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Went through extensive keyword research but Google still seems unimpressed?
Unfortunately, with all the time and effort that comes with search engine optimization (SEO), it’s just as easy to make mistakes when you don’t know what to do. This guide is intended to help you sol=ve some of the most common mistakes. For complex issues, it is best to consult with an SEO Agency.
In this guide, we’ll help you spot the top SEO mistakes so you can avoid them in the future. We will also provide you with a practical checklist to help you out when publishing new content and diagnosing underperforming past content. But first, let’s briefly answer why potential problems with your SEO are essential to catch.
Like any digital marketing tactic, SEO success has a significant impact on today’s businesses, in whatever industry you are in. However, you will need significant knowledge when dealing with it. If you’re not careful, you might lose ranking and traffic, which will lead to a loss of revenue. Therefore, it is vital to catch these common SEO mistakes so you can avoid their consequences this early.
1. Using Unsecure or Slow Web Hosting
Web hosting is a crucial part of any website. It is the place where your website files are stored, and it’s also the place where your website gets its speed. However, if your web host cannot handle a high volume of traffic on a website, then it will take an extended period for your site to load properly.
With the help of technically optimized content, search engines can easily crawl your site and index it. However, if your site is slow, it will make it difficult for search engine crawlers to index your pages.
The solution to bad web hosting is to use an SSL certificate that encrypts all of the data that goes through it. This way, no one can see what you’re doing on your site without having access to the private key, which only you have access to.
2. No Clear Goals
SEO is a complicated process that requires a lot of time and effort. But it’s important to note that there is no perfect SEO strategy. However, SEO success comes to those who consistently analyze, learn, and take action on it.
The problem with unclear goals is that it can lead to frustration, confusion, and an inability to analyze and diagnose past efforts. This can result in poor performance on the website, ultimately leading to low rankings.
The solution to this problem is to plan and set crystal clear goals. Clear goals are defined by what you want your website to do, how you want it to do it, and when you want it done. The following are some excellent SEO goals that can help you start:
- Define monthly website traffic goals: This is the most crucial goal of all. You need the traffic to rank for any keyword or phrase. The more traffic you have, the better chance you will rank for a keyword or phrase.
- Identify KPIs/ KPMs for your conversion rate: Conversion rate is defined by the number of people who visit your website that convert into customers or leads. Many first-time business owners categorize conversion rates as purely sales-focused. While this is ideal, know that if you follow this route, you might be setting your goals too high.
3. Outdated SEO practices
Another SEO mistake happens when people are not analyzing the changing patterns and algorithms of search engines in their industry or in the overall digital arena. This can take a big toll on their website.
Common SEO mistakes can ensue without proper guidance. Being unaware of how search engines are currently working is one. Following constantly changing updates and algorithms is another. Search engines are discerning and smart, you need to keep up.
For example, The consequences of outdated SEO practices can be seen in the drop in organic traffic and the increase in paid traffic. This is because Google is now prioritizing high-quality content over low-quality content.
Solutions to this problem include:
- Updating your website with new and relevant content.
- Use social media platforms to share your content.
- Implementing a mobile-friendly website design.
- Putting focus keywords in your meta description
The most important thing to remember when updating your website for SEO purposes is to ensure that you are not creating duplicate content. This will help you avoid penalties from search engines like Google and Bing.
4. Not Determining Search Intent
Search intent is a term that refers to the user’s intention to find information on a given topic. It is important for search engines to determine the user’s intent because it helps them provide relevant results. The importance of search intent can be seen in Google’s recent update, which has been designed to help users find what they are looking for more quickly.
A common mistake made by SEOs is not determining what type of search intent their users are performing. This can lead to poor results and low conversion rates for their website because Google considers your content to be irrelevant to the keywords used.
The solution to wrong search intent is to use a keyword research tool like SEMrush or Google Keyword Planner. These tools will help you determine what your target audience is searching for and what they are looking for in your content.
