Many online resources can help you improve your SEO strategies or learn how to use off-page SEO and on-page SEO.
However, it is essential to recognize the most common SEO errors. These are the most common SEO errors professionals commit and how to correct them.
To guarantee that your website ranks in search engines like Google, Search Engine Optimization and a content marketing strategy have been deemed necessary.
Google has permanently changed rapidly because it reacts quickly to changes in the market, and Google updates like Panda, Penguin, Pigeon, and Hawk. For many company owners, keeping up with these changes can take time and effort.
Mistakes on web pages and blogs may result from these minor updates. However, we frequently need help finding basic mistakes on over 90% of websites.
These fundamental errors can be fixed to increase website traffic and guide users to the appropriate sales channels.
We will now look at some common types of SEO errors or problems and see how they can be fixed.
Simple SEO Mistakes
Slow Site Speed
People can be deterred by slow site speeds when trying to view content. Slow site speed is bound to cost you SEO traffic that has been earned.
Your time and effort to generate traffic through SERPs will only be valuable if your page loads fast.
The following metrics can be used to measure the speed of your website:
Page Load Time
The time between the moment the browser requests the page and the point it renders is called the load time. The following factors can be used to assess page load time:
First Contentful Paint
A Google Chrome Lighthouse Reports Performance section tracks several metrics, including the FCP. This metric measures how long (in seconds) your browser takes to display the first bit of DOM content (Document Object Model) after a visitor navigates to the page.
This is an example time series for the FCP.
Interactive
Time to Interactive is a measurement that measures the speed of a pages loading. TTI measures the time it takes for a page to be fully interactive.
TTI scores are calculated using data taken from HTTP archives. This is an example TTI time series:
Time To First Byte (TTFB)
This is the time between the moment a server receives a request and the instant the browser gets the first bit of data.
There Are Several Possible Fixes
Google PageSpeed Insights can help you determine the speed of your website by analyzing your web page. The delay in loading your webpage can be caused by several factors, such as:
- Format and Image Size: Use image formats such as JPEG 2000 or JPEG XR to reduce bandwidth usage using images.
- Redirects: Even though some redirects cannot be avoided, fixing them can increase the serving speed. Audit your site to identify the URLs that cause redirects. Fix them.
- Javascript & CSS: Reduce the code size by compressing JavaScript & CSS using short names of variables. This will increase the loading speed.
Google Bad Reviews
You can find both negative and positive reviews about a product. The total number of customer reviews will increase the social proof and keyword ranking factor for localized organic search.
Positive reviews can improve your credibility, but having all positive reviews will make it appear suspicious. While several unhappy customers can drive traffic away, others who express dissatisfaction with your site may even discourage them from visiting.
The Fix
Negative reviews can be used to help you build relationships with customers. They will also allow you to understand your target audience better and gain new ones.
Your website will gain credibility if you post on social media the types of problems faced and how they were handled.
You can also encourage customers to leave reviews on industry-specific sites or social media. Acknowledge their concerns and questions, and you will sound more genuine.
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The Google My Business Verification Code Needs To Be Corrected
Problems with your Google My Business verification PIN are a reasonably common issue.
The Fix
Try again after changing your profile from "private" to "public." Request a new pin if this does not work. This problem can occur after updating your NAP details (Name, Phone Number, and Address).
Ensure your contact details are consistent across your listings to avoid the problem.
Web admins make the following SEO error by not focusing their contentThe Conclusion Of The Article Is: strategies on location-specific pages.
There Are No Pages That Specify The Location
Googles report shows that searches containing location-specific keywords and "near me," especially among mobile users, have increased.
Mobile searches of "...near me" grew by 900% between 2013 and 2017. In addition, 76% of mobile users who search for nearby businesses visit them within one day, and 28% of these searches lead to a purchase.
Local visibility has become increasingly important to many business owners due to increased mobile consumers. High-quality content optimized for a specific location or locality plays a crucial role in global and local search engine optimization.
The Fix
Your ranking should be easier to access if you can demonstrate that your brand has a presence in your locality. This SEO error can be corrected by appointing top onlineSEO strategies marketers or creating unique, location-specific pages that are well-optimized to improve your local SERP ranking.
When you only have one location, it is natural to use clear location signals.
Duplicate content is the following SEO error.
Replicated Content
Content that is identical or similar to other content on your website can be considered duplicate. Google doesnt penalize duplicate content, but it can affect the rankings of web pages.
Major Search engines seldom show two versions of the same content on the SERPs. They choose the version that seems most relevant to the reader.
The Fix
Content is the king of any website. Having unique content, which allows the audience to find out the details about your product or service, can establish you as an authority in the industry.
To fix this SEO error, make sure that any content you publish on your website is unique. You can use SEO tools such as Copyscape to search the internet for duplicates of your webpage and delete them.
