
Having non-existing pages linked fall under the category of bogus links, and they are a potential threat to your website ranking.
In fact, according to Google experts, this is one of the biggest SEO mistakes to avoid.
Whenever any tool throws an error, do not give yourself a second thought and procrastinate the action.
It would help if you immediately worked on the problems to keep your webpages healthier.
12. Ignoring local search:
Indeed, you want to take your business to the next level.
There is no harm in expanding your horizons to the international market, but you should not ignore the local search.
Most of the search engines, including Google, have different algorithm altogether to handle internationally targeted keywords and key phrases.
Region-specific keywords, meta titles, and meta descriptions shouldn’t be ignored to avoid SEO mistakes from happening.
SEO mistakes at a glance – FAQs
Here are the frequently asked questions about SEO mistakes.
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
Thinking about bots and not humans is the most significant SEO mistake to make. Also, not optimizing your page on designs and ignoring the quality of content are also blunders to avoid for better SEO practices.
What are some on-page SEO mistakes?
Missing tags and descriptions are the primary SEO mistakes on the page. Low text-to-HTML ratio, broken links, tag issues, and short word counts can also add up as on-page SEO mistakes.
What are the deadly SEO mistakes to avoid in 2023?
All mistakes are deadly and enough to pull your websites on SERPs. Nevertheless, I think that mobile incompatibility and ergonomic perplexity for UI would give terrible user experience. These are the most significant common SEO mistakes to avoid in 2023.
How to fix common SEO mistakes with site audit tools?
If you are well-versed with Google Webmaster tools and other third-party services, you can fix them with great efforts. Nevertheless, you can avail professional SEO services audit to know it better.
What effect does site speed have on SEO?
The entire SEO tactics focus on getting the visitor the best user experience. If the page loading speed is slow, the user may get annoyed and leave the site. This is the most punishable act in the eyes of search engine bots.
How to avoid common web design mistakes that may hurt SEO?
Ergonomics play a vital role in getting the user the best experience. Following basic ergonomics, one can avoid common SEO mistakes due to bad page design. The sites that are easy to navigate have a more engaging ratio, which, in turn, helps rank the websites higher.
Which are the irrelevant SEO techniques?
You should avoid practising black hat SEO techniques. Keyword stuffing and presenting wrong links in large quantities are a few malpractices of SEO and these common SEO mistakes one should avoid by all means.
How does UX affect your SEO?
The websites ranking high on SERPs should be visitor-centric. Ultimately, it is the visitor who will decide to buy a product or avail the services. Hence, the sites that render search engine bots would take down terrible user experience in their ranking pages.
I have been into white hat SEO practices for years. The black-hat SEO practices may get you good results, but then it’d be ephemeral. For a long-lasting good ranking of websites on search engines, you should practice fair.
Avoid common SEO mistakes in 2023 and rank your websites on first, second, or top-five pages.
We can discuss the pros and cons of your current websites, or I can also offer you a foolproof plan in a case you want to start it from scratch.
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