5. Ignoring EAT
E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trust. It’s an acronym used to convey Google’s preference for content that comes from professional experts and popular authorities and it satisfies several trust factors.
As a result, Google’s algorithm is not only a powerful tool that can help you rank higher in search results. It is also a powerful tool that can punish you if you make mistakes.
The consequences of ignoring Google’s algorithm are not just limited to the ranking of your website. It can also affect your brand reputation and lead to a loss of revenue.
The solution to these problems requires you to address all three facets of EAT separately, which means promoting engaging content through social media, creating original or “thought leadership” content, and focusing on the customer experience and not just on the search engine rankings.
6. Only Using Text
SEO requires more than just text. It involves a variety of content that includes images, videos, and other forms of content. The reason this causes issues is that Google looks at more than just what you publish. It also takes into account the behavior of your audience.
Additionally, engaging content will also have a higher potential for increased traffic. This can be achieved by including calls to action, such as at the beginning of an article or blog post. You can also re-use this high-engaging content for other digital marketing efforts.
Every business has a different way of talking to its audience, but there is an ideal way to communicate with your target customer no matter what type of SEO content you create. Whether through email, social media, or blog posts, understanding who they are and what they need will help you produce the best quality content relevant to their needs.
The growing prominence of multimedia content has made it imperative for marketers to produce high-quality content. One way to do this is by repurposing text into other formats such as video, podcasts, or infographics. This strategy can be used in a variety of different ways for different marketing purposes.
7. Website is Not Mobile-friendly
SEO content must be mobile-friendly to ensure that your website ranks well in search engines and gets more traffic from people who use their phones to access the internet.
Google has been penalizing websites that don’t have a responsive design for quite some time now. However, it’s not enough to just have a website. You need to ensure that it’s easy and accessible for all devices. This means you should use a mobile-friendly design and CSS3.
There are many ways to optimize your website for mobile devices. For example, you can use responsive design, which adjusts the layout of the website based on the size of the screen. You can also use CSS media queries to adjust the layout of your site based on screen size and orientation.
8. Forgetting to Optimize for Local Search
Local search is a powerful tool for businesses to reach out to their target audience. Therefore, companies need to optimize their website and content for local search.
The consequences of not optimizing for local search can be severe. First, if you are not optimizing for local search, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to reach your target audience and generate leads.
Local SEO is an extensive process. If you want to make sure that your website is optimized for local search, you must use a tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs.
9. Purchasing Backlinks Directly
Backlinks provide your site with engaged visitors when linked or ‘referred by’ other websites. Backlinks are one of the most important strategies for getting more traffic and ranking higher in search engines. They also help you build trust with your audience, which is important for any business as well as for satisfying EAT for Google.
Backlinks can be obtained through social media, blog posts, guest posts, and other types of content marketing.
Google has been penalizing websites that purchase backlinks. This is because the links are not organic, and they can be seen as spammy.
The consequences of purchasing backlinks can be severe, but there are ways to mitigate the risk. One way to get quality links is to use a link-building service. These services create the right content for your website and ensure that the links in your content are relevant and high-authority.
10. Using Generic Keywords
Keywords are important for SEO. They are the foundation of any website’s content. However, using generic keywords can have negative consequences on your website’s SEO.
Generic keywords are words that have little to no meaning to the audience, and they don’t provide any value to the reader. Additionally, generic keywords used in a sentence without providing any context or meaning to it can be viewed as “keyword stuffing,” which is a known tactic that Google penalizes.
The use of generic keywords can decrease organic traffic and increased bounce rate, which is not good for your website’s SEO.
The solution to this problem is to use more targeted, relevant, and long-tail keywords that have low competition and high conversion rates.
11. Not choosing the right web hosting
Web hosting is a crucial part of SEO. It is the first step in the process of getting your website ranked on search engines.
Web hosting providers are also crucial for SEO because they provide a lot of information about your website that can be used to improve its ranking.
