10+ Common SEO Mistakes You Should Avoid
Investing in SEO for your brand is of essential importance. Although Google’s algorithm has changed over the years, SEO is here to stay. From keyword stuffing to user intent, the focus of SEO has changed and developed to be more sophisticated.
If you run a blog, post regularly, and work hard to improve your SEO strategy, but results are missing, maybe you are making common SEO mistakes you are not aware of. In this article, we will focus on SEO tips that will help you prevent and overcome common SEO mistakes. Let’s start!
- Not setting clear SEO goals
- Ignoring search intent
- Slow website loading
- Ranking for the wrong keywords
- Inviting messages: title tag, meta description, slug
- Writing the average content
- Keep people engaged
- Overlooking mobile traffic
- Holding onto old school SEO best practices
- Buying backlinks
- Focus on one content format
You defined your keywords, planned a monthly calendar, published a lot of articles and nothing happened. Don’t worry – many blogs and sites have the same issue. If you don’t want to be stuck in a rut, you have to carefully analyze your SEO strategy.
Do you want to increase the traffic, boost sales or get more organic leads? Ask yourself these questions before you start crafting the content. So, having clear SEO goals is essential if you want to improve your reach and make your site relevant. Only when you understand what you want to achieve, you can plan and execute a successful SEO strategy. This will help you drive the right traffic to your site and convert the right visitors into customers.
Have you ever heard of search intent? If the answer is no, let’s change it. In short, search intent is the purpose of an online search. It’s the reason why someone conducts a specific search. When you don’t know what motivates people to search, you don’t know what they want to find. Are they looking for inspiration? Are they trying to solve something or learn a new skill? Or do they want to buy something and find a perfect product?
For instance, when someone inserts “winter shoes” into the Google search bar that probably indicates that the user wants to check out the products and buy the model with the right price, quality, and color. However, if someone searches for “winter shoe inspo” they probably want to boost inspiration and get ideas about how to style the winter shoes. So, no matter which niche you cover, you have to be able to satisfy the searchers’ intent.
When your website loads slowly, your visitors lose their attention and leave for a different site. That’s why knowing how to speed up WordPress site is essential. The faster your site loads, the more chance it has to rank better. If you don’t know whether the speed of your site is optimal, you can use Google PageSpeed Insights to check it out. This tool will suggest to you what aspects of your site you can improve to speed up a particular page.
Optimize the image size, delete the redundant plugins that slow down the site, and make sure you don’t exaggerate with animation effects on your pages. Of course, you don’t have to do this manually. There are many plugins you can use for this purpose.
Keywords are the core of every SEO strategy. When you rank for the right keywords, you can achieve great results. On the other hand, if you optimize your pages for generic keywords, your chances of standing out from competitors are minor.
If you don’t know how to use keywords and get the best results to follow this simple rule: be specific. Make sure your keywords are longer and more specific. In the best-case scenario, optimize a lot of pages for different long-tail keywords. In the long run, this will pay off.
Don’t underestimate the power of metadata. It appears on search engine result pages and includes the title of your page and its meta description. We recommend you add the keyword to the title every time.
Also, don’t forget to include the keyword in your meta description. When your meta description is inviting, precise and insightful. Since meta description is important for click-through rate, it can play an important role in turning potential visitors into customers and readers.
The quality of your content is the reason people will be visiting your blog regularly. So, make sure your articles are not only long but rich in information and easy to read. Offer interesting facts, simple tips, and ‘how to’ solutions so your readers can get the value with every article.
There are many content writing tips you can try right away. For instance, you should keep enriching your content with videos and images, link to valuable sources, and pay attention to grammar. Always use Grammarly for WordPress and don’t forget to be authentic no matter the topic.
The goal of your site is not to attract visitors, but to keep them on your site. That’s why you need to encourage visitors to click through your site. This is where CTA messages enter the scene. If you want to add call to action to a WordPress site, you will be happy to hear you can do it with the help of call to action plugins.
Invite visitors to join your mailing list, sign up for special deals or purchases before the offer is over. Make sure your CTA buttons are visible and that they stand out from the rest of the content.
If you want to prevent common SEO mistakes, don’t forget to make your site mobile-friendly. Mobile search should be part of your SEO strategy for sure. The time we spend on mobiles continues to grow. Thus, the majority of all traffic comes from mobile devices.
If your site is not optimized for different screen sizes, you lose not only visitors but credibility as well. This is the reason why you should always choose responsive WordPress themes. Responsive design and fast page speed will surely bring results.
Google’s search algorithm is evolving. This affects SEO for sure. The strategies that once worked are no longer relevant. To stay in the game, you have to be familiar with the latest updates, SEO content tips, and SEO tools.
Relevant backlinks can do wonders for your ranking. However, if you don’t have patience and a clear vision of what you try to achieve, buying links may seem like a good idea. Trust us: it isn’t. Actually, if you’re buying links to improve rankings, you may get a penalty from Google. This can seriously damage your position on Google.
Our advice is to think in the long run. If you don’t know how to get relevant backlinks, hire an SEO expert who will help you with top-tier links in your field.
Yes, written words are the core of SEO but don’t limit yourself to this content type only. Pay attention to podcasts, infographics, videos, images, and webinars as they can attract a lot of traffic. Have in mind that more and more people want to watch a video instead of reading text. Thus, include video in your articles to make them more versatile and fun.
Let’s Wrap It Up
Successful SEO strategy is about consistency, content quality, flexibility, and constant progress. However, most brands make common SEO mistakes. If you are struggling to improve your Google ranking and you want to level up your current SEO status, you already plan to change some things from our list of the most common SEO mistakes. Good luck!
We hope this article was helpful. If you liked it, feel free to check out some of these articles as well!
