SEO is a worthy investment that can help you rank your business at the top of search results,but if you're new to SEO and you’re falling behind in competition lately, it’s time to look at what’s holding you back from ranking higher.
Even the most seasoned professionals can sometimes fall prey to some common SEO mistakes without realizing the extent of their impact.
In this guide we will look at some of the most common SEO mistakes your website might be affected by, and how to avoid them to ensure you get results and beat your competitors.
Content serves as the one of the most important traffic source to your website, so it’s no surprise that you should make sure to optimize it well. While it’s crucial to have well structured content, a lot of websites don’t actually provide informative and in depth content.
Before you write your piece of content you need to ask yourself, Is this worth reading? Does it solve a problem or add any value? Does it tackle the topic in detail? And is it original?
This is heavily emphasized by Google’s latest helpful content update that focuses on rewarding content that provides value to users, prioritizing original, informative, and audience-focused material while devaluing content created solely for search rankings.
Content that is unorganized, and hard to digest won’t help your visitors stick around or even scroll down.
Google ranks content based on a number of factors, but one of the most important is how original your content is.
This is why you need to take your content to the next level by reverse engineering your competitors' top-ranking pages and adding your own spin and originality to yours.
Here is an example that proves originality and effort into making helpful content:
Nathan Gotch, who is the founder of gotchseo wrote a piece of content on reviewing the top 5 SEO books on amazon.
What makes his review stand out from the rest of his competitors is his original take on the topic, he didn’t just write a generic review on random books, he actually went the extra mile, bought and read these books and provided photos for proof to add trust and credibility to his audience.
Writing in-depth content that is digestible into chunks of paragraphs, while using different images and infographics, will also be a game changer to the quality and care you are providing your visitors with.
Quality content should be one of your top priorities, as you want your visitors to keep reading your content and scroll down to increase your chances of converting them.
Good readability doesn’t just come from grammar and sentence structure, but also from how well your content flows. Short paragraphs, proper punctuation, and smooth transitions help the content feel more fluid and enjoyable to read.
Helpful, in-depth content not only provides practical advice or actionable tips but also delves deeply into the subject, answering key questions and solving problems effectively.
By offering thorough insights and value, it engages readers, builds trust, and encourages them to return for more.
Use a tool like the SEO Pro Extension to match or go beyond the word count of the top competitors.
Regularly updating your content to keep it current and relevant is important. Google tends to favor fresh, up-to-date content, and users are more likely to engage with material that reflects the latest trends or information.
high-quality content has strong E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). This means your content should demonstrate expertise, build authority in your niche, and be trustworthy to your audience.
It’s not just about giving information, but about doing so in a way that shows you're a reliable source. When you hit all these points, you’re not just creating content, you’re creating something your audience can trust and rely on.
Check out our SEO content writing guide for expert tips to improve your rankings.
If you’ve been doing SEO for a while, you’ve definitely heard this term often. But if you’re new to SEO, this term is basically a practice where a webpage is overloaded with keywords in an unnatural way. Google uses bots to analyze how your focused keyword is used throughout your content.
If your keyword is implemented in an unnatural way, Google deems it unworthy of ranking.
Besides, you’ll end up driving away any potential visitors to your webpage because of how forced the keyword is throughout the content.
Focus on creating content for users first, rather than optimizing solely for search engines.
Using Semantic Keywords which are related terms or variations of your main keyword that helps search engines better understand the context and relevance of your page.
Rankability is a powerful tool that enables you to create highly relevant and optimized SEO content that Google is more likely to rank. It uses AI-powered content briefs, analyzes data from top-ranking competitors, and fine-tunes your content with NLP-based keyword optimization.
Implementing your keyword throughout the body of your content and several header tags should also improve your content's relevance to both search engines and readers.
By strategically placing keywords in the headers (H1, H2, etc.), you signal to search engines the key topic of your content.
This might not come as a surprise, but if you are wondering why your page isn’t ranking in the top results, it probably has something to do with your keyword research.
A lot of businesses expect to write random content and hope to get traffic. But it takes more research to get visitors to your website. This is why it's very important to use a keyword research tool to find relevant topics you can target.
Ranking for different keywords depends on the specific niche or location your business targets. You need to identify the keyword volume and how competitive the keywords you are trying to rank for.
However, certain websites tend to focus on the keyword volume and disregard keyword difficulty which ultimately prevents them from ranking in the top of search results for such keywords.