Below we’ll cover some web hosting issues that impact SEO.
Malware
Web Hosting providers have a lot of responsibilities that they need to take care of to provide quality services to their customers. They need to make sure that their servers are secure and malware-free so that they can provide a safe environment for their customers’ websites.
Malware is a type of software that is designed to disrupt computer operations and cause damage. It can be used for malicious purposes such as stealing personal information, destroying data, or disrupting the normal operation of a computer system.
Malware is one of the most common types of cyber-attacks that hackers and cybercriminals are using.
The use of malware in SEO has been found to significantly impact search engine rankings, with some studies suggesting that up to 70% of all websites may be affected by malware in some way.
Google Blacklisting
Google Blacklisting is a list of websites that Google has decided to block from its search engine. The list is updated periodically and contains websites that are spammy, deceptive, or otherwise harmful.
The reasons for blacklisting vary, but the most common reason for blacklisting is when the website violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. If your site is hacked, it may contain malware that may violate Google’s standards and result in a Google Blacklisting.
The best way to avoid Google blacklisting is by using a backup site. However, even if you are hacked, provide a backup. You will need someone with technical ability to clean up a hacked site and remove it from Google’s blacklist.
Site Downtime
Website downtime is a common problem for many businesses. It can be caused by various reasons, such as server crashes, power outages, and hardware failures.
Website downtime can have a significant impact on your SEO rankings. If you are not able to keep your website up and running, it will be harder for you to rank in search engines because Google’s algorithms flag sites whenever they go down. When choosing web hosting for a site you plan to optimize for search engines, be sure that it has an uptime guarantee of some kind.
Internal Server Error/Database Connection Failed
Database connection failure is a common error message that appears when you try to connect to a database. This error message can be caused by many reasons, such as the database being unavailable, the network connection being unavailable, or the database not being configured correctly.
These error messages appear to people who are trying to access your site when it has crashed due to a high traffic load. While this does not affect your SEO ranking directly, it will significantly increase your bounce rate.
Whenever Google notices that people are visiting or attempting to visit your site, then immediately leaving, they assume that your site was not a suitable match for their search query and lower your site’s ranking.
Shared Hosting With Disreputable Sites
With the rise of content-sharing sites like blog spam and article spam, more and more websites are being infected with bad links. If a website has too many spammy links, its ranking on Google may drop.
Search engines penalize websites that show signs of spam, and they penalize every single site that has that IP address, which if not careful enough, could be your site as well. That is if you’re using a shared hosting service.
Not only can this lower your SEO ranking, but the same logic should be applied to using backlinks. Relevant high authority domains naturally improve your ranking, while lower quality or irrelevant sites will lower it.
Wrong TLD
TLDs are the last part of a domain name. For example, if you type in www.example.com, then “com” is the TLD.
The TLD is an essential part of a website’s URL because it tells people what kind of website they visit.
Using an incorrect TLD, such as using a country-specific TLD like .co, you’ve made your site harder to find without realizing it.
How Can Good Web Hosting Help SEO
Your web hosting is where your website files are stored, and it is also where your website gets its IP address. It can help improve SEO by providing a stable platform for websites to be hosted on. It also helps with speed and security.
In conclusion, web hosting is a crucial part of any website. It is where your website lives, and it is the first thing that people see when they visit your site. Web hosting can help with
SEO by providing a better user experience, faster loading times, and more reliable uptime. The list of reasons you should choose a good web hosting provider is long. Factors, directly and indirectly, affect your SEO. The benefits of effective web hosting include:
- Higher search engine rankings can improve revenue.
- Reduced bounce rates and improved conversion rates.
- More reliable uptime.
- Faster loading times.
- Increased traffic and revenue.
- Quicker and better customer service.
- Safer online business.
- Increase in customer satisfaction.
- Ease of doing business.
Starting your online business begins with choosing the best web hosting for your needs. To that end, we invite you to see our full review of web hosting services here.
