by The Computing Australia Group | 21 Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid
Keyword stuffing is the overuse of keywords, so that the content looks unnatural. Take a look at this example –
“The Computing Australia Group provides quality SEO services. If you are looking to invest in search engine optimisations, talk to us today.”
Keyword stuffing can have the opposite effect to what you intend. Search engines will penalise your site for keyword stuffing as it lowers content quality. Search engines consider keyword stuffing as spammy content and can cause your site not to rank at all.
Google has time and again mentioned that content is king and has content quality guidelines in place. Inferior and irrelevant content can cause your site to get downgraded in the SERPs. A common mistake many content writers make is writing for Google rather than writing for users.
Misleading headlines are another distasteful tactic-cum-mistake. If your article title says, “How to change your life with this secret tip” and the content is about the importance of drinking water, readers will bounce off your page within the first few lines.
In the long run, if users don’t find your site useful, Google will know and push your site down in the search rankings.
Copied or duplicated content (whether from other sources or across your own site) will be penalised. You need to research thoroughly but form your own conclusions and use your own words.
Another common mistake is duplicate content on multiple pages of the same site. Duplicate content and pages lead to low user experience and low rankings.
Title Tags and Meta Tags allow you to create unique and tailored links to attract visitors. This is a much-ignored art as meta tags are not considered as a direct ranking factor. However, missing tags can prompt Google to create one for you automatically. This can lead to a mismatch between your content and search terms.
CMS like WordPress also create default tags, leading to duplicate tags for multiple pages.
6. Linking not Optimised
A weak linking structure causes poor user experience and will affect site rankings.
Linking to sites with low authority, broken links, page crawl depth more than three clicks, and no follow attributes are the most common mistakes that happen with links.
In general terms, a site is considered high authority when it has a large number of high-quality external links. A high authority site is trusted by users and search engines. Examples – Wikipedia or Google. Websites with few inbound links are considered low- authority.
Ensure that these common errors are kept in check through continuous monitoring and maintenance of your site.
7. Not Optimising for the Right Keywords and Search Intent
A common mistake that happens with selecting keywords is selecting the wrong keywords. This is especially true for long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords can get you a high conversion rate if you are using the right combination of words. Keyword research is essential to ensure that you are using keywords optimised for search intent too.
The importance of long-tail and conversational keywords has increased with the growth of voice search and AI-powered assistants like Siri or Google Assistant.
If the search query was “Web development company in Perth,” the user is mostly searching for web developers around Perth with an intent to hire. To answer the search intent of this query, you must provide details about the services offered and the USP of the web development company.
8. Investing in Mobile-Friendly Websites
Mobile phones have already taken over desktops as the preferred device for internet browsing. If your website isn’t responsive and mobile-friendly, you could lose a lot of potential leads. A site that takes more than 3 seconds to load can increase the bounce rate. Google has now implemented a mobile-first indexing algorithm as well. So, not meeting the criteria for a smooth mobile experience will make your site rankings go down.
Mobile-first indexing has become more widespread since Google’s switch in 2019. Mobile-friendliness is now a top priority, with Core Web Vitals which measure loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability, now play a crucial role in this area
9. Unformatted Blog Posts
10. Images are Not Optimised
A website packed with big images takes a long time to load. When you don’t add alt texts to the images, the users will be confused and might skip past them. Avoid using images unless they add to your content value.
If you are a clothing and fashion business, for example, you will need to display images. Using thumbnails will be helpful to show smaller versions of the images. If the users want to see the bigger version, they can click on the thumbnail and view it in high quality. Ensure the images have descriptive alt texts before uploading them.
In addition, WebP formats are now encouraged for faster loading times, and using descriptive alt texts has become increasingly vital for accessibility and better SEO.
11. Not Using Social Media to Promote Blog Posts
12. Not Publishing Blog Posts Regularly
With Core Web Vitals officially becoming ranking signals, site speed, interactivity, and visual stability are now even more crucial for both SEO and user experience.
Not optimising your pages for mobiles is another mistake as the future of internet becomes increasingly mobile dependent. Our web designers in Perth can help you with it.
18. Overlooking HTTPS
Using HTTPS is now a ranking factor, and sites without SSL certificates are marked as “not secure,” which can deter visitors and impact your SEO. Ensure your website has a valid SSL certificate to maintain trust and ranking.
19. Neglecting to Monitor Competitors
Regular competitor analysis helps you stay ahead of industry trends and updates. Failing to monitor competitors’ SEO strategies may cause your site to fall behind.
20. Not Updating Old Content
Regularly updating your old content to reflect current trends, keywords, and search engine preferences keeps your site fresh and relevant, improving both user engagement and rankings.
Optimising your site is a continuous process. But you can start with fixing these most common 21 SEO Mistakes to Avoid and move on to the more complicated ones. Ensure that you are following the right methods to fix errors and be SEO compliant at all times. The Computing Australia Group’s SEO Perth team can help you with creating a strong Search Engine Optimisation strategy. Talk to our specialists or email us at sales@computingaustralia.group to know more.
Jargon Buster
Nofollow Attributes – a value assigned to metatag instructing search engines not to follow an outbound link.
Long-tail Keyword – three or four keywords or a key phrase that is more specific than a single keyword.
Page Crawl Depth – the number of clicks to reach a specific page.
CMS -stands for Content Management System. It is a software application for creating and managing enterprise and web content.
E-E-A-T – stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthness
Core Web Vitals – are a set of specific metrics introduced by Google to measure the quality of user experience on a website, particularly focusing on loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability.
WebP formats – is a modern image format developed by Google that provides superior lossless and lossy compression for web images.
Updated on 10/21/2024
Updated new points for 21 Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid section