Unless you have a high authority website, trying to rank for high difficulty keywords won’t help you rank well.
To fix this,you need to balance between volume and keyword difficulty and make the decision of whether or not you can rank for such keywords.
You can also go after long tail keywords which tend to have good search volume with low difficulty.
When you write content you want to provide a satisfying answer to someone’s query. That’s why Google’s criteria is to go after the most helpful and relevant answers.
This is what’s called search intent. It answers the why behind a search.
Search intent serves as your content’s purpose after all, so it is very important to consider it, which means trying to rank irrelevant content to a specific search intent query is a waste of your time.
To fix this, you can identify search intent without any tools. Simply enter your target keyword into the SERP and review the top results. Since Google deems top results to be the most helpful form of content, you need to get on-board on what is ranking.
By 2024, mobile traffic has surpassed 50% of global web traffic, leaving desktop at around 40%. And this trend is still growing. This perhaps is one of the most common SEO mistakes out there which causes significant traffic loss to a lot of websites.
Having an easy to navigate desktop website design, but disregarding mobile optimization is only going to increase your overall bounce rate, so you need to constantly check any errors visitors might encounter on mobile visits.
Site speed is another factor that could either increase or decrease your traffic over time, in fact, a study by Google found that Pages that take 3 seconds to load instead of 1 see a 32% increase in the likelihood of visitors bouncing.
Just by following mobile optimization strategies you can expect to have a significant impact on your traffic and conversions
Images improve your SEO ranking, especially when it comes to ranking on Google Images. Optimizing your images properly can boost your visibility and enhance engagement. Non optimized images can contribute to hurting your website experience.
Here are common image issues you need to fix:
Missing Alt Text: Not including alt text means search engines can’t fully understand your images, and your site may rank lower. It also reduces accessibility for people who rely on screen readers.
Large File Sizes: Large images can slow down your website's load time, leading to frustrated visitors and higher bounce rates. This not only hurts the user experience but can also affect your SEO rankings.
Unresponsive Images: If your images aren’t optimized for different screen sizes, they can appear distorted or stretched on mobile devices, ruining the experience for mobile users.
Add Descriptive Alt Text: Whenever you upload an image, ensure you provide clear and descriptive alt text that explains what the image shows.
Keep It Simple: Be concise but informative. Avoid keyword stuffing, but try to include relevant keywords naturally.
For example:
Good Alt Text: “Dog playing in the park” – This is simple and straightforward, providing basic context for the image.
Better Alt Text: “Golden retriever playing fetch in the park” – This adds a bit more detail, helping both search engines and users understand the scene more clearly, while still being concise and relevant.
Compress Images for Efficiency
Use tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim to reduce file sizes while preserving quality. This helps ensure faster loading times and reduces bandwidth usage.
Resize for Exact Dimensions
Optimize images by resizing them to fit your site's specific requirements. Avoid uploading oversized files, and consider using modern formats like WebP for better compression and performance.
Implement Lazy Loading
Activate lazy loading to defer image loading until they're needed on the page. This improves the initial page load speed and enhances user experience.
To ensure your images look great on every device, try using CSS like max-width: 100% and height: auto—this lets images resize without getting stretched.
Next, use the srcset attribute in HTML to automatically serve the right image size for different screen resolutions.
Make sure your images are part of a responsive grid, so they adjust perfectly with the rest of your layout. And always test your site on different devices to catch any issues and keep the user experience smooth.
The title tag is a crucial HTML element that tells both search engines and visitors what your page is about. Since it’s the first thing people see in search results, it’s essential to optimize it with your target keyword in order to attract clicks.
If you don’t optimize your title tag, you’re missing out on a key opportunity to improve your site’s visibility.
Here is a bad example of under optimized title tag:
Even though the keyword “auto repair” is in the title, it still doesn’t mention the location of “New York” This might seem like a minor oversight that won’t affect your page but it actually can reduce your chances of getting clicks.
Most users are quick to search and expect immediate, relevant results. If your title doesn’t match their specific query, they won’t waste time clicking on your page.
Simply optimizing your title tags to meet exact queries will help you get noticed and drive more traffic.
Internal links are just as important as backlinks when it comes to your site's ranking. They help guide visitors to related content and make it easier for search engines to crawl your site.
If you’re creating content without effectively utilizing internal links, your chances of ranking are lower.
Without internal links, search engines have a harder time discovering and indexing your key pages. Also, you won't be able to pass link juice, and boost the authority of your pages.
