Being in the online business for a couple of years has taught me a lot of things that are vital for any business to thrive. Websites are platforms that help us sell our ideas to the rest of the world. However, they are not just launched and bring in clients; they need to be optimized to realize their full potential.
SEO strategy being the bloodline of websites is not easy to implement. It fluctuates a lot and if you are not keen enough, you are bound to make a lot of mistakes. Fortunately, most of these errors are easy to find and fix. Any credible SEO expert should be aware of these SEO mistakes. Here are some of them and how you can fix them in your SEO Services.
1) Duplicate content
Duplicate content in the SEO context means the same content appearing in more than one webpage. It also refers to content that appears twice in one domain or different websites. Duplicate content gives search engine headaches of deciding which content to index which meaning this content may not appear in search engine results. This is not good for your Site SEO and should be avoided at all costs.
There are different types of duplicate content. One of the most common ones is duplicate versions of the homepage. Duplicate versions of your homepage are regarded as duplicate content to search engines. Although search engines will eventually decide which version to pick, most of the time they get it wrong. Therefore, there is no need to confuse them. We also have a duplicate URL. Of course, you have come across a few duplicate URLs where the uppercase or lowercase URL text is used inconsistently.
This also causes confusion to search bots and they end up devaluing the URL or not ranking your website highly. Duplicate content can also be in the form of a different web page having nearly similar content. This is a common problem on the net. This is when you copy content from other websites and paste on your site or pieces of web content.
2) Forgotten about content marketing
If you expect your SEO hired expert will increase your traffic significantly with on-site optimization and link building and without a content strategy, you are dead wrong. You should know that SEO fabrics are very fragile and keep changing every day. Content marketing goes hand in hand with SEO and should not be ignored.
Back then, SEO Services involved building hundreds of backlinks on directories, blog comments social book marketing sites and forum comments pointing to a static website used to work but not now. You can run rank number one on several keywords but the number of traffic is constant. Your high ranking won’t be guaranteed.
3) Poor site structure
Usually, when you create your website, most developers won integrate your website with the best SEO practices. This can be forgiven since a web developer isn’t an SEO expert. Therefore the aspect of how the website is laid out and how the pages connect is commonly ignored. This is the most underrated area of SEO.
Generally, your website homepage is going to be authoritative because of its incoming links and the best quality of inbound links. High authority pages make authority juice flow throughout a website. Websites will rank low when the homepage is further away from other pages. There are cases where high authority web pages are buried deep in site architecture leading to low ranks.
The vice versa will have the opposite effect where pages are moved closer to the home page and suddenly jump several spots in Google. The trick is to create your website structure in an intuitive way for easy navigation. A flat structure will fulfill that requirement capitalization on those visitors who try to find your website through search engines.
4) Don’t have a mobile site design for multiple screens
Most websites are built without responding to mobile devices. This is very dangerous and you may end up ranking low since Google puts first responsive websites. Other factors that need to be considered include:
- 61% of visitors using an unfriendly site are likely to click away
- More than half of your potential clients access the internet using mobile phones
- 25% of site traffic comes from mobile users
Your SEO is highly improved if your website is mobile-friendly. So don’t make a mistake of not making your website responsive to mobile devices. Three technologies can help you achieve this. They include a dedicated mobile site, responsive design, and native application. For simple website designs, the best tech would be a responsive design. This is for someone with limited resources and a limited budget but still needs an SEO-friendly website.
5) Unreasonable SEO expectations
If you thought that SEO is easy, fast, or cheap think again. The days of scalable, easy tactics that exploited loopholes in the algorithms are way gone. There is a misconception that SEO is all about ranking for targeted keywords. This is not the case at all. And this is the reason:
In many instances, visitors will target short-tail, competitive and high search volume keywords. The reality is that different visitors use different search terms but most of them use long-tailed keywords that are not on your keyword ranking list. Long-tail keywords have been proven to generate more conversion than short-tail ones.
6. Underestimate the HTTPS:
When you forget security of your website your all hard-work goes in vain. Customers have become aware about their online security due to spread of cyber security awareness in online world. As a website holder, if you are ignoring your website security, then it is an unjustice to your website. After the Google’s announcement for HTTPS enabled website, browsers also have started to flag insecure warning on HTTP sites. HTTPS or SSL certificate is now backbone of any SEO or website industry.
However, it is understandable that you may have confision about types of SSL certificate as it may depend upon the website’s requirement. However, if you are running a single domain and searching for a cheap SSL certificate, then Comodo SSL you can consider for your website security. Once your site is secured with SSL security, you are good to go and plan ahead SEO strategy. Else, the days are not far away, when your visitors will move away from your site on seeing insecure warning.
Conclusion
When trying to improve your SEO, you are prone to making all sorts of mistakes if you are not keen enough. Finding an expert who understands this well is crucial to help you boost your ranking. My emphasis is on responsive websites. Ensure that your website is friendly enough for users to have an easier time accessing and navigating through it.
Don’t focus so much on short term keywords and long-term keywords as well. Avoid duplicate content that may end up hurting your ranking. This way, you will make your website discoverable by both visitors and search engines and this will highly boost your site ranking.
