A Guide to Common SEO Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

It is widely known by now that people trust organic search results more than sponsored ones, and that they are vastly more likely to click on websites that appear higher on search results pages. This is why SEO is such an important marketing tactic today.

Sloppy or outdated SEO practices harm your ability to claim the top spot, which can result in substantial wasted resources. This short guide walks you through some common SEO errors and how you can avoid them.

Duplicating content

An empty website can look unsightly, but it is important to put up with it while you create more content. Don’t be tempted to copy and paste the same content onto another page, or to use templates with just a few changed words. This can cause the algorithms that rank search results to have trouble indexing your site, which will result in a lower position.

Neglecting meta tags

There are two main types of these that you should be focusing on. First is the title tag, which is the title of the web page or article and is usually the first thing people read when they see your search result. Beneath it is the meta description. This is usually a brief description of what’s on the page. They both help search engines connect your page to relevant search terms. If you don’t set them or they are inaccurate, you will end up with lower rankings because the search engines have less information about the page’s content.

Image problems

Many people still search for images, so ranking highly in image searches is very valuable. This is why many blogs include pictures. However, oversized images that load slowly and broken images that don’t appear at all can hurt your search rankings. Not including alt text – a hidden description of the picture – is also a mistake for similar reasons to neglecting meta tags.

Crawlability issues

Search engines do not have humans reviewing and ranking websites. Instead, they use bots that “crawl” your site to get an idea of what each page contains. The easier your site is for the bots to navigate, the easier it is for people too, and you’ll be rewarded with a higher ranking. Common crawlability issues include links that don’t work, redirect loops, and a lack of internal links to quickly find the next relevant page.  

Conclusion

There’s a lot more to SEO than just these things, but avoiding common mistakes in these areas can make a big difference. Agencies like King Kong are constantly vigilant about basic errors like these, and you should be too.