There is no better way to bring lots of traffic to your website other than search engines. And you may probably know, to bring traffic from search engines, your site must be optimized for SEO. But SEO is continually changing, that’s why Webmasters make SEO mistakes often while designing websites, changing content, etc. You should avoid making SEO mistakes, since SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is vital to achieving success in Web Business or blogging. In General, Google and other search engines use algorithm to determine how a site will rank. So you should use the right manner of SEO to increase your blog visibility on Search Engines. And, if you take any wrong step on SEO, then you may lose the ranking of your site in Search engines. So to get this one going, below are the top 10 SEO mistakes most webmasters and new bloggers make and how you can avoid them.
1. Duplicate Content
Duplicate content usually introduces to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely matches other contents or are appreciably related. Or you can say duplicate content is content that appears on the Internet in more than one place.Having duplicate content on your webpage is very bad for your SEO strategy. Most of the webmasters make this mistake while developing their website. If your webpage has duplicate content, then you have the maximum risk to get a penalty by Search engines. Although you may not be copying content from another blog but there’s still chances of having duplicate content on your own website such as Archive pages. You can tell search engines not to index your archive pages by using the no-index metadata. Removing duplicate content will help you to prevent Search Engine penalty.
2. Not Using Keyword Research Tool
Keyword Research is one of the best parts of SEO success. But today, most of the newbies don’t utilize the keyword research tool. First, you have to learn what people are searching for, and then you can target the audience by using the right keywords on your web page. Keywords research uncovers the hidden opportunities to get a higher rank on search engines. You have to find ‘low competition but high search’ term keywords for your content. Only then can you quickly take your webpage to the top of SERP. It’s essential to research on keywords before creating a webpage. There are a couple of tools which will allow you to research and find the keywords that will play better on Search engines. “Google Keyword Planner” is now totally dead. I would recommend “KWFinder” and “Long Tail Pro” as these are the best Keyword Research tools available in the market right now. You can also try “Moz Keyword Explorer”.
3. Not Utilizing Meta Data
Search engines are not human but robots. So, they make use of algorithms. And Metadata is one of the biggest factors of the Search algorithm. You should always use metadata on your entire pages such as Meta Title, Meta Description, Canonical Link, etc. Also pay close attention to Meta Data on your web pages. Your web pages’ Meta description and title are what shows up in SERP snippet.
4. Buying Backlinks
Buying Backlinks is harmful to Google Search console policies, so avoid it. One of the most common SEO mistakes webmasters make is Buying Links. You might get short-term boost for your website’s visibility on Search engines, but you also take the significant risk of Search engine penalty. Search engines strictly prohibit buying links. If you do so, then in the next Search engines update, you are going to get a manual search engine penalty. You may think how Google will catch you? Don’t forget that Google is a smart robot and every day it searches for questionable linking patterns. So don’t buy links to get a higher rank on search engines.
5. Over-Optimization
One of the most common SEO mistakes is Over Optimization. Over optimization means, using too many keywords on the same page which is not useful reading for the users and at the deadline Google will notice that. Using too many Keywords in a single page makes your content low quality and people won’t read it. You should only use keywords in your page on proper format instead of Keyword Stuffing. The proper Keyword density is 1.5% to 2.5%. I will suggest you to utilize SEO tools which will let you know if your content is over-optimized such as WordPress plugin ‘Yoast’. There are other SEO plugins and Tools as well which will allow you to track your content’s SEO level.
6. Black Hat SEO
Black Hat SEO Refers to the use of aggressive SEO tactics that focus only on Search engines not human. You must avoid Black Hat SEO techniques for long-term SEO benefits. With Black Hat SEO technique, you will get short-term SEO boost, but you will also get a manual penalty. Search engines love content or web pages that people like to read and share. So you need to pay close attention to your audience satisfaction.
7. Not Using Sitemap
There are two types of Sitemap Google recommend on a website. One is an XML Sitemap (For Robot) while another is HTML Sitemap (For Human). Both sitemaps play an essential role in SEO. XML Sitemap is used by Search robots to find the webpages of your website and HTML Sitemap is used by your users. You must submit your XML Sitemap to Search Webmaster tools to inform search engines about your websites latest updates. XML Sitemap makes search engine crawling easy on your Website.
8. Not Using ALT Tags on Image
An Image says over thousand Words, So it’s essential to use an Image for your content but don’t forget to use ALT tags on your image. Because Google is a robot, not a human, it can’t see Image unless you use ALT Tags on the images. There are many benefits you will get when you utilize an image with your content. You can gain traffic from Google Image Search as well. To get SEO benefits by using an Image, you have to use Keywords in Your Image Name Example, If your focus keyword is about “Make Money Online” Then Featured Image Alt text should be “Make Money Online” Also, don’t forget to add a description. Here is an excellent guide preferred by Yoast.
Also Read: 100+ High PR Dofollow Social Bookmarking Sites to Increase Your Traffic.
9. Short Article Length
Content is king, and Audience satisfaction is the key to first-page ranking. So you have to write content that is helpful for your audience. An article should contain at least 300 words to rank well in the search engines. Long articles will rank more easily than short articles. However, long posts require strong writing skills. Not every writer will be able to write a readable article of more than 1000 words. Still, these lengthy articles have great importance for your SEO strategy. If you search anything on Google, you will notice that more extended content gets the top priority, Because Longer content describes better than a short one.
10. Using Free Blogs
Blogging platforms that offer free hosting such as Blogger, WordPress.com, and many others, can provide a decent platform and an excellent value. However, they are not adjustable enough to be able to install Plugins, themes, and other extensions you genuinely desire for better search engines results. It is great to use free blogs but make sure to take some expenses to buy a custom domain for your blog.
Final Words.
There are a lot of SEO mistakes webmasters make while creating content or developing websites. From the above list, we have covered the top 10 SEO mistakes bloggers make, and it is shared from experience. So what do you think about these SEO mistakes? Feel free to share your opinion via the discussion box below, and don’t forget to share this on social networks if you find it useful.