Most common SEO mistakes to avoid in 2020

If you ask anyone owning a website, what they wish is to have their website top the result page. Because only the top results make the maximum benefits- they are the ones with highest traffic and sales. If a website is placed on the first page, it is bound to be clicked, for the users never question the result provided by google. For user, it is like, “Google ranked this website, it must be worth it”. But google does not simply rank any website to the top. It has a list of pre-requisites that must be met in order to insure a good ranking. And optimizing these requisites is called SEO.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a technique of optimizing the website so that it can rank higher in SERP (Search Engine Result Pages). Optimizing the websites so that google may seem it worthy and increase its ranking. There are a lot of factors that needs to be tackled when doing SEO. If done, incorrectly or carelessly, not only will they lower the ranking but also kill your business.

Here are a few SEO mistakes one must avoid when optimizing the website:

1. Sluggish page speed and poor response time

People have little patience on internet. What they want is the information to be delivered quickly. If a website is slow and takes its sweet time in loading the contents, he would just close the site. The speed of the website is not like the tale of tortoise and rabbit. There is no winning with so speed. So buckle up and optimize the factors affecting the speed of your website. Tools like Google Page Insight tool, GTmetrix can be used to find out the places that need optimization.

2. Poorly designed website and landing page

As they say, a website is a digital representation of your business and ideas. A well designed website not only attracts a user to stay on the site but also tempts him into checking the other pages. What they don’t want to see is a blank canvas with simple text and a few buttons. Nobody wants to spend time on something that doesn’t offer anything. Same is the case with landing pages. The landing page must specify the purpose and the action user needs to take. You can use Landerapp for creating awesome landing pages.

3. Not responsive/ optimized for other devices

Starting June 2018, google has started using mobile speed as ranking factor in their mobile search. Hence optimizing the website for mobile has become important. Again with Google’s Page speed insight tool, you can optimize the website.

4. Cluttered website navigation

The website must have a clear navigation path. The menu must clearly specify the content the user will get on clicking the menu option. Generally the most important links are placed on the top whereas the other no-so important links in the footer section. You can also have a floating menu bar option. Whatever design you choose, it must be accessible by the user.

5. Absence on social media

Social media has become a must in today’s time. A strong presence on the social media will drive traffic to the site and helps in branding the business. Apart from these, social media helps to create a loyal fan base for the business. Platforms like Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn can help a lot in building brand. You can place your social media profile links at the bottom or on the side. If you have a blog, you can place social media sharing links at the end of the blogs for ease of sharing the blog post. This helps in building backlinks and sharing the content among other audience.

6. Irrelevant content on site

According to google, a website must offer valuable content to the user. And websites with genuine content are placed at the top. Hence it is important to write content that is relevant to the business or the ideas that want to preach. There tools available online that can help you with the grammar and check plagiarism like grammarly, copyscrape, duplichecker, etc. Another thing to be kept in mind is that the content must not be outdated, i.e. try to write a content that can be updated and republished again.

7. Zero content marketing

You cannot assume that when you publish content, people are going to flock over it. Marketing your content is also important. After you publish your content make sure you share it on social media platforms. Also having a section on the home page that displays the latest updated blog also helps in promotion. You can also send the notification of the updated blog via emails, and messages. Make use of the other mediums to drive user to your post.

8. Ineffective keywords and keyword stuffing

Before writing a blog or any content, it is important to do keyword research on the topic. This research will help you to better understand what the user wants, the type of queries they put forward, the topic they search for, etc. This analysis will help you to create content that fulfills the requirements of the user and is optimized for their queries. You can also use these keywords for interlinking. Linking the keywords to other pages within the website will help in ranking as these are the keywords you  targeted and as all the links will be do follow, they will add to the link juice. But don’t overdo it.

Although it is common for people who are doing SEO for their websites themselves to skip a step or two when doing SEO, make sure you pay attention to all. Because these mistakes can cost you a lot- loss of traffic, decrease in ranking, negative reputation, and much more. Make sure you double check everything before implementing it on your website.