Next, you should fix broken images as soon as possible.
Images With Broken Text And Missing Alternative Texts
Alt tags are HTML attributes that describe images. Alt tags are important for on-page problems. Sometimes, the images on your site may display poorly because of a wrong filename or path.
Alt tags for images will explain the contents of the image and its function on the page. The alt tag also helps crawlers understand the information on the page. Common errors include broken images and missing alt tags.
Read More: 7 Reasons Why Your Business Must Go For SEO
The Fix
Alt tags are easy to use. Add an Alt tag to the image element in your HTML code. This is an example of a source image.
If you use WordPress, these images can be easily added to your blog. Next, look at another SEO error related to content: having outdated or irrelevant data on the page.
Updated Content And Information On The Site
Your websites old content can reduce its authority. The SERPs for specific queries have many results, but they are not all relevant.
Your site may be filtered if the search engine algorithms determine it needs to be updated. You will be wasting crawl allowances on pages that are no longer relevant. You may even lose traffic to your website due to the increased bounce rate.
The Fix
To fix this SEO error, make sure that you only post content with high-quality and relevant information. Give search engines the best content, which is well-optimized and helpful.
Having a site that is mobile-friendly is in second place.
Dont Optimize Your Site For Mobile
Many users now rely more on their mobile devices than computers, as we live in a mobile-first world. Mobile-friendly sites are more popular than ever on Google and offer several benefits.
You will also lose visitors if you do not optimize your site for mobile. You also miss the latest design features if you dont use this option.
A study is conducted to compare the number of mobile visits versus desktops between 2020 and 2023.
The Fix
A mobile-ready website will help you rank better on the SERPs. Mobile-optimized websites are the most sophisticated type of website design.
The site is completely redesigned for mobile devices when its optimized. Optimizing your site for mobile will also improve the speed of the website and its design.
The Mobile-Friendly Test can be used to determine if your site is mobile-friendly. You can use the Mobile-Friendly Test tool to check if your page is mobile-friendly.
Contact forms that do not convert are the following SEO errors we make.
The Contact Form Doesnt Convert
Few researchers report that only 49 percent of 1.5 million people who view a form fill it in. Only 16 percent of viewers complete the form.
Contact forms are not converting for several reasons, such as:
- There are too many fields on the form
- Unknown or inoperative submit button
- Dropdown menus with too few options or too many choices
The Fix
Make your form engaging and easy to complete. To fix this SEO error, you can also provide fewer fields on your form.
This will help increase conversions.
- Your contact form should only have five mandatory fields.
- Concentrate on form alignment
- Create a unique CTA
- Test your design for color, font, placement, size, and required fields.
- Google Autocomplete plugin allows you to enable auto-filling for forms.
- Make sure that the form you use is mobile-friendly
- Use CAPTCHA instead
Broken landing pages are the second most common SEO error.
Broken Links
A 404 error is a terrible sign for users who access your website through search engines. Broken links can even affect your crawl budget.
This is the number of times Google bots crawl your site in a specific time frame. Search bots will leave your website if they encounter broken links. This can also have a negative effect on the domain authority of your website.
The Fix
You can use the Google Search Console crawl statistics feature to identify pages that are causing 404 errors on your website
Ahrefs can be used to identify broken links. You can use Ahrefs to find broken links.
Site Explorer
-> Yourdomain.com Pages
-> Best Buy Links
-> Add a "404 Not Found" HTTP Response Filter
To improve SEO, you must fix broken pages as soon as possible. To address broken links:
- Replace or recreate the content
- Use 301 redirects as a way to direct your visitors to similar content on your website
- Contact the site for an immediate fix. You can remove the domain or change it to another source if it is not functional.
Low Text-To-HTML Ratio
It is a mistake in technical SEO that needs to be addressed. The HTML code is what makes up your websites content.
The HTML code (like headings, links, JavaScriptSEO strategies images, etc.) makes up your webpage. The search engine will determine the percentage text to HTML and then convert it.
According to Woorank, the ideal text-to-HTML ratio lies between 25 percent and 70%. Low text-to-HTML ratios can indicate severe problems in your on-page SEO.
Google uses this metric as well to determine the relevance of web pages.
A low ratio could be indicative of the following:
- Excessive code can cause websites to load slowly
- Search bots are alerted to hidden text
- Flash, JavaScript, or inline styles are used excessively.
The Fix
It is essential to have a low ratio of text to HTML to increase page loading speeds. An HTML-heavy webpage will negatively affect the users experience and load time.
To fix this SEO error, add on-page relevant text, remove unneeded code, and move scripts into separate files. Use simple text to keep the page size as small as possible.
Local SEO services help businesses to appear on search engine results when users are searching for their business in a particular location.
The most common SEO error is not checking if Google is indexing your pages.
