SEO Mistakes That Might Be Damaging Your Website Performance

In the ever-changing world of Search Engine Optimization, it is a continuous struggle for webmasters to keep updated with the latest developments. In this scenario, you are likely to make some costly mistakes that can derail the success of your website. So, if your website isn’t performing as per your expectations, it might be that you are making some of these common SEO mistakes.

Let’s understand some of the costly SEO mistakes you should avoid and take your website to the top search engine rankings.

Stop Doing These SEO Mistakes    

Watch out for these SEO mistakes and make sure you avoid them:

1. Not Having a Dedicated Content Strategy

One of the biggest SEO mistakes is the absence of an SEO content strategy.

High-quality, engaging content is still the king in Search Engine Optimisation. Old, outdated, and dull content may not entice your website or visitors. This results in poor engagement levels. On the other hand, giant search engines such as Google consider content quality and relevance as important ranking metrics.

If you do not update your content regularly or it does not add value to the readers, you might find it challenging to rank in SERPs. Some of the issues you will face are:

• Poor search engine ranking
• Articles and blog posts on your website may get ranked for the same search query
• Vital landing pages may have a high bounce rate
• Lack of relevant website visitors

Therefore, it is crucial to have a strong content strategy in place. Focus on creating fresh, original, and highly engaging content that adds value to your audiences. Have a well-planned keyword strategy. Identify what people are searching for in your niche and curate your content around that to add more relevance. Make sure you do not use the same target keywords to curate different pages on your website. 

Focus on both on-page and off-page content. In addition to website content, you should also regularly publish blog posts, articles, press releases, social media posts, etc. This helps broaden your reach on and off the website, improving your chances of getting ranked in search engines. Most importantly, do not just create content and forget about it. Update your content regularly keeping up with the latest trends and changes. Post fresh content to attract and engage your audiences meaningfully. Here are the key elements of a fool-proof content strategy:

2. Publishing Duplicate Content

Creating duplicate content is one of the biggest SEO mistakes worth avoiding. It can significantly impact your rankings because Google penalizes websites that have duplicate content – be it internal or external duplication. So, make sure you avoid duplication in all cases.

For similar products or pages, website owners make the mistake of publishing content that is very similar to the original page. This typically happens in the case of title tags, H1 tags, meta descriptions, or even chunks of content in the body for similar products or services. This can impact your search engine ranking. To avoid this, you can add canonical tags that clearly indicate the original page.

3. Poor Website Structure

Many website owners hardly realize that the way their site is structured can impact search engine visibility. If the website and its pages are not properly organized, it can affect site crawlability. This means the search engines will have a tough time navigating through your website. And poor crawlability would mean poor indexing which can affect your SEO rankings.

On the other hand, if the website is not properly structured, it can also impact user experience. Poor internal linking and lack of navigability may prevent your users from finding valuable content that might be buried deep in your website. As such, the bounce rate will be high. To avoid these, it is important to structure your website properly. Make sure to include clearly-labeled menus and sub-menus. This will help ensure ease of navigation and better crawlability.

Keep the URL structure simple and include the primary keyword, if possible. If your website is still running on HTTP, it’s time to switch to HTTPS. This ensures a better user experience and improved security.

Internal linking is a must. This enables users to easily navigate from one page to another. It also allows search engine bots to crawl the pages and index them for higher rankings.     

4. Not Including Title tags and Meta Descriptions

One of the most common SEO mistakes that website owners tend to do is skipping the title tag and meta description for all the pages you want to rank for. Simply creating high-quality content with the targeted keywords is not enough. Title tags and meta descriptions are key elements of a successful content strategy.

These factors do not just impact your search engine rankings but also play an integral role in driving website visitors. When a user searches anything on Google, they will first see the titles and meta descriptions of pages that appear on search results. If they are impressive enough, they are more likely to click.

Even search engines consider title tags and meta descriptions for crawling purposes and understanding what the page is all about. This can significantly improve content performance and ranking.

5. Overlooking External and Internal Link Optimisation

One of the primary reasons why websites struggle to rank in search engines is that they have problems optimizing both external and internal links. Check if the links have underscores in their URLs or include nofollow attributes. Also, check for broken links and fix them because they can significantly impact user experience. These can affect rankings.

Other link optimization mistakes include pages having only one internal link or using links that lead to an HTTP page rather than HTTPS. Page crawl depth of over 3 clicks can also impact your rankings. Poor linking not just affects user experience, but also makes it difficult for search engines to crawl the pages. High-quality external links also help establish your authority.

6. Poor Website Speed and Performance

If great content and website structure does not support a fast user experience, then it can affect your bottom-line results. Slow page loading speed, unresponsive pages, 404 errors, etc. can inhibit your user’s experience of browsing the website. As such, bounce rates will be higher. Therefore, effective web design strategies and development practices should be in place to ensure faster loading times.

Conclusion

Stop making SEO Mistakes on your website or they can prevent you from leveraging its full potential. Always stay on top of the latest industry trends and algorithm changes. Regular site audits are important to ensure your website is performing optimally and there are no bottlenecks. Keep this checklist handy to prevent simple SEO mistakes become costly for your website performance.