Search engine optimization has gone through various changes in the last few years. In fact, the significant changes in the last four years are greater than those in the previous two decades. Google’s algorithm updates like Penguin, Panda and Pigeon have made it important to avoid spam links, poor quality web page content, and to focus more on local SEO and mobile users. To meet the needs of consumers without violating new search engine algorithm rules, here are some of the most common SEO mistakes you should avoid.
1. Keyword Stuffing
Deliberately cramming in your desired keywords into your content from the first sentence to the last is an unethical on-page SEO tactic. However, you could mistakenly add a keyword too many times. So before your content goes live, make sure you do a keyword density check. This will help you to see whether you have included a particular phrase too many times. It is always better to write with a natural conversational style while including your keywords.
2. Buying Spam Links
Link building is an essential aspect of SEO. But if you have too many poor quality or irrelevant back-links, the search engines could de-list your site for spamming. To avoid this, you need to produce compelling content that other content creators will be glad to link to. You can also look for relevant forums or blogs on Google and add comments that will give you a back-link to your site.
3. Using Duplicate Content
All web masters know the importance of adding fresh content to a website to improve search engine rankings. Adding fresh content to your website will help you to attract search engine spiders to your website and make your website more relevant to your potential viewers. But producing solid content takes time, resources and effort.
Resist the temptation to take a shortcut by curating content from different sites to post on your website. This will eventually become counter productive. Google now penalizes domains that attempt to publish duplicate content. To avoid this, you should develop a content strategy that will enable you to post fresh and engaging content with at least 1,500 words about two or more times in a month.
4. Forgetting to Put a Title tag
To optimize your content for search engines, you need to put a page title with a title tag. There are still many web pages that show “untitled document” at the place where there should be an optimized title. In addition to including the right keywords and having links to your site, it is very important to use a title tag. As much as possible, your title tag should hold relevant keywords. But restrain yourself from adding too many keywords in your title because only 65-70 characters from it will fit into the place where Google shows titles in SERP (search engine results pages).
5. Forgetting to Put a Meta Description
6. Using the same anchor link text
Reusing the same words in anchor link text on the same page is a bad SEO tactic. For instance, if you are promoting or reviewing Sushi restaurants in different cities and you have a list of links to pages in your site for different cities, you should not write them like this:
- Sushi Restaurants Dubai
- Sushi Restaurants Sydney
- Sushi Restaurants Tokyo
Instead you should write the list of links like this:
Sushi restaurants in other cities:
- Dubai
- Sydney
- Tokyo
7. Slow Loading Time
In a bid to make your website more attractive and engaging to your visitors, you will need to add photos, custom banners, videos and other attractive graphics. But all these features will drastically reduce your website’s loading time. This is particularly true for mobile viewers who may not have access to a high speed internet connection.
You must pay special attention to the loading time of your site because if it loads too slowly, your viewers may decide to look elsewhere. Google monitors the amount of time that your visitors spend on your site and uses it as a measure of relevance to the customer’s needs. Loading time is also a vital metric used by search engines to rank your site. To reduce website loading time, you should reduce the number of plugins that load with the page. You can also reduce the size of your pictures to optimize their loading time. Pingdom is one of the best tools to check website loading time. You can also check it from Google Developer. This two tools are also suggest how can you reduce your website loading time.
Conclusion
As a web master, you must avoid all these mistakes while providing comprehensive information in a format that is easy to read and navigate. This will help your sites to be ranked as authority websites by Google and other search engines.
HEY ! I’m Nil (Founder of OnlineDrifts.com), Digital Marketer, Affiliate Marketer and a blogger writing about blogging tips, SEO, Tech Tips etc.
Wonderful post