SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an essential practice to boost your website’s rankings and reach more users. It involves using the right keyword strategy, making platforms mobile responsive, compressing media files to improve page load speed, etc.
However, it’s easy to make SEO mistakes that can negatively impact your SERPs, wasting all your efforts.
This is why we came up with this post to help you avoid seven common SEO mistakes by offering possible solutions. Our post will try to cover each aspect in detail so that you are well-guided in your quest to top the search results in the niche.
7 Mistakes in SEO that Plummet Website Rankings
Below, we have discussed seven common mistakes that can make your website quickly lose ranking. Follow them closely to avoid missing out on anything crucial to the topic.
1. Ignoring Mobile Optimization
The rise of mobile users and shoppers (m-commerce) has been remarkable in recent years. Therefore, optimizing websites for mobile devices has become a necessity.
Source: EMarketer
Search engines like Google are showing respect for this trend by preferring mobile-first indexing. This is why ignoring mobile optimization can be catastrophic to your website’s ranking.
Not making media and images responsive for different types of user devices can also pose problems for the site’s SERP results.
2. Choosing a Poor Keyword Strategy
SEO individuals choosing poor keywords or stuffing them everywhere on the websites is a highly common mistake. It makes your website’s ranking plummet as search engines do not appreciate content with no value.
Additionally, overlooking search intent (informational, transactional, navigational, and commercial) when selecting keywords can further alienate your target audience from your platform and reduce the relevance of content.
3. Having a Slow Page Loading Speed
Companies that do not pay attention to their page loading speeds often end up tanking their SERP results. This is because search engine algorithms prefer snappier platforms rather than those that take forever to load.
For instance, Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics explicitly measure user experience, and poor scores here directly impact search rankings.
4. Carrying a Toxic Backlink Profile
Spammy backlinks can hurt your website’s credibility, allowing others in the competitive space to pull ahead of you.
A toxic backlink profile will keep on hurting until you completely disassociate yourself from the disavowed links with no authority (more on this later.)
On a similar note, links from irrelevant niches or penalized sites can also trigger algorithmic penalties from search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
5. Sleeping on Technical SEO
Technical SEO is an integral part of your ranking efforts. If you don’t take care of broken links, missing meta tags, etc., then things can go south very quickly.
Although this side of SEO is a bit more time-consuming and effortful, sleeping on technical SEO is not at all acceptable for websites, especially by modern standards.
6. Posting Duplicate or Thin Content
Brands that post duplicate content without implementing canonical tags often end up confusing search engines. Hence, sites lose rankings without any other underlying reason.
On the other hand, thin content contains no value. These are just words that don’t solve any real-world problem or address the user’s pain points. This is why search engines put sites with such content at the very bottom of search results.
7. Not Tracking SEO Performance
Most SEO professionals create a strategy, implement it, and leave it as is. This is wrong since Search Engine Optimization is a continuous process that requires consistent monitoring of what’s working and what’s not.
Companies that do not focus on tracking their SEO performance often lose more ranking than others, burning all their efforts to the ground.
Possible Solutions to the Common Mistakes
Till now, we have seen the 7 most common mistakes that SEO individuals or agencies commit as a team. Now, we will take a closer look at possible solutions for the discussed problems.
1. Checking and Ensuring Mobile-Readiness
Leverage Mobile-Friendly Tests online to see if your website is ready to be deployed on various user devices like smartphones, tablets, etc.
Find out the main culprits behind a bad mobile experience and try to fix these issues as soon as possible.
Also, ensure you include responsive web design practices in your codes so that the viewing and navigation experiences don’t suffer regardless of the device in use.
2. Natural Placement of Keywords
Focus more on long-tail keywords and adjust primary keywords naturally in the content. The inclusion shouldn’t look forced. Instead, the crafted pieces must be prioritized audience first and then the search engines.
This also means that you should find the keywords according to your search intent using tools like SEMrush, or others.