Read More: Top SEO Strategy for E-commerce Website step by step
Page Index Not Available
Google indexes your pages to make them searchable. Google cannot rank anything that is not crawled. There are many valid reasons for your page needing to be indexed.
- 404 errors
- Meta tags that have the source code: -> are not indexed.
- The sitemap on your website is out of date
- Content duplicating
- Popularity or authority
The Fix
Google Search Console is the best tool to resolve Google indexing problems. You can check if Google Search Console has indexed a webpage URL.
You can use the Deepcrawl, a comprehensive crawler of your website, to simulate the way search engines crawl it.
The tool allows you to dig deeper without impacting website performance and provides a detailed report for each URL.
In robots.txt, you can allow pages. Wait for a while and allow Google to crawl your page.
Screaming Frog cant crawl your site with "Googlebot," Bingbot," Slurp," DuckDuckBot," BaiduSpider," and YandexBot as the user agent.
You can check the column "Indexability to make sure that pages currently not included in the index are indexed.
Optimize the XML Sitemap so it doesnt have broken or redirected pages.
Incorrect Length For Title Tags and Meta Description
A title tag or meta title is an HTML element used to specify the title of web pages. A meta description is an HTML tag that summarizes the contents of your web page.
They are shown on the SERP of a particular result.
Meta Title
- Secondary Keyword
- Google displays titles that are approximately 600 pixels wide.
- Meta titles appear not only on SERPs but also in web browsers and social media.
Meta description
Meta descriptions should be between 50 and 160 characters. Meta descriptions dont directly affect SEO, but they do affect CTR and, in turn, rankings.
Meta descriptions can indirectly impact SEO.
The meta description can cause problems:
- redundant meta descriptions
- Meta descriptions that are too long can cause keywords to be missed
- Meta description: Use alphanumeric characters
The Fix
In your meta description, use unambiguous CTAs. Make sure you use your keywords and that both the title and meta descriptions are within Googles recommended length.
This will prevent the keywords from being truncated by Google.
- Title tags should not be overloaded with SEO keywords. Separate your title tags with pipes or vertical bars. Make sure that the title is easily understandable by viewers and not just a collection of unrelated keywords.
- If you do not add the meta-description tag, the social sharing site may still register the text that is found first on the page. This may create an unsatisfactory user experience. Make sure your title and meta tags are different for each page.
Next, if you want to make a mistake in SEO, dont use long URLs. They arent reader-friendly and can cause problems for search engines.
The Long Messy URLs
The uniform resource locator (URL) is an internet address which specifies where a website can be found. If youre concerned about character limitations, your URLs must be no longer than 2083 characters (or 512 pixels) to avoid being truncated by Google or rendering correctly on all browsers.
SEO can be improved by URLs because they provide a better experience for the user and increase search visibility.
These are the main factors that will make your links less readable and in turn, make people lose interest.
- Too many stoppers or connectors
- Include special characters such as %, *, and?
- Use HTTP rather than HTTPS
- Include more than two folders in your URL
The Fix
Moz explains that a URL with a good structure is beneficial for both readers and search engines. This illustration shows how important it is to have a URL that can be read.
- Your links will be more accessible on social media platforms if they are readable
- The shorter URLs are more likely to be ranked higher than the longer ones. This helps to increase direct traffic
- HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP. Information on a site is encoded, which increases security.
- Keywords are required in URLs
- Use hyphens to separate the keywords from the URL, no spaces
- Lowercase characters must appear in URLs
Most people, from beginners to experts, would commit the next SEO error by having incorrect redirects.
Faulty Redirects
Placement of redirects can lead to a loss in SEO and traffic. You should clean up your redirects if they are of little value.
Over time, many 301 redirects that have been built up dont provide the same SEO benefit as they used to. This will ultimately increase the load time of your website and bounce rate.
The Fix
- If you havent already done so, redirect the HTTP version to HTTPS.
- Screaming Frog can be used to run your website. You can remove all internal links with 301 redirects by using the All Inlinks Report under Bulk Export.
- Redirect all broken links on your website
- Fix all loops and redirection chains
- Redirect to 404 Pages
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The Conclusion Of The Article Is:
In conclusion, optimizing your website for search engines is crucial to improving your online presence and attracting more traffic to your site.
However, there are several common SEO mistakes that many website owners make, which can hinder their efforts and prevent them from achieving their goals. By avoiding these 10 common SEO mistakes, you can ensure that your website is well-optimized for search engines, and that you are well-positioned to reach your target audience.
Whether its ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly, using effective keywords, or creating high-quality content, there are many simple steps you can take to improve your websites SEO. By hiring the best SEO company, you can drive more traffic to your site, improve your search engine rankings, and ultimately, achieve greater success in your online marketing efforts.
So, take the time to online review your websites SEO strategy and make any necessary adjustments today, and start reaping the benefits of a well-optimized website!