A topic cluster is a way of grouping related content on your site. You have a central "pillar" page, and then other pages that focus on specific subtopics related to that main topic.
This method does a few important things:
You can also find topic cluster opportunities using Google Search Console:
Pick a page with high high impressions and filter the data to the last 6 months
Filter the queries by positions greater than 10 and look for any keywords you could utilize to create a new page and link it to the main page.
Make sure the anchor text you use for your links are clear and descriptive. This helps both users and search engines understand what the linked page is about.
For example:
Instead of saying "click here," use "learn more about (your topic)"
Let’s say you're linking to a page about "best recipes for diets," using vague anchor text like “Food - Salad- Healthy- Meals- Eating” don’t provide enough context to search engines or users about what the page actually covers.
Link to your most important pages from various parts of your site to boost their authority and improve their ranking potential.
When you're building internal links, make sure to focus on linking to your most important pages, these are the pages that drive conversions or provide the most value. By linking to or from these pages on your site, you boost their authority and help improve their chances of ranking higher in search results.
To find your pages with the highest page rating for link opportunities, use Ahrefs link opportunities tool
A poor site structure can have a major impact on both your SEO and user experience.
So, why should you care about your website structure? Let’s break it down:
Not only does this hurt your user experience, but search engines also take notice if people aren’t sticking around, it could signal to them that your site isn’t offering what users are looking for, which can hurt your rankings.
A well-planned hierarchy is the foundation of good site structure. Divide your website into clear categories and subcategories.
This is an example for an ecommerce website:
Keep the hierarchy simple and intuitive so users and search engines can easily navigate through your content. This logical flow ensures no page is buried too deeply, improving its visibility.
Another key factor you need to consider is crawl depth, which refers to how many clicks it takes for crawl bots to reach a particular page on your site.
Pages buried deep within the site, requiring many clicks to reach from the homepage, are harder for search engines to find and rank.
Make sure your most important pages, like product pages, service offerings, or key blog posts, are no more than 3 to 4 clicks deep from the homepage.
Use breadcrumb navigation to show users and search engines the path to a specific page.
This makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index those pages, improving their chances of ranking higher.
You can use the Screaming Frog tool to identify the crawl depth of your different pages:
Focus on identifying your most important pages and ensure they are easily accessible within 3 to 4 clicks from your homepage.
Internally linking your pages is a simple yet effective way to improve your site’s structure and enhance user experience. It also helps prevent orphan pages which are pages without any links pointing to them from other parts of your site.
Orphan pages can easily be overlooked by search engines, so linking to them ensures they have a better chance of being found and indexed.
By strategically using internal links, you not only improve your site’s SEO but also make it easier for users to navigate, ultimately boosting both visibility and engagement.
SEO can feel challenging, but every misstep is an opportunity to learn and improve.
Remember, SEO isn’t about quick wins, it’s a journey that rewards consistency and user-focused strategies. By addressing common SEO mistakes, such as thin content, keyword stuffing, or neglecting mobile optimization, you’re setting yourself up for long-term success.
Focusing on high-quality content and optimizing your site for all devices ensures you’re building something both users and search engines will appreciate.
Take a moment to refine your approach and address each issue with care. The results? Better rankings, more traffic, and a website that drives conversions.
Higglo is a digital marketing agency offering SEO, PPC, web design services and more. We’ve helped different client industries and brands like Hulu and Blizzard expand their reach and grow their presence worldwide. Ready to transform your digital presence? Contact us today and let’s create something unforgettable together.
"Partnering with Higglo for our SEO needs has been a game-changer for Motivity. We have been overly impressed with how quickly our rankings for critical keywords has improved, and consistently see more and more organic traffic month over month. We are incredibly impressed with the results and whether you're in a niche or broad market, we highly recommend their SEO services to anyone looking to grow their online presence."
Brian Curley
Boost Your Online Presence with Higglo Digital, a leading web and SEO agency offering high-quality services tailored to elevate your brand. Our expert team delivers top-notch SEO strategies, award-winning website designs, and impactful branding solutions. Trust us to optimize your website, drive targeted traffic, and unlock your business's true potential.
From Hulu to Blizzard, we have the experience to take your brand to the next level. With our team across the world from Dubai and Abu Dhabi to Sydney Australia and New York City, we have the experience and background to take your business to the next level. Contact us today to take the first step toward digital success.
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