Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique to improve website trafficking by following various strategies. It is very necessary for an improved website ranking and overall user experience. SEO strategies are site-specific and specifically targeted for a set of specific audiences. SEO strategies help in the outreach of a website.
Online marketing services and digital marketing firms provide digital marketing services to creators for improvisation by SEO practices. Besides the various strategies, some of the methodologies might go south despite the efforts of the webpage owners. Hence meticulous attention is required to improvise the reach of the website. These are the seven biggest SEO mistakes to avoid and ways to fix these mistakes.
1. Ignoring safety protocols:
Stealing user information, passwords, credit card numbers, and social security numbers by hackers is very common nowadays. To avoid such compromises, HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) connection with an SLS (Secure Sockets Layer) certification is the first and foremost factor to be considered while creating a website.
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is very unsafe and can be subjected to various security breaches of user information, payment information, sensitive contents, and passwords. HTTPS allows a seamless experience with a fast experience.
Analytics and additional dashboard features offered along with the HTTPS connection are added advantages. To increase your webpage dwell time and create valuable users, securing your user information by converting from HTTP to HTTPS is mandatory. To avoid any such security breaches, firstly, add an SSL certification. This will create a layer of additional security and encryption.
2. Focusing more on webpage rankings:
Webpage rankings include criteria like keywords, speed of the website, quality of the content, and so on. But the main goal of the webpage must not just be attaining a better website ranking but to create loyal users and frequent consumers.
The visitors of a website are of many types. Organic users are now created by a better webpage ranking. But eventually, the importance of a website must be shifted toward the purpose of the website. Creating loyal users and consumers must be the ultimate purpose of the webpage. For example, in an e-commerce website, the number of organic users and visitors won’t impact the revenue-generating process.
To improve the conversion rates of organic users into webpage audiences, optimized SEO strategies are necessary. Instead of finding ways to improve the webpage rankings, find ways to improve the conversion rates.
3. Adding irrelevant keywords:
Selecting the wrong keywords is the biggest mistake in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Keywords can be easily accessed from the internet. But the right SEO practice is to choose meaningful keywords that will be used by the user. While doing a regular search, the search keywords depend on the user.
Keywords are critical for obtaining a good webpage ranking. To overcome this problem, try to use the right keywords in the right places in the content. Some webpage creators tend to add hidden fonts resembling the background color with unnecessary content to increase website traffic.
These practices are generally referred to as black hat strategies. Never indulge in malpractices like using hidden texts for improving Search Engine Optimization. This will lead to further issues like the blocklisting of the webpage.
The best way to overcome this problem is to create high-quality content with the right keywords and phrases to reach the right set of audiences.
4. Addition of plagiarized content:
Plagiarism is the biggest threat with regard to online content creation. It is challenging to eradicate plagiarism. One way to avoid plagiarized content is to create copyrighted text. But this might affect website trafficking and organic users as well.
Therefore, copyrighted text is generally avoided by webpage creators and owners. Search engines like Google have created guidelines and rules to prevent plagiarism and other copyright infringements.
Penalties are inflicted on content creators who indulge in such malpractices. Penalties include placing the website at the rock bottom of the Search Engine Results Page. This is the worst fate for a webpage.
Therefore, it is necessary to create original content taken from authentic resources on the internet like research papers and review papers from good journals, articles, and pictures from promising resources.
5. Avoiding Mobile Adaptability of websites:
The aspect ratios of web pages must be compatible with both desktops and mobile phones. Mobile phone browsing and searching are getting common among users. Mobile phones are a quick and reliable source. Therefore, proper optimizations to enable Accelerated Mobile Page is very important. Nowadays, many websites are not compatible with mobile designs.
This greatly reduces mobile trafficking and slows down the overall speed of the website. This also reduces the loading speed of images, videos, and other charts. To capture the mobile audiences, enabling AMP is essential. Also, the SEO for mobile web pages is slightly different from the conventional SEO techniques.
The best package of practices for SEO in mobile web pages includes improved speed, correct aspect ratio, no ads & popups, avoiding adobe flash, optimal font size, and optimized web page content. There are many mobile tests like https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly to check the compatibility of a website on other devices.
6. Forgetting to add metadata:
Metadata refers to the meta title and meta description displayed on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). The major mistake by almost all web page managers is not controlling what goes in the meta title and description.
Once a user reaches the SERP, a clear meta title and meta description will enable the users to enter the respective web page. The meta description doesn’t affect your site trafficking but helps in the visit of organic users. Organic visitors are those who visit the websites directly from a Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
7. Adding irrelevant backlinks:
Backlinks are added to help connect sites by the addition of unnatural links embedded within the original link. Backlinks significantly affect the rankings and reduce the chances of getting featured as a top result in the SERP.
Irrelevant backlinks are generally clicked baits for an entirely different product. The best management strategy is to create only relevant backlinks within a webpage. Adding unnecessary backlinks is a black hat strategy and is not appreciated by search engines and users.