Later, incorporate the keywords strategically in headings, subheadings, meta descriptions, etc. Utilize synonyms to avoid repeating the same terms over and over again.
3. Minifying Code and Compressing Images
Page loading speeds can be significantly improved by minifying HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files and compressing heavy images through online tools.
Using modern image formats like WebP can also enable faster load times while lazy-loading off-screen images is another method to improve user experience.
Furthermore, you can enable browser caching and leverage a CDN (content delivery network) to load essential material for the users quickly and efficiently. Thus, enabling a snappier feel to the website and boosting its ranking on the search engines.
4. Analyzing Backlinks through Proper Tools
Analyze your backlink profile with online tools and platforms like Ahref. Reject links with domain authority (DA) of 50 or less. Doing these efforts will allow your site to soar the SERPs in no time.
5. Performing Detailed Site Audits
Choose solutions that can help you find broken or missing links on your site and fix them, accordingly. Screaming Frog is a case in point that performs detailed site audits and redirects broken links to pages that are currently operational.
Such tactics ensure a smoother user experience for your website, sending positive signals to the search engines.
Moreover, tools like IP Location can help figure out where the majority of the audience is coming from. Then, you can localize and personalize the content for that language or group of people, enhancing user experience and improving the website’s search results.
6. Write Unique and Engaging Content
Writing quality, engaging content is often a difficult task for SEO specialists. However, now we have online tools like Jasper.ai, Copy.ai, Writesonic, etc., to do this job.
The AI writing tools can quickly create copies that resonate with the audience while requiring the least effort.
Although final reviews and proofreads must be done by humans, AI writing tools help meet publication deadlines and gauge audiences quickly and effectively.
7. Consistently Track SEO Efforts
Our last solution would be to consistently track your SEO efforts. Implement tools like GTmetrix and Google PageSpeed Insight to find out your website’s strengths and weaknesses.
Look out for key metrics like LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), TTFB (Time to First Byte), CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift), and others. Try to make them under the specified values, as per guidelines. Or take help from professionals or industry leaders to take care of this stuff on your behalf.
Final Words
In this post, we reviewed 7 common mistakes related to SEO processes that companies often make to hurt their website’s rankings.
Then, we discussed some possible solutions like researching keywords properly, utilizing proper SEO tools like Ahref, Screaming Frog, etc., and monitoring backlink profiles to keep building trust with search engines.
Finally, it is suggested that you make it a habit of reviewing everything manually before you publish anything to avoid rare slip-ups in content.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below are some frequently asked questions for today’s topic. Feel free to go through them for further guidance.
Q1: Why is Mobile Optimization Critical for SEO Rankings?
Mobile optimization ensures your website adapts to different devices, providing a seamless user experience. With the rise of mobile users, search engines like Google prioritize mobile-friendly sites over others.
Q2: What is the way to Choose the Right Keyword Strategy?
Focus on long-tail keywords that align with the user intent. Place primary and secondary keywords naturally in the content and avoid keyword stuffing at all costs.
Q3: How Does Page Loading Speed affect SEO?
A slow-loading website leads to higher bounce rates, negatively impacting SEO. This is because search engines prefer fast, snappier websites over others that take too long to load.
Q4: Can AI Writing Tools Create Effective SEO-Friendly Content?
Yes, tools like Jasper.ai and Copy.ai generate drafts quickly. However, it is always recommended to review outputs manually to ensure accuracy in work.
Q5: How to Identify and Remove Toxic Backlinks?
Use backlink analysis tools to audit your profile. Identify links with low domain authority (DA less than 50) or spammy sources. Then, try to distance yourself from such sites to maintain your credibility in the eyes of search engines.
Q6: Where to Find Suitable Tools for Monitoring SEO Performance?
Today, many advanced platforms like GTmetrix or Google PageSpeed Insights can help track essential performance metrics. Hence, allowing you a chance to improve your website’s rankings in no